Porpentine Charity Heartscape
Porpentine Charity Heartscape
Porpentine Charity Heartscape is a Video game designer, New media artist, Writer and Curator based in Oakland, California. [undefined] She is primarily a developer of hypertext games and interactive fiction mainly built using Twine. [undefined] She has been awarded a Creative Capital grant, a Rhizome.org commission, the Prix Net Art, and a Sundance Institute's New Frontier Story Lab Fellowship. [undefined] [undefined] [undefined] [undefined] Her work was included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial. [undefined]
Career
Porpentine Charity Heartscape was an Editor for freeindiegam.es, a curated collection of free, independently produced games. [undefined] She was a Columnist for online PC gaming magazine Rock, Paper, Shotgun. [undefined]
Game design
Porpentine's 2012 Twine game Howling Dogs incorporates themes of escapism, violence and religious experience, though she has stated that it should be open to interpretation. [undefined] She created Howling Dogs shortly after she started hormone-replacement therapy in 2012, in only seven days, while staying in a friend's remodeled barn. [undefined] It won the 2012 XYZZY awards in the "Best story" and "Best writing" categories. [undefined] The Boston Phoenix listed it as one of their "Top 5 indie games of 2012". [undefined]
During the 2013 Game Developers Conference, game designer Richard Hofmeier used the booth he had been given to showcase his own award-winning game Cart Life, to showcase Porpentine's Howling Dogs instead. Hofmeier spray-painting the words "Howling Dogs" across the banner of his own booth, and showed Porpentine's game instead of his own. Hofmeier stated he wished to give greater exposure to Porpentine's game. [undefined] [undefined]
In 2015 she released Eczema Angel Orifice, a compilation of over 20 hypertext works from 2012 to 2015. The compilation includes critically acclaimed games such as With Those We Love Alive, a queer fable about isolation, abuse, and the relationship between art and power; [undefined] and Ultra Business Tycoon III, a sprawling textual world disguised as edutainment software. [undefined]
In 2016, Rhizome commissioned Porpentine along with Neotenomie and Sloane through the series First Look: New Art Online resulting in Psycho Nymph Exile.
[undefined] This work includes an online hypertext work, a booklet, and stickers.
The project depicts the experience of PTSD as a visceral physical substance, not an invisible, abstract force.
Exhibitions
2017
Xenoplast Scanner, Cloaca, SF [undefined]
Tiny Bubbles, San Francisco Art Commission, SF [undefined]
Whitney Biennial, NY [undefined]
Trash Shrine, Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:,NY [undefined]
2016
VGA Gallery, Chicago, IL [undefined]
Deshaciendo Texto, La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain.
Vaporents, Voidoid Archive, Glasgow, Scotland, UK.
Mother Lode, Hessel Museum, Annandale-On-Hudson, NY.
The National Gallery of Denmark in connection with Rolf Nowotny's work Sur Pollen [undefined]
PSYCHO NYMPH EXILE, Compliance Division, Portland, OR.
A Beautiful And Evil Place, Crossroads, San Francisco, CA.
PSYCHO NYMPH EXILE, First Look, New Museum, New York, NY.
The Mess, Ditch Projects. Eugene, OR.
2015
Sur Pollen, Tranen, Hellerupe, Denmark [undefined]
Hatching Darknet Queen, Fauna, Copenhagen, Denmark [undefined]
Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival in Berwick-Upon-Tweed, UK [undefined]
Illuminus, Boston, MA [undefined]
Bit Bash, Chicago, IL [undefined]
Haxan Festival, Oakland, CA [undefined]
Ars Independent Festival, Katowice, Poland [undefined]
WordPlay Festival, Toronto, ON [undefined]
IMAGES Festival, Toronto, ON [undefined]
3-Legged-Dog Art & Technology Center, New York, NY [undefined]
Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival, Berwick-Upon-Tweed, UK [undefined]
Illuminus Festival, Boston, MA [undefined]
2014
EMP Museum, Seattle, WA [undefined]
WordPlay Festival, Toronto, ON [undefined]
2013
Museum of the Moving Image, New York, NY [undefined]
Indiecade, Los Angeles, CA [undefined]
Selected writing
2016
"Mall School"[undefined]
"Vesp: A History of Sapphic Scaphism" Vice 02/05/16 [undefined]
2015
"Neon Haze" Sub-Q 08/11/15 [undefined]
"Orifice Clique" Yearbook Office 02/20/2015 [undefined]
"Games for Girls" The Fanzine 07/10/15 [undefined]
"Hot Allostatic Load", New Inquiry 05/11/15 [undefined]
2013
"Parasite", New Inquiry 6/25/2013 [undefined]
Published work
2016
PSYCHO NYMPH EXILE, Arcadia Missa [undefined]
selected visual art,MACRO: an anthology of images macros, Boost House [undefined]
Works
2017
Universal Mental Illness Value of Food [undefined]
Miniskirt World Network: Business Slut Online [undefined]
Everyone I Know Wants To Be Castrated And Kill Their Family [undefined]
2016
Rat Shrine [undefined]
World Hell Mall [undefined]
Massive Wad of GIFs Spanning Multiple Years of Precious Human Time [undefined]
Mall School [undefined]
Girlwaste Comic
PSYCHO NYMPH EXILE [undefined]
Homeopathic Essence of Porpentine [undefined]
Midnight Museum [undefined]
Vesp: A History of Sapphic Scaphism [undefined]
Contributed to FINALS FANTASY: Speculative Projects for Game Art Students [undefined]
2015
Dream Crypt [undefined]
Beautiful Frog [undefined]
Trashzine [undefined]
Neon Haze [undefined]
Aria End [undefined]
Eczema Angel Orifice [undefined]
Bellular Hexatosis [undefined]
This World Is Not My Home [undefined]
2014
Pink Zone [undefined]
Skulljhabit [undefined]
With Those We Love Alive [undefined]
Begscape [undefined]
Everything You Swallow Will One Day Come Up Like A Stone [undefined]
2013
Parasite [undefined]
How To Speak Atlantean [undefined]
Their Angelical Understanding [undefined]
Ultra Business Tycoon III [undefined]
Cry$tal Warrior Ke$ha [undefined]
Armada [undefined]
2012
Howling Dogs [undefined]
Cyberqueen [undefined]
Awards
2017
Prix Net Art, in collaboration with Rhizome and Chronus Art Center [undefined]
2016
Creative Capital Emerging Fields for Aria End (in collaboration with Peter Burr) [undefined]
2014
XYZZY Best Writing and Best Individual NPC for With Those We Love Alive [30]
Wordplay Festival Award for Most Unique World: With Those We Love Alive [31]
2013
XYZZY Best Writing for their angelical understanding [32]
Indiecade Special Recognition for Porpentine's Twine Compilation [33]
Porpentine's Twine Compilation listed by the Museum of the Moving Image (New York City) as one of "25 Must-Play Video Games". [undefined]
2012
XYZZY Best Writing for Howling Dogs [32]
"Golden Banana of Discord" for Howling Dogs at the 2012 Interactive Fiction Competition, a prize awarded for the highest standard deviation "both the most loved and the most hated."