Exhibition Opening
Mélanie Courtinat: The Siren
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Doors: 6PM
All Ages
Open to the Public
Happy Hour bar pricing
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Exhibition Opening Mélanie Courtinat: The Siren
Gray Area presents the US premiere of The Siren, a new video game by French artist Mélanie Courtinat.
Gray Area is pleased to present Mélanie Courtinat: The Siren, a solo exhibition and the US premiere of a new video game work by French artist Mélanie Courtinat. Join us in the Gray Area Gallery on February 12 for an opening reception and guided playthrough with curator Wade Wallerstein.
About The Siren
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".
About the Artist
Mélanie Courtinat
Mélanie Courtinat (1993) is an award-winning artist and art director based in Paris.
Considering video games as a major medium, she focuses on their extraordinary immersive properties and seeks to push their boundaries.
Her work, crafted through the use of digital tools, encompasses CGI images and films, interactive experiences, as well as virtual and augmented reality projects.
As an artist, her personal creations are consistently showcased worldwide in cultural institutions, galleries, and museums, from Tokyo to New York.
As an art director, she collaborates on commissioned projects for clients in the luxury, fashion, culture, and music industries.
Mélanie also teaches video game history at ÉCAL in Lausanne and virtual reality at Beaux-Arts de Paris, while regularly conducting lectures and workshops in academic settings.
Partners
Villa Albertine
Villa Albertine, the French Institute for Culture and Education, is a division of the French Embassy in the United States.
Under the leadership of Mohamed Bouabdallah, Cultural Counselor of France and Director of Villa Albertine, we craft projects and programs aimed at making French language and culture accessible to US audiences and build partnerships between French and American higher education institutions. We have offices in ten cities across the country.
In the field of education, we work to ensure broad and equal access to French language programs for US-based learners of all ages. Offerings include support for instructors and schools and teaching resources. By collaborating with and forging connections between French and American higher education institutions, we facilitate transatlantic research projects and education abroad for US-based scholars and students. Our Campus France USA team manages all aspects of issuing education visas.
Since 2021, on the cultural front, we provide customized exploratory residencies across the US for global creators and thinkers. We also offer incubators and grants for French and American culture professionals; public events across creative disciplines; and a print magazine and podcast. Villa Albertine’s credo is that artists can contribute key insights to address society’s pressing questions, and that collaborating across borders deepens those insights.
Vila Albertine also encompasses Albertine, a bookshop within our New York headquarters that is dedicated to French-American exchange around the humanities, social sciences, and literature.
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