Mélanie Courtinat

Biography
Mélanie Courtinat is a Paris-based digital artist whose practice explores new technologies to create immersive and interactive worlds, primarily through virtual reality and game engines, a medium she has been working with for more than a decade. Represented by New Galerie (Paris), her work has been shown internationally in contexts ranging from the Venice Immersive Biennale and LISTE Art Basel to Gray Area (San Francisco) and the Tokyo Game Show. Alongside her artistic practice, she teaches video game theory at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne and virtual reality at the Beaux-Arts de Paris.

Residency project
Principal Residency Program — 2027
During her 2027 residency at La Becque, Mélanie Courtinat will develop RISE AND GRIND, a management video game adopting the genre’s classic mechanics: gathering resources, building infrastructure, and producing ever more. Soon, a flaw appears: resources do not regenerate, each action depletes the world, and optimization only hastens collapse. An alternative then emerges: doing nothing, waiting, listening to the environment rather than exploiting it. By subverting the genre’s codes and embracing a frugal, sustainable, and environmentally conscious “permacomputing” approach, the project questions productivist reflexes and opens the possibility of cultivating more attentive relationships with technology and with nature.

Residency report
EXECAL — 2021
During my one-month residency at La Becque, I had the opportunity to push through my investigations and research about the future of grief. Working with a speculative design approach to the subject, I took the time to analyse the indicators of the present, notably the ecological awakening and the evolution of emerging technologies. I also studied many funeral rites around the world in depth. I was thus able to fuel my ongoing project which consists of a new post mortem ritual, using virtual reality. I intend to showcase it soon by taking over the swing in the garden at La Becque, facing the lake. I also took time to think through and write the talk I will give in a few days for the digital symposium “Visual Contagions” organised by the University of Geneva. With this in mind I produced an example video illustrating the concept of being “out of bounds” in video games, using the terrain generator Flowscape and a song by Lausanne-based artist Yatoni. — Mélanie Courtinat