Join us on the evening of March 18th at Gray Area as we welcome Mélanie Courtinat, whose interactive game work The Siren is currently on view in the Gray Area Gallery. Turning preconceived notions of video games on their head, Courtinat's work questions the player's role in virtual environments—often involving high fidelity graphics rendered by simulation engines. Courtinat will give a short overview of her work, followed by a guided playthrough of The Siren and a Q&A with the audience moderated by associate curator Wade Wallerstein.

The Siren (2024) is an interactive experience built with Unreal Engine that questions the traditional conventions of video games. In the game, players embody a heroine wearing a shining suit of armor who wanders aimlessly along a beach at dusk. Once in control, players explore this beautiful and austere world under the watchful eye of an omniscient narrator. The narrator prompts players to undertake the seemingly arbitrary task—or side quest—of collecting bioluminescent seashells scattered across the sand. Only by collecting all of the shells can the player advance to the main quest: rescuing a damsel in distress. Though rendered in ultra-high definition fidelity, resembling the hyperrealistic outputs of mass market AAA game studio productions, The Siren’s unique mechanics make it a distinctly different experience. The work elides a blockbuster main storyline and instead hones in on the droll imperatives and mundane taskings present in most video games. In this way, The Siren probes the meanings we assign to actions within gamespace, our relationships to the worlds we inhabit, and the motivations behind our playful engagements. This experience is designed to be accessible to all visitors, including gaming newcomers, while also providing an additional meta-level of understanding for seasoned players.

The Siren is presented in San Francisco with support from Villa Albertine, in partnership with the Albertine Foundation, the Institut Français, and the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. Gray Area is proud to be a 2025 French Immersion Laureate institution. The Siren was originally commissioned by the Pully Art Museum as part of their exhibition "Vivre l’œuvre / Voyage aux frontières de l’art immersif contemporain".