RE: [-empyre-] games experimentation

["Melanie Swalwell" <Melanie.Swalwell@vuw.ac.nz>]

Hi Helen, everyone,

Helen wrote:
>The in-museum LAN sounds fascinating? I would be interested to know what game were they playing and if it was team based?
Was it very performative by nature? Where they there as a form on installation in the gallery? Did the museum attempt to explain or contextualise the activity to visitors? Where visitors invited to play? - What was the response of visitors?

To clarify: it was a LAN group using the museum's space - a large room that looked like it was normally used for talks, trainings, etc - to run their own 24 hour LAN event.  The LAN group and institution are building a relationship that struck me as quite innovative and novel, on both sides.  People played a wide range of games with lots of team based competitions organised - Counterstrike, various versions of Battlefield, Farcry, etc. + driving games, you name it.  This event wasn't in the main gallery space but I gather there is a larger LAN like this being planned, where spectators will be encouraged and able to come and have a look, inbetween one exhibition coming down and another going up.  This will be a kind of installation, I guess.  I'm looking forward to it.  It's great spectator-sport! and not something that non-gamers often get a chance to see.  It'll be interesting to see how the lanners find it.

Melanie