[-empyre-] games & art/commerce + museum?

[noora@noorazul.net]

hello

i've been following this dicussion with especial interest as this is personally something that i get
excited about. certain things held particular resonance for me, namely Melanie's discussion on the
either/or and both/and positions in terms of games development beyond established genres, as well as
that mix between material and virtual spatial experiences (as this relates to my personal ideas
about games as art). i thought i could share a little bit by offering a different experience, though
my experience with this particular field is probably more limited. 

i'm from singapore and currently work at the art museum there, handling public programmes which has
the ostensible purpose of making art more 'accessible' to the public, which in turn, (and how
hopefully) persuades them to be museumgoers. i think sometimes new media/games can be hijacked for
that purpose of being trendy & hip and reaching that so-desirable new audience groups of the young &
young-at-heart. however i'm wondering how we are supposed to make 'art' games more accessible to
visitors if the impulse to participate or play, thus interact with the game, has been foreshortened
or curbed by a broader cultural tendency of passivity, or at least, reservedness? i would really
want to avoid painting in broad brushstrokes, so instead of saying all singaporeans are, i would
like to suggest that in this particular context, the tendency of not being forthcoming is even more
sharpened when a game is put into a museum context. also, does that actually undermine the
playability of a game, if people are unfamiliar/uncomfortable with the game's environment (in this
case, a museum)? (sigh, but then again, this is the country that until only recently, had banned
performance art & forum theatre. so i guess participatory and performative works might present
problems)

it is always a little amusing to me that here (s'pore) we are apparently all so tech-savvy in our
quotidian lives, but when it comes to the new media/games, in the artistic sense, we have very very
very few who are willing to explore this. what is this dimension of translation that changes games
from a popular medium to artworks? while i've gathered some idea from Rebecca's explanation of what
makes an art mod, i still wonder how to answer successfully a question that was fired to me from a
colleague about where the aesthetics might lie in a game installation, let's say? 

Anita remarked upon the lack of dedicated developing studios for documentary, subjective reality or
even pure fiction-based games. this resonates. i had previously been commissioned, ex-museum, (and
this is by default, because there wasn't any or maybe one or two other local artists who'd deal with
games in an art context)and i was working on developing a game installation for a digital arts
festival here. i worked with my festival director/producer, and we had many meetings with tertiary
institutions here because the idea was for a collaboration, partially to overcome my limited
capabilities, but also there is the desire to work collaboratively. so we approached places that had
the facilities & resources to support our project. there is in actuality, only one gaming design
course here. but it seems that if you weren't going to produce a game for commercial application, it
is of very little interest. currently, the whole festival has been postponed because of funding, or
the lack thereof. we're also trying to look into a research grant from the arts council, but
apparently, that does not expand to R&D. i suppose some frustration can be heard out of this, but
it's the one thing that came out so strongly in this context that even with technology as the
buzzword, it's still not easy to 'attract' partners/sponsors etc, when mixed with art, and when the
output is an installation for an exhibition, and not a CD-ROM to be packed with a manual and
mass-produced, mass-circulated. 

so really, what is the artistic approach to games? is there only the visual aesthetics of the
graphics? is it incredibly ingenious programming, or some sort of amazing technological wizardry
(technical virtuosity)? or what about the ways we can play, how we can engage? i think perhaps
maybe, i've gotten confused along the way. i hope i haven't sounded too muddled. 

i hope this doesn't sound all too primitive because i am aware that this very enlightening (for me)
discussion previously has already bought into certain assumptions about the readiness of
audiences/the state of artistic development. but if this is the general tenor of current discourse
with regards to games, how does it relate and how can it relate to places where situations might be
different and yet there might still be people who are interested/want to work in this area?

and like you, Anita, forums scare me too. so apologies for my erratic writing, as well. 

thanks, noora