Artist Statement

Exhibition. Centre Culturel Canadien, May 16 – 20

2021

deadPixels² is a competitive and cooperative game for 2 to 8 players. Each player is provided with a standard gamepad to move their squared avatars on a virgin canvas. By doing so, the player can paint the background with his team’s color. When a closed shape is drawn, it automatically fills itself with color. Mixed colors produce black dead pixels, an irreversible state. Game ends after ninety-nine seconds or when the white matrix is full of colors. Team with the more covered areas wins the game.

This emergent gameplay aims to provide both a tactical and creative playful experience. The game is projected on a real canvas fixed on an easel and usually exhibited alongside L’Atlas des matrices.
https://mechbird.fr/deadpixels%C2%B2.html

• Tatiana Vilela dos Santos is a digital artist and game designer, born in Paris, France, in 1989. After a «baccalauréat» in literature specialized in foreign languages, she obtained two bachelor’s degrees in game design from the ICAN school in 2012 and the University Paul Valéry Montpellier 3 in 2013. During these first four years of higher education, she carried out researches on games as performance and on Human-Computer Interactions. She then studied Contemporary Plastic Practices for a year, before joining the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne where she obtained her master’s degree in interactive multimedia. She is currently working on her doctoral thesis in Information and Communication Sciences. Alongside this academic career, she joined the game industry in 2010 as a Junior Game Designer for the company Eastpad, specializing in game development for what was then Apple’s brand new platform, the iPad. In 2012, she became an independent game designer and has since worked for large groups (Orange, BNP Paribas, Renault, Citroën) and research centers (CNRS, Interdisciplinary Research Center, Institut Acte) on playful interactive projects using new or custom-made technologies (virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, transmedia…). Nourished by her research work and her professional practice, she developed, in 2012, an artistic approach to video game design. Her first work, Lacci, is an aesthetic digital labyrinth inspired by Op Art and questioning the notions of obedience and transgression through her game mechanics. She then created more than twenty playful installations for which she designed and manufactured unique controllers and feedback interfaces. She mainly works in artistic residencies. Her works are exhibited all over the world and has been rewarded several times (Maker Faire, EIGD, A MAZE., Connext …). Beyond her practice of interactive design, she shares her design methods through educational interventions in schools and universities, as well as during workshops, masterclasses and international lectures (GDC, ENS , IULM, IndieCade…). https://tatianavileladossantos.com