Slashdot Mirror
Prestigious Art Gallery To Exhibit Video Games
dipfan writes "Anyone passing through London (England) in the next few months should check out Game On - the history, culture and future of video games, an exhibition at the prestigious Barbican gallery, which opens on May 16. The exhibition publicity says: "Game On will trace the 40 year history of computer games from Space War, which was made way back in 1962, right up to the latest, as yet unreleased games from the likes of Nintendo, Sony, Sega and XBox." Cool. Exhibits include the first home games console (the Magnavox Odyssey from 1972), special sections on the influence of anime and manga, and lots of playable games, from Pong onwards, and a whole lot of other interesting stuff. The Barbican cinema is running a games-related film festival to go with the exhibition: Tron, The Matrix, etc. Even if you can't make it to London, the exhibition is going to tour the US and Japan."
Are they going to have certain developers contributing? If so, who do you think would appear?
Aren't you a little young for full contact?
Yeah, I know it's the other way around.
Can anybody guess what movie those lines came from?! A cookie for the first person that gets it!
If I was running the art gallery you know there would be an incredible LAN setup just for Quake deathmatch, I mean what else is there?
...the Commodore 64/128 will be included in this. Though I'm one of the people who have found many uses for my c128 (and the c64), there were a great number of kids who used it for a game machine. I remember back in the mid-late 80's when the NES was popular. I would boggle some kids' minds when I showed them my collection of 300+ video games, to their 20.
Ahh... The good 'ol days of copy parties. A couple computers, several 1541 or 1571 drives, and Maverick. Anyone else have the extra 8K of RAM or a speed control installed in their drives??
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
The decordova museum in MA had a video game exhibit in the 80's (abiet a long time ago). Back when games were games. THey had atari 2600, intellivision and coleco vision all playing donkey kong. THe had a lot of stand up machines too, asteroids, ms. pac man etc. They took tokens they sold at the front desk, except Zaxxon which was free. Went there a couple days after school when there were no crouds... Kick'n.
We had 8 bit color and mono sound back then, none of these fancy shmancy 3d cards they have now...It was amazing what they could get out of that hardware!
Video games have come of age, with the modern ones looking almost like interactive movies. (Could even have its own awards show) Even the older games could be considered art, not only for the rudimentary graphics, but the "cover art" that went on the game cabinet. Anyone remember the original Galaga artwork?
I am the evil aardvark!
Channel 4 have quite a good write up with a realplayer video of one of their news pieces the other day.
There are some *very* cool (arcade) machines in the exhibition ranging from Computer Space through to Dance Dance Revolution, plus all the home consoles you can eat. I can barely wait...
Cheers
Chris
I hope they have an exhibit on Air Support, Matrix Marauders, Datastorm, and all the subLogic Flight simulators, including Jet. To say nothing of AmigaBASIC. Gotta love writing action games in color: Black, White, Blue and Orange.
You are not the customer.
I almost bought an xbox yesterday, but I guessed it would be better to pay my rent. What they need to set up is a line of consoles that people can walk down and play just about any game made.
My nintendo is still plugged in just for tetris. My 3d0 is plugged in for "way of the warrior"
My n64 is just for zelda- but sadly my superNES is in several peices. I loved that thing.
The hog im typing on is my Counter-Strike box
Games are art... and unlike that retarded judge who says they contain nothing to give them first ammendment rights, i believe that none of these christian coalition types get their paws on any laws that ban or restrict sales of games. I hope this "Art" exhibit helps show that games are speach/art/educational material.
-mommy- why is that stick stuck in that donkeys belly?
-insert snobbish British accent-
Ah yes, a fine example of the post-modern "Pong" era. Note the sharp contrast of lines and dots against the uniform background. It obviously shows the ongoing struggle of mankinds struggle in the universe as the left line and right line are forever embattled over the little dot...
See article in The Guardian Online section today.
If Britian views gaming as an art on a different medium, they need to get into the US Government to give Gaming the same rights as art...
Art is protected by the First Amendment, but Games aren't... Bah!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
This gallery will be at my house between 5-12PM every night, $20 + various snack foods is the enterance fee.
It's funny how games can be deserving of their OWN FUCKING SHOW AT A MUSEUM, but the wise judge, whom a mojority of people somewhere voted for can say "he [Limbaugh] reviewed four different video games and found "no conveyance of ideas, expression, or anything else that could possibly amount to speech. The court finds that video games have more in common with board games and sports than they do with motion pictures."
WHAT THE FUCK.
"I do not fear computers. I fear lack of them." -Isaac Asimov
Vectrex, Scanlines, Flat Shaded Polys....ART BABY!
Did we have this article or one similar before? I swore a couple months back /. was mentioning art display of video game history.
Putting the IT in Sh**
Last line should have been:
It obviously shows mankinds ongoing struggle in the universe as the left line and right line are forever embattled over the little dot...
Oh well, time for some coffee...
Things to keep in mind:
o This article discusses computer games, not video games.
o Pong is not a "computer game". Pong can be done purely with analog circuits, without any ICs of any kind. Find one at a garage sale and crack it open if you don't believe me. I did. And it was in friggin color, too.
o If you're going to make an argument against Space War being the first computer game, argue in favor of the simple games like poker, hangman, and blackjack which have been around since the late 40s. By the time Space War surfaced, chess was already a mainstay on most computers by the early 60's. Keep in mind, people were doing voice synthesis in the same year that Space War popped up.
o If you include mechanical computers, subtract 75 years from any claim made for an electrical computer. Chances are, its been done. Human versus machine Tic-tac-toe can be done using hand-cranked wooden tinkertoy arrays.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
People like Henry Allen giving dissertations on PacMan. :/
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
After September, the exhibition moves on to Edinburgh, then on to various other places in Europe and finally to America.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
There's always a lot of debate about what constitutes "art". Usually the discussion comes up if the "art" in question could be arguably pornographic, but I wonder what kind of reception this kind of thing will get from major American grant-providing organizations (ie, the National Endowment for the Arts, etc.). It's great to see that a venue like the Barbican is hosting it... but judging from the fact that the several of the email addresses on the Game On site are @barbican.co.uk, it looks like some infulential geeky guys at the gallery were able to get this kind of thing up and running.
I'm intrigued by the future of digital art, but judging from the overall poor critcal reception of major digital art efforts, and the clear inferiority of digital film (Ebert's previously-posted article is a good one re: AoTC)... there are certianly some major questions as to the validity of the digital medium as "art".
bona-fide sludgesicle man,
pub
Really when you consider it video games are a perfectly valid form of art (possible more so that other "accepted" forms of art ie. elephant with paintbrush makes funny lines) I mean really when you consider the amount of work that goes into one single game relative to the amount of work in say a 4'X 3' painting, you really appreciate exactly what an art it is. And let's even go a step further with our appreciation, this is'nt art that was made with a paintbrush on canvas then magically made to move and respond to your input, no it's art created with code, pure hardcore code with perhaps a few created graphics thrown in, even more impressive is the fact that now most game developers are working in the 3D realm of game programming, that's impressive and most definately art. So before you question whether or not this is a valid and acceptable form of art, just consider that it can take dozens of people years to create one game.
Appreciate the effort if nothing else because the amount of effort it takes to complete a game today alone is most likely five to ten times the amount of effort required to create a sculpture or painting.
But it never hurts to try: Stop your video game. Turn off your computer. Go to a real art museum. Then come back and compare the image of, say, Manet's A Bar at the Folie-Bergere with a picture of Mario. Which one is art again?
Angela Taylor, PhD
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Feminist, scientist, scholar, woman
Burned into a screen is given a whole new
meaning...
Is what you will hear some annoying little 8 year cry when he gets there.
I wonder if the show will allow small kids to view the displays when it comes to older games that have been rated for mature audiences?
I seem to remember a 'Viz' game (popular 'adult' comic that is sold here in the UK) was rated '12' when it was released on the Commodore 64, so what happens if a kid younger than 12 is at the show.
Or even the Daily Star Strip Poker game? Leisure Suite Larry?
Well, assuming that they show such naughty titles, anyway...
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
"And here we have a piece of early christian art, from around 500AD, depicting the naked Adam and Eve. This can be compared to this on the right, Leisure Suit Larry. Note the Modernist influences and interesting use of sqaures...."
We already have one, it's known as archive.
CV (Resume) that I'm a art connoisseur and I devote much of my spare time to fine arts:)
Since submitting the story, yesterday I went to the press launch of the exhibition, and it's extraordinarily good. Basically, imagine dying and going to videogame heaven, because that's what this is like.
The exhibit doesn't have much in the way of "how games are made" filler - this is about games, games, games: 150 playable games! Woo hoo! If you're looking for an excuse to go on holiday to London, let this be it.
Going in the door there's an actual DEC PDP-1 unit on which the original Spacewar! was played. Then it's a gentle stroll through the development of games and the consoles, with almost all of them working models, some of which are hardly seen outside of Japan (the Nintendo Famicon, for example). There are some games looked at in-depth: sections on GTA3, and the making of the Sims, as well as Pokemon - there are copies of ancient GameFreak magazines - and some incredible Final Fantasy lithographs by Yokshitaka Amano. The "sound" of videogames also gets some recognition, and obviously the influence of Japan (including a couple of working Pachinko machines). The multiplayer section's cool, with a five-player playable Bomberman set-up.
Criticisms? Well, not many, unless you want to know how games are actually developed, but who cares? The "new release" section is a bit weak, with just PS2's Harry Potter game and XBox's motogp, neither of which are cutting edge. And there's no Doom, which is a serious omission given the game's historical importance in the growth of the industry (although there is Wolfenstein 3D). It would have been good (from a personal point of view) to have had the whole Metal Gear series on show, rather than just MGS2, but hey.
Strong-points: the exhibition is "platform neutral" - it's not sponsored by Sony or Nintendo or Microsoft (the organisers told me they resisted a bit of pressure from the console makers to get involved - at the cost of pushing out their rivals), and the consoles themselves are dealt with even-handedly.
The exhibition's in London until mid-September, then goes to the National Museum in Scotland. It's signed up to go to Helsinki next autumn/fall - and negotiations are going on with venues in the US and Japan. All the games are free, it's £11 entry (about $16), and at the moment it's all-day entry, but they are talking about a two-hour time limit - so get in there before the school holidays kick off. There's also a £20 exhibit guide book, but it's not worth the money (or indeed the paper it's printed on).
The Guardian newspaper had a review here.
About 8-10 years ago the museum here in Louisville, KY had a huge room dedicated to old arcade games which you could read the history of and also play. The only ones I can remember off the top of my head are Pong and Frogger, but it was a really neat exhibit. Too bad in the recent years they've dumbed down the museum to make it appeal to very little kids. Although one of the biggest draws was, and still is (I bet), the astronaut ice cream :)
Now that games are being displayed in an art gallery, would this have any bearing on the recent court decision that games aren't covered by the First Amendment?
Microsoft refused to go into the hardware business, insisted on making its software run on hardware that anyone could build, and thereby created the market conditions that allowed hardware prices to plummet. In trying to understand the Linux phenomenon, then, we have to look not to a single innovator but to a sort of bizarre Trinity: Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, and Bill Gates. Take away any of these three and Linux would not exist.
Anyone passing through London (England)
ahhh - I always wondered where London was.
Okay, how many other Londons are people likely to have heard of? C'mon, who says "New York (US)"? No-one, 'cos we don't think anyone's that pig-ignorant!
Tom.
Oh arse
I just tried to book tickets on the barbicans website...
/.'ed already!
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Click the continue button in order to proceed.
If you would like further assistance please contact the Box Office.
We will endeavour to contact you within 24 hours.
Video games are like art for the masses. Not everyone has the time to walk into a museum to stand in awe of the masterpieces.
But there's also some crap hanging in galleries that somehow qualifies as art that look like a two-year old took just took fingerpaint.
Art is not so easily defined. Art is something appealing or aesthetically intriguing. Not something a scholar or curator or thespian can define alone.
I'm a person with a pretty well-rounded appreciation of the arts (the daughter of an artist, as a matter of fact,) and I see nothing wrong with enjoying video games.
"Anyone passing through London (England)"
I mean, he even SAID England just so people would notice it.
Judge Limbaugh is a judge in the U.S. of A., which means his fatuous idiocies can be safely laughed to scorn by the British.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
Scottish, Irish , Welsh , Yorkshire, West Country, Birmingham, London?
Its a ghastly neo-brutalist 60s-style concrete monstrosity. The only thing it is famous for is that you are guaranteed to get lost if you visit there.
Of course spiralx is famous for his archive and adequacy keeps the spirit of trolling alive in the modern web-based internet.
Ahh, games.
I wonder if they will have a copy of Zero Wing on display :)
"right up to the latest, as yet unreleased games from the likes of Nintendo, Sony, Sega and XBox."
So, how is this not a "themed" trade show?
Wow, finally games get the recognition they deserve. Games are (for the most part, there are exceptions) serious creative endeavours on the part of their creators and should rightly be viewed as such. I.E. in my opinion, games have every right to be treated the same as art. Yeah, there are good games with many will agree should be considered art, and there are bad games which many won't agree to consider art, but then there's also good art and bad art, both of which can get the same rap.
In fact, after I get tired of actually playing a game, or get to a point where I just cannot seem to progress any farther in the game, I just turn on the cheat codes so that I can run around the game world admiring all these is to see. I like to kind of perform a rudimentary analysis of the game, noticing what's especially cool about the visuals, what about the game makes it so damn fun, and why the hell I couldn't seem to make it past that last bastard without the cheats. Hell, in many games the visuals can be so striking that they can probably be enough to qualify the game as an artform all on their own. I especially like the visuals in Oni for the interesting architecture of the levels and the buildings around which the levels are based. But that's probably becasue I almost became an architecture major until I found out it would require one more extra year of school. There are of course other games with interesting visual aspects or level design, but I've rambled enough in this post.
Kudos to the people at the Barbican for giving games the kind of credit they deserve.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
Here's a bit from their "press release" (http://www.gameonweb.co.uk/pre_site/pdfs/gameon.p df), with what game embodies each of their game categories:
Role-Playing Games (Dragon Quest)
Reflex Games (Parappa the Rapper)
Racing Games (Indy 500) -- think they mean the Atari 2600 version?!!
Football Games (FIFA Soccer)
Shoot Em Ups (R-Type)
Fight Games (Virtua Fighter 2) -- I'd've picked VF1
Platform Games (Pitfall)
Life Simulations including Military Strategy Sims (Metal Gear Solid 2)
Sports Sims (Football Manager)
I can't tell if these are what their source for the categories they used ("classification of games families devised by the Le Diberder brothers in their book L'Univers des Jeux Video") or what's actually at the exhibit.
An interesting bit about the consoles is that this part of the exhibit will go on permanent display in Scotland. "Following the exhibition tour, these consoles will form a unique permanent collection at the Museum of Scotland." Is their any significant to Scotland in the history of gaming?
The media guide continues showing sections to do with US vs. European games (one of the differences is apparently violence; Mortal Kombat II, Castle Wolfenstein 3D and NFL Blitz seem to be the US representative games *sigh*) and another section on Japanese gaming. Worth a read!
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
I think this presentation is an outstanding idea. When I think about the number of computer game background scenes I have seen in games, there are many that have a beauty to them. Laugh if you will, but occasionally I'll stop in gameplay to just look around and enjoy the scenery. I remember a particullarly "Unreal" (sorry for the pun) experience when I first got a 3D card that came with Unreal. I stopped shortly after the 1st level when I came out into the outside area, and just stopped and panned around enjoying the scenery of the waterfall and the birds flying overhead.
The whole MYST series is a perfect example of this, especially with the improved Graphics and 3D views of MYST III: Exile. Its like a painting of a landscape or natural scene, except what is presented is un-natural, but still enjoyable to look at and behold.
Art, and what is appreciated as art, can show up in just about any medium, from canvas to sculpture and now an electronic/virtual medium.
-When going for broke, go for Ithaca!
Thanks, I was wondering where I might find London...
Oh goody,
I wish they'd done Barbarian/Barbarian2 (can't remember if the Publisher was Palace or some other).
Pixelated Maria Whittakers, yumee!!
I liked to 'play' with Maria's character in Barbarian2 more than the Arnie character, I kinda got off on getting beaten by the Jailer on Level 2.
Anybody got the number of a good Pyschiatrist, I just proof-read my post and I need help...
From my Autobiography - "Lifestyles of the Sad and Desperate"...
The "A Bar at the Folie-Bergere" I believe is in the Courtaud(Sp?) Gallery in London.
So whoever can do it go and compare. Even if it is not there there are superb examples of impressionist painitng there, and the famous self portrait of Van Gogh after chopping his ear.
Videogames art? Yeah, sure.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Not even for the masses.
Art normally is done by and for itself, it is not born out of a need to do something else (playing games) and then, 40 years later, all of the sudden, realizing that it is art.
Video games may be aesthetically pleasing for some, but their main purpouse (to entertain middle class and upwards, mainly male, young adults) clearly signal that art is the last of the concerns of the game makers.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The BBC has reviewed the exhibition:
In the console room, those growing up in the 1980s can relive memories of computing at its most BASIC. The ZX Spectrum was one of the first affordable home computers and played a big role in the creation of the "geek", a person (usually a man) that derived immense pleasure out of computer coding in their bedrooms.
So now we know... read it here.
Although something like the Myst series is definately beautiful, is it really art? Some people argue that art is made for "art's sake" and not for money. Is something that is created for the purpose of making money an artistic creation, or a commercial one? Myst is as beautiful as it is because by being so more copies are sold. Not flaming you or anything, I'm just curious about the boundaries of "art" and "commercial product" I guess. I suppose art is where you find it, and if you're lucky, it's as little "commercial" as possible.
"Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased. Thus we refute entropy" - Spider Robinson
Correction: "I fail to see how Fallout's exploration of the ethics of a retro post-apocalyptic western United States is NOT art, yet Shakesphere's pulp fiction somehow is." And yes, Shakesphere wrote pulp. He designed his plays to cater to the entertainment of many different classes.
Minor niggle, but the Barbican isn't really an "art gallery" per se. It's more like a university campus environment, but close to central London (prob ~20 mins walk from the City, the finacial district) which hosts many different art and cultural events. Last time I went I saw Vincente Amigo: highly recommended live if you happen to have had a bang on the head when you were a baby which left you cursed with the desire to listen to flamenco. I liked him so much I bought his most recent album.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Computer art, code, graphics. Whatever it may be its art, it was shaped by a human being's mind. It was thought out, meant to convey thoughts or feelings. Take metal gear solid 2 for example. It's the thought of your own government bringing itself down through its own corruption and dictatorship like rule. It's the idea of you being in solid snake's shoes' going all out to save some people that you don't know, to save your world from a battle of information which it so blindly cannot see.
To make the characters evolve, come to life. Have feelings, convey emotions. Wheather it be from knowing its a setup and this thing has got to end, running down the corridor with your friend together shooting your way through countless enemys' for one last ditch battle. Wheather it be from opening up to someone, telling them that you love them. To find out in the end it was a machine, a fake, not knowing if they actualy were in your life or not. Not sure of anything anymore.
In some ways games can be more creative and distinct in their own way than any painting or movie could be. Countless messageboards across the net for gamers to get together. No matter what you say some things can't be put into words. The endless hype a game draws, the only way some know how to express their enjoyment, their feelings from the game. Games are unique in their own respect. Without them this would be a very dull world.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
A encompasing journey is worth more thoughts than can be described by words...
MassMoCA, contemporary art museum in western Mass just finished having an exhibit like this, it was really fun
It's a grown-up dedicated art gallery alright. Or it was when I went to the Andy Warhol exhibition there, and the Martin Parr exhibition, and the Art of Star Wars exhibtition ... and this card in my wallet saying "Friend of the Barbican Art Gallery".
The Barbican is a hell of a big place though: there's two cinemas (Star Wars AoTC is on at one now), a concert hall, the Royal Shakespeare company (two theatres), a conference centre, several restaurants, about 2000 apartments, a tube station, a girls' school, a pub, a YMCA, the Guildhall music academy, a park, an arboretum, a huge library, a business school and a small lake.
It's a great place, but lots of Londoners don't like it because it's so big and hard to get around. Built on a bombsite left over from the second world war.... zzzzz. OK, enough.
Art is someone else's portrayal of a reality. It is not yours.
There's an art to everything.
Videogames are a way to immerse yourself in an alternate reality that someone has dreamed up and created, painstakingly rendering it to the best of their ability. Like a 3-D version of a painting, you could say. Or rather, I could say.
Saying that no artist would ever create to cater to the general public is really just complete and utter ignorance. You're giving far too much credit to the average artist. An artist creates so as to embody their vision for the pleasure of one's self or others. A game designer has taken it past the boundaries of a traditional sequence of images and scripts and has combined them to envelop the gamer in the world created.
It is a combination of many arts in some cases, while you could argue that some are just the total lack of art altogether, the talents of someone writing, another illustrating, and yet someone else using their art in the technical aspects of fusing together visuals, sounds, motion, interaction and accesibility.
Does an artist work only to bore people?
I doubt it, for the most part. Art is meant to interest, to entertain. Perhaps it is not intriguing to everyone, but you can't define art so narrowly.
I can't do it justice anyway, but I do try.
Nooo, he said England because American's are not famed for their grasp of non-US geography.
;)
It's good to specify London England because those of us north of the US border generally think London Ontario before we consider the other London
http://www.llamasoft.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?
If you think it'd be cool to go to the Game On exhibition, how much exponentially cooler would it be to go to the Game On exhibition with a group including Jeff Minter!?
(Forgive me if I am the only person who thinks this would be rather good
So "Planescape Torment" has no artistic value, but a painting of a can of Campbell's soup is art? Bah.
(And yes, I know the significance of Post-Modernism in art, so no flames on that. Just trying to make a point.)
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Recently an Ethernet cartridge for the Commodore 64 was developed (this was featured on Slashdot a while ago along with a web server running on a C64.).
This might be the kind of stuff that brings the C64 into the 21th century - serious on-line gaming!
But I thought games had absolutely no redeeming social value and thus don't deserve the protections of the First Amendment.
Computer games indirectly spurred a different kind of computer art as well. In the early 80s, when the computer games were starting to become a large industry, some computer interested youngsters started to remove the copy protection (if any) from the games and to spread those cracked games to friends.
Often the crackers changed a few words on the title screen of the game, claiming the credit for having cracked the copy protection. Some guys even linked a special introductory screen with the name of the cracker before the game started.
Over the years, those introductions became more and more advanced with music, graphical logotypes, and scrolling text. The first intros used the title music from the game or from some other game, but soon the crackers started making their own music while at the same time improving their programming skills and graphical capabilities.
After a while, the cracker intros were actually more technically and artistically advanced than the games themselves!
In parallell with the improvements to the intros, the intros forked off into the demo concept. The demos were more technically advanced than the cracker intros, and most commonly all graphics and music was done by the demo creators themselves and not taken from some game. The demos pushed the limits of the computers on which they ran and in turn inspired the games creators.
More information about the intros found on the classical Commodore 64 computer can be found at intros.c64.org and a very good collection of Commodore 64 demos can be found at www.c64.ch. If you don't have access to a Commodore 64 or a Commodore 64 emulator, there is a good DivX encoded video showing one of the best C64 demos around: Deus Ex Machina by Crest.
In a sense, the gaming industry made it possible for the creation of the cracker intros, which in turn led to the demo artform - an artform like no other.
Everyone knows that video games aren't art
A federal judge says so.
PACMAN!!! MIP MIP MIP mip mip mip mip mip mip mip mip ..... boowowowowowowoowowowow bwa bwa...