Zkm Gameplay
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zkm_gameplay start new game ! Bernhard Serexhe ZKM_Gameplay The Game Platform at the ZKM At all times and throughout their history since then, but also the increased impor- humans have played; indeed, one could tance of video games as a general cultural even say that the entire development of technology. In youth culture, video games humankind, its evolution both as individ- have become one of the leading media uals and as a species, depends to a great in digital society. This is why, all over the extent upon play, whether purposeless or world, academies of art and design have purposeful, the pleasurable and natural introduced study courses where the exploration of one’s abilities and social production and design of video games is competence, as well as the testing and taught. Through their massive use by all constant pushing back of one’s limits. public media, advertising, and the film Children explore their environment in play, industry in particular, video games increas- just as both teenagers and adults learn ingly leave their imprint on our images of the material and social conditions of our real and virtual worlds. complex world through play. The use of digital technologies in art Thus, naturally, the game as a medium cannot be distinguished from their use in was already a focal point of the ZKM from video games. Artists have always engaged very early on. Since the mid 1990s, the creatively and enthusiastically with the ZKM | Media Museum has systematically potential of games and play, and thus added video and computer games to have contributed substantially to the its collection. And since its opening in ongoing development of video games. At 1997 the Media Museum has an entire the same time, with subversively modified section dedicated to the world of games game engines and by programming their where visitors of all ages can explore the own art games, artists have acquired the myths and the forms of action of this most up-to-date gameplay skills with the rising digital culture in innumerable video intention of facilitating a differentiated games. As early as 1999 LAN parties in and critical view. From this, new genres the ZKM’s foyer attracted hundreds of have evolved within the last two decades – gamers who were connected for nights art games and serious games – which are on end. The increasing presence of video more likely to be found in exhibitions and games in ZKM exhibitions attests to the festivals than at the gaming conventions growing interest of the art world in this of the games industry. genre. «World of Games: Reloaded» was TheZKM opened its third large Game the updated second edition of the Media Platform in June 2013; its aim is to present Museum’s presentation of games which to the public – and especially to its gamers’ was set up for the ZKM’s groundbreaking fan base of all ages – the diversity of new exhibition The Algorithmic Revolution. trends and genres in video games. The Before the turn of the millennium, com- ZKM’s new Game Platform offers a whole puter and video games were already a sig- spectrum of possibilities: visitors can dis- nificant economic factor. Their enormous cover current best-selling video games, and wide distribution today not only evi- historic commercial games, and also get ZKM in 1997 dences the rapid technological progress to know – independent of their market Games are a part of ZKM since its opening. © ZKM | Center for Art and Media Photo: ONUK 3 success – games in which the creative and to the fascinating world of gaming. And artistic elements are the main focus. it is a platform that changes constantly, Thus ZKM_Gameplay is in no way the which takes in and adapts to current children’s section of the Media Museum. games and themes. This platform is designed for all of our visi- Start new game! tors. It offers all visitors enjoyable access World of Games 1997 The upper floor of ZKM is completely redesigned in 2013 . 4 © ZKM | Center for Art and Media Stephan Schwingeler Start New Game! Curatorial Remarks on ZKM_Gameplay The ZKM | Media Museum as Pioneer are now a highly complex medium. In the Ever since the ZKM opened its doors in course of its history the videogame has 1997 computer and video games have developed its own specific repertoire of been permanently on display in the forms of expression. ZKM | Media Museum because they are ZKM_Gameplay in the ZKM | Media a significant and integral part of our eve- Museum traces these developments and ryday digital world. Here the ZKM | Media presents the video game as a medium that Museum has assumed a pioneering role; has achieved its own identity and has now by contrast, it is only since November 2012 entered a phase in which reflection plays a that New York’s Museum of Modern Art defining role. /2 has included computer and videogames in its collection, mainly focusing on the The Two Poles of a Video Game: aspect of interaction design. /1 Game and Play Early on the ZKM recognized the import- The German word «Spiel» has two mean- ance of video games and how influential ings in English with various connotations: they are. In 1995 educator and social wor- game and play. /3 A game is often «a form ker Friedemann Schindler and the desi- of competitive activity or sport played gner Frank den Oudsten started to develop according to rules» (OED), and play is a concept for an exhibition that would engaging in «activity for enjoyment and portray the different levels of the medium recreation rather than a serious or practi- of the video game which they identified cal purpose» (OED). In these senses, a as multilayered. This first exhibition,Welt game follows specific rules and play does der Spiele [world of games], was strongly not. The mass noun gameplay means influenced by Friedemann Schindler «the features of a computer game, such as and an educational approach to media. its plot and the way it is played, as distinct Schindler and den Oudsten addressed from the graphics and sound effects» various complexes of issues in the form of (OED); that is, the way a player interacts installations (e. g., Licence to Kill engages with a game. It is a category dealing with with the portrayal of violence in the mass the aesthetics of reception: the develop- media). Welt der Spiele provided the basis ment of a player’s experience of a game in for the ZKM’s new game exhibition ZKM_ his or her subjective perception. Good Gameplay. gameplay is the most important criterion Video games have evolved and are now of a game, be it analog or digital. The multi- very different to those of the early days. layered term gameplay is used for the new Classics like Pong (1972) and Pac-Man video games section in the ZKM | Media (1980) and contemporary games like Heavy Museum which has as its theme digital Rain (2010) are worlds apart – technically, games and their play elements. aesthetically, and above all commercially. Videogames now exist in a diversity of variations, genres, and multifaceted forms, Feng Mengbo: Long March: Restart at MoMA PS1. as well as in various art scenes, and they ZKM_Gameplay shows the piece as a 16m long version. Photo: courtesy of Feng Mengbo 7 Reflecting on Media: considerably influenced the new concep- acting when presented with the invitation Parallel to the artistic development and The Central Concern tion for ZKM_Gameplay. to engage in interactivity. One crosses the art history of video games, a trend can be In ZKM_Gameplay the medium of the border into the realm of play. One enjoys observed where commercial games are video game is interrogated. The potential- The Academic Discipline of the freedom of an intellectual and sensual beginning to probe and interrogate the ities of the videogame are the focus, and Game Studies game. Interaction is never the quiet of characteristics and conventions of the not cementing its conventions. The selec- In view of the huge cultural and economic contemplation, but always the moving medium. At present video games are in tion of exhibits prioritizes experimental, significance of video games a branch of image, action, playing with changing the a phase of self-observation and self- unconventional, and artistic forms of academic enquiry has developed that is parameters within limited possibilities.»/10 reflection which makes them open to all the video game. Concentrating on these concerned with the critical study of games, kinds of experiment. These trends are potentialities of the medium demonstra- including engaging with the question Art: Videogames as Artistic Material most marked in the segment of «indepen- tes how diverse the subject is and at the of the «meanings» of computer games, From around 1995 artists began to use the dent» yet nevertheless market-oriented same time allows its characteristics to which is by no means confined to a purely medium of video games as material, and / indie games. emerge clearly. educational perspective. Game studies, or to engage with the cultural inflences Indie games offer alternatives to main- Theidea of facilitating reflection on the which began to form in 1999, views video emanating from them as well as to work on stream commercial games. One of the medium played a definitive role in the games as a rich and multilayered subject them using other media. /11 The first exam- focuses of ZKM_Gameplay is on these new conception for ZKM_Gameplay. The investigating expressive artifacts. The the- ple of artists engaging with video games games, some of which have been created games are subjected to critical scrutiny. oretical work that has come out of Game was Orhan Kipcak’s and Reinhard Urban’s by just one or two authors, such as Jason The objective of presenting video games studies was an important basis for devel- video game modificationArsdoom (1995).