2girls1comp
I AM IN YOUR GAME – Reappropriating Game Spaces Through Texture Replacement

Workshop
2 April 2025, 4.30–7.00 PM
The Academy of Fine Arts and Design, UL, Video, Animation and New Media, Tobačna 5, Ljubljana

Part of Tactics & Practice #16: Are You A Software Update?

Textures in video games are what creates the visual identity of virtual environments, providing more than mere decoration for 3D models. They represent and shape the spaces players inhabit, embedding social and political meanings within the game.

In this workshop, participants will learn how to modify and personalize the game world of Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar, 2013) by altering its visual textures. We will explore techniques for manipulating existing textures and incorporating personal images into the virtual landscape. Through these interventions, participants will challenge and reinterpret the narratives and aesthetics defined by the original developers and game studios.

The workshop will introduce the emerging field of texture archeology and the networked community investigating the history of images such as cobble_stone.jpg. The event will explore issues of labour that lie behind computer games, as well as the hidden infrastructures beyond the game software.

Takeaways:
gain an insight in modding as a practice for artistic appropriation 
gain a basic understanding of working with textures for 3D models in games
have the chance to creatively and critically engage with video game culture by creating their own projects

Duration: 2,5h

Materials and knowledge required:
Images you want to insert into the game (optional)
Laptop (ideally with Adobe Photoshop installed)

Free of charge. Registration required!

THE AUTHORS

2girls1comp is a modding duo founded in 2023 by Marco De Mutiis (Italy, 1983) and Alexandra Pfammatter (Switzerland, 1993). Their work changes the logic of video games as an act of creative counter-play, revealing the social and economic fabric in which they are immersed: from reclaiming global digital infrastructures to commenting on free labor within the capitalist ideologies of the gaming industry, to showcasing the subtle ways in which play can influence its subjects through its mechanics.

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