The Art of Video Games @ Smithsonian

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This page was exported from - Digital meets Culture Export date: Tue Sep 28 13:43:42 2021 / +0000 GMT The Art of Video Games @ Smithsonian The Smithsonian American Art Museum hosts a very special exhibition, to explore the forty-year evolution of video games as an artistic medium, with a focus on striking visual effects and the creative use of new technologies. An amalgam of traditional art forms ? painting, writing, sculpture, music, storytelling, cinematography ? video games are an increasingly expressive medium and offer artists a previously unprecedented method of communicating with and engaging audiences: in the forty years since the introduction of the first home video game, the field has attracted exceptional artistic talent. The exhibition features some of the most influential artists and designers during five eras of game technology, from early pioneers to contemporary designers, and is focused on the interplay of graphics, technology and storytelling through some of the best games for twenty gaming systems ranging from the Atari VCS to the PlayStation 3. Eighty games, selected with a poll by the public that replied enthusiastically - more than 3.7 million votes were cast by 119,000 people in 175 countries! - to the Smithsonian's call, demonstrate the evolution of the medium. The games are presented through still images and video footage. Five featured games, one from each era, show how players interact with diverse virtual worlds, highlighting innovative techniques that set the standard for many subsequent games. The playable games are Pac-Man, Super Mario Brothers, The Secret of Monkey Island, Myst, and Flower. Further the exhibition, there are video interviews with twenty developers and artists, large prints of in-game screen shots, and historic game consoles. A companion book, The Art of Video Games: From Pac-Man to Mass Effect, accompanies the exhibition. The Art of Video Games will travel to 10 cities in the United States following its presentation in Washington, D.C. and the tour will end in January 2016. For further information please visit the official page: http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2012/games/ Output as PDF file has been powered by [ Universal Post Manager ] plugin from www.ProfProjects.com | Page 1/2 | This page was exported from - Digital meets Culture Export date: Tue Sep 28 13:43:43 2021 / +0000 GMT Output as PDF file has been powered by [ Universal Post Manager ] plugin from www.ProfProjects.com | Page 2/2 |.

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Videogames in the Museum: Participation, Possibility and Play in Curating Meaningful Visitor Experiences
Videogames in the museum: participation, possibility and play in curating meaningful visitor experiences Gregor White Lynn Parker This paper was presented at AAH 2016 - 42nd Annual Conference & Book fair, University of Edinburgh, 7-9 April 2016 White, G. & Love, L. (2016) ‘Videogames in the museum: participation, possibility and play in curating meaningful visitor experiences’, Paper presented at Association of Art Historians 2016 Annual Conference and Bookfair, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 7-9 April 2016. Videogames in the Museum: Participation, possibility and play in curating meaningful visitor experiences. Professor Gregor White Head of School of Arts, Media and Computer Games, Abertay University, Dundee, UK Email: [email protected] Lynn Parker Programme Leader, Computer Arts, Abertay University, Dundee, UK Email: [email protected] Keywords Videogames, games design, curators, museums, exhibition, agency, participation, rules, play, possibility space, co-creation, meaning-making Abstract In 2014 Videogames in the Museum [1] engaged with creative practitioners, games designers, curators and museums professionals to debate and explore the challenges of collecting and exhibiting videogames and games design. Discussions around authorship in games and games development, the transformative effect of the gallery on the cultural reception and significance of videogames led to the exploration of participatory modes and playful experiences that might more effectively expose the designer’s intent and enhance the nature of our experience as visitors and players. In proposing a participatory mode for the exhibition of videogames this article suggests an approach to exhibition and event design that attempts to resolve tensions between traditions of passive consumption of curated collections and active participation in meaning making using theoretical models from games analysis and criticism and the conceit of game and museum spaces as analogous rules based environments.
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