When BUGG begins, the audience's phones become the stage

BUGG, the 45-minute interactive lecture-performance from tech artist and game designer Nino Filiu, asks the audience to bring exactly one piece of equipment. Phones out: through algorithmic art-making and experimental party games, Filiu plays artist, lecturer and troublemaker while the room's own devices become the material. "Instead of trying to control computers, let's try to dance with them," as the curators' spotlight put it. The question underneath is sincere: how technologically literate are any of us, and can small collectives still interfere with systems built by companies the size of weather?

The performance opened Kaugummi im Motherboard 3.0 on Nov. 7, the third in the series of group shows curated by Katya Quel at gr_und in Wedding with Erratum Projects, the Berlin gallery turned curatorial platform. Ten artists fill the room with sculpture, moving image and interactive work through Dec. 4, Filiu among them, alongside Maxim Tur, whose own opening performance drew on pop culture and video games. Entry is free.

Filiu is a Killscreen regular. We covered Lackadaisical, their melting video-feed game, two weeks ago, and their chairing of Octobre Numérique's art game jam before that. The through-line is a game designer who keeps choosing rooms over releases. Play is the argument, not the illustration, and between Paris and Berlin,