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

[Christina McPhee <christina112@earthlink.net>]

Apparently, the software decided to bounce Noora's post after I approved it,
so I am resubmitting it here.

--cm



From: noora@noorazul.net
Reply-To: soft_skinned_space <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2004 15:34:52 +0800 (SGT)
To: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Subject: [-empyre-] games & art/commerce + museum?

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 
_______________________________________________
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-- 
 soundart performance videoinstallation multimedia painting theory


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