American Dream: The Visa Lottery Game. Appropriated and modified Japanese NES Game “American Dream” (1989), Japanese gashapon capsule machine, 284 capsules with handmade pins fabricated from Mylar emergency blankets and fabric, 1 capsule fabricated from a welcome mat, gashapon tokens.
January 2020
Artist Statement
I use videogames as a a medium for sculpture, installation and performance. Classic and contemporary videogames are used as a basis for artworks that amplify play- conditions or are directly interrupted, subverted or adapted (i.e., hacked). I’ve created my own game systems and objects under the guise of interactive sculpture. My creative practice questions all aspects of game structure and culture in an attempt to expand the (still) gendered nature of these spaces.
In working inside video game communities and game spaces for the last 15 years as an artist and a woman—and being authentic to my offline self in these online spaces—I have been subjected to repeated harassment, dox’ing, threats of physical violence and rape, objectified, and sexualized without my consent. As a result of this, I took a brief sabbatical from online game spaces, but towards the end of the CoVid lockdown wanted to return to gaming and game culture. In order to do so, I knew I needed to cultivate a sense of my own power within these digital communities. My research explored all facets of personal power systems and ideas: intellectual, socio-economic, spiritual, emotional/psychological, physical, sexual, and collaborative/ collective power. My current objects, videos, performances and installations are manifestations of this research and serve as power-ups— objects that add benefits or abilities to a player as a part of the mechanics of a game.
I used both digital and analog methods in creating these power-ups. My work flows between physical and digital worlds. At times I extract the digital into the physical— through the threshold of the screen—and subsequently use highly laborious craft processes in the (re)creation of these digital objects. Conversely, I also try to draw the viewer back into digital game spaces through video projection and digital sound. Blurring the boundary between physical and digital spaces, my videogame-based works impart the poignant emotional impact games can have in/on real life and our sense of community.
About
Krista Hoefle received a BFA in Furniture Design from The Savannah College of Art and Design and an MFA in Sculpture from Pennsylvania State University. Krista has had international solo and group exhibitions at numerous galleries and museums, such as the Akron Museum of Art (Akron, OH), Heron Arts (San Francisco), Sage Art Center (Rochester, NY), Packer Schopf Gallery (Chicago), WomanMade Gallery (Chicago), TrykTrykTryk Gallery (Copenhagen, Denmark), High Loft Gallery (NY), and Mixed Greens Gallery (NY). She has been awarded Artist in Residencies at Anchor Graphics (Chicago) and The Experimental Television Center (Owego, NY). She has been a Visiting Artist at the University of Tennessee (Knoxville, TN), University of Rochester (Rochester, NY), and the University of Southern Maine (Portland, ME). Her work has been reviewed in regional and national publications such as Sculpture Magazine, Art Papers, The Wall Street Journal and TimeOut Chicago. In 2019, Krista received the Karen Bush Schneider Faculty Scholarship Award from Saint Mary’s College for her creative research. She is currently a Professor at Saint Mary’s College (Notre Dame, IN) and teaches a variety of Sculpture and Design courses.