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."

Comments

I wonder if...

[doppleganger871]

...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??

Why not?

[Black Aardvark House]

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 don't know about art, but I know what I like...

[pub]

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".