The Art Wire

The 3rd episode of the gold extra Briefs 2025 (micro game publishing series) winners: Kate Bagenzo talks with Evgeni Puzankov - who cofounded the Briefs Series together with gold extra´s Georg Hobmeier in 2022 - about the idea behind, the narrative aspects and the production of the game "baetyl". According to Kate Bagenzo "baetyl" is ...a lost friend...a god preserved in stone...a lateral thinking puzzle...a shut inThe topic for the 2025 Briefs Call was "Cheese", on itch.io you can play this game and also the 2 other Briefs 2025 winners: https://itch.io/b/3301/briefs-2025-the-cheese-collection

Another podcast episode of one of the gold extra Briefs 2025 (micro game publishing series) winners: Phoebii & Rita talk with Evgeni Puzankov - who cofounded the Briefs Series together with gold extra´s Georg Hobmeier in 2022 - about games, games production and specifically about their game "Phoebii's Preserve". The topic for the 2025 Briefs Call was "Cheese", and therefore "Phoebii's Preserve" is a (quote) "cheese-able cyberpunk dating simulator!"The 2025 Briefs Winners collection can be found and player on itch.io, here the ⁠link to this collection⁠.

Podcast episode of one of the gold extra Briefs 2025 (micro game publishing series) winners: The game I Made A Game For You was created by Felix Schindler (art, design, music) and Friedrich Hanisch (programming, level design, story). Together they form the collective Medienzentrale and in this episode the two of them talk to Evgeni Puzankov - who founded the Briefs Series together with gold extra´s Georg Hobmeier in 2022 - about their backgrounds and about their collaboration and process for creating this game. The topic for the 2025 Briefs Call was "Cheese", the 2025 Briefs Winners collection can be found and player on itch.io, here the link to this collection. I Made A Game For You - a game where you play a game, while talking to your dad (who made the game).More about gold extraMore about Briefs

Dancing Paprika, rain sound made of clapping and snipping, and flying scallops – be prepared for a weird and unique experience!Hsin-Hsuan Yeh explores associative thinking in her VR-experience "Sens of Nowhere". In this interview she talks with The Art Wire-host Sophia about the impressive sound design, visual choices and a lot of different interpretations (and a lot more, of course). This interview was recorded at the ART*VR-Festival / ZIP-SCENE-Conference in Prag in October 2025.

Leo Metcalf made a VR-experience about memories of childhood, magical fantasy-worlds to escape reality and emotional stuntedness. In the interview he talks with The Art Wire-host Sophia about his personal experiences that he integrated in the art piece. Furthermore they talk about the dream-like imagery, about the sound design and the storytelling in "The Time Before" (and much more!). There even is a secret movie recommendation if you are looking for the saddest film in the world :)This interview was recorded at the ART*VR-Festival / ZIP-SCENE-Conference in Prag in October 2025.

In Yvette Granata's VR-experience "I Took a Lethal Dose of Herbs" you find yourself in the position of a mother getting pregnant again. However, you are not too happy about the news because your memories of your first pregnancy aren't good ones. You struggle with psychotic halluzinations as you come to an almost lethal decision...In this episode Sophia talks with Yvette about the process of directing this VR-experience, politics and anti-abortion laws, the audience's feedback on the experience and much more. CN: Abortion, (postpartum) psychosis, anti-abortion law, drug / substance abuseIf you struggle with any of these topics, please do not listen to this episode or do not listen to it alone.

Have you ever wondered where all the things you have lost in your life end up? Dime Gjorgjievski created a whole VR experience based on this very question. In this episode, he talks with Sophia about the process of creating and broadcasting it.

In this episode, gold extra´s Reinhold Bidner talks with Boris Labbé, a multiple award-winning French animator, director, and media artist. This conversation was recorded in mid-June 2025 during the Festival d'Animation d'Annecy, the largest animation festival worldwide.Originally from the fields of fine arts and traditional animation, Boris Labbé has been expanding his work for years: besides animated films he also creates audio-visual performances, and shows his works in intallations and exhibitions. In the last years Boris also experimented and created with VR and AI, but he always maintains a clear understanding of the narrative he wants to deliver, a clear focus on his artistic style, and an ongoing research process combining traditional handcraft techniques with new technologies.He has received numerous awards, including the Golden Nica at the 2016 Ars Electronica Festival (with Rhizome), the Grand Prix at Venice Immersive in 2024 (with Ito Meikyu), and the Off-Limits Award at the 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival (with Glass House). These are just three of the many awards he has received since 2011.Boris Labbé’s work forms a cinema of multiplicity. Repetition, re-presentation, collages, patterns, metamorphoses, and perpetual movement, as well as constant citations of art history, literature, and philosophy have all become essential resources of his audiovisual language.https://www.borislabbe.com/https://www.goldextra.com/en

In this episode, host Evgeni Pozankov talks with Aleksandra Jarosz, the lead designer of Fantastic Annihilation, a subversive and intense “action-clicker” game made for Briefs 2024: Death. Developed with collaborators Thomas Feichtmeir and Alejandro Rodriguez Ramallo, the game challenges players to systematically eradicate all life on Earth— not as an idle diversion, but as a demanding, real-time experience.Aleksandra discusses the game’s philosophical roots in Peter Wessel Zapffe’s “The Last Messiah” and her inspiration from conceptual art exploring ecological destruction. The gameplay riffs on idle genres like Cookie Clicker, but turns them on their head: instead of passively waiting, players must actively and aggressively click, sterilize, upgrade, and annihilate, facing a relentless struggle against organic reproduction and time.The game’s standout feature is its dark, finite ending: players are ultimately forced to kill their ever-cheerful guide “Annihilation-chan”—a nihilistic cheerleader quoting existential philosophy—and finally, themselves. It’s a deliberate, unsettling closure that reflects on ecocide, ego, and the human desire for control, presented through grim humor and genre-bending design.This episode dives deep into game design as narrative, balancing mechanics with message, and flipping conventions in both storytelling and player reward. A true clicker with an end, Fantastic Annihilation is a radical experiment in existential gameplay. Fantastic Humans are: Alejandro Rodriguez Ramallo, Aleksandra Jarosz, Thomas Feichtmeir, HexenkraftBRIEFS: https://www.goldextra.com/en/briefs-a-microgame-series

In this episode of ArtWire, host Evgeni Pozankov interviews Eva and Andrea of Studio Lichene, the creative duo behind Death to Venice, a visually rich Twine game developed for Briefs 2024: Death.Studio Lichene—named after the symbiotic organism “lichen”—embraces themes of mutualism over competition, which echo throughout the game. Death to Venice is a hybrid of interactive fiction and visual novel, depicting a near-future Venice in ecological and social collapse, seen through six poetic vignettes told from the perspectives of humans, animals, a plant, an AI, a glass object, and even prisoners.The team explores death in layered ways: ecological decay, cultural loss, social isolation, and forgotten memory. Each district (sestiere) of Venice is rendered with real photographs and manipulated visuals, creating a surreal yet grounded sense of place. Eva and Andrea reflect on the creative challenges, including managing agency across non-human protagonists and creating interactivity without traditional puzzles.They also discuss lessons learned from their previous Briefs game (Parallelepipedon) and the deeper clarity and emotional resonance they aimed for this time around.https://www.goldextra.com/en/briefs-a-microgame-series