Many thanks for all the contributions to the discussion so far. I've been intrigued by much of the debate and have found many of the suggested links and examples offered very useful. I'm heartened that much of the discussion has validated some of our initial thoughts and think that the contributions have added to these and moved the debate on from the first workshop, where we discussed the idea of the feedback loop as an analogy for the exhibit, to looking at increased levels of complexity to games systems and expanded systems that reach into the public sphere.
Going forward I'd be interested in exploring ways in which critical judgements are applied in the museum or exhibition design context particularly in relation to selection and acquisition decisions.
When selecting content for an exhibition or collection of video games, what criteria should be applied? Traditional criteria might include paradigmatic examples of a form that demonstrate typical or ubiquitous elements that are definitive of the form. Given the cannibalistic tendencies of games designers that shouldn't be too challenging but what might the quality criteria be?
Looking through the lens of the V&A , one might look for examples that expose the process of making, both in terms of the quality of the material and the quality of craftsmanship. Can these criteria be applied to video games. Alternatively, one might make an aesthetic judgement of 'beauty' however problematic/contingent that might be...What games or characteristics of a game can be described as beautiful? Finally, one might look for significance. Games or elements of games that either capture the essence of games or watershed developments that change our assumptions; games that capture the public imagination or change the way in which games are experienced and perceived.
I'd like to invite comments on some of these challenges, examples of games, exhibits, collections that you feel exhibit these qualities, or critical approaches to the 'craft', aesthetic and social understanding of the medium.
Many thanks
Gregor White
-----Original Message-----
From: Curating digital art - www.crumbweb.org [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul Brown
Sent: 26 August 2014 21:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] Video Games dance in the Museum
With this theme in mind it might be good then to reference the pioneering work of:
John Lansdown's Sword Fights and Dance: http://nelly.dmu.ac.uk/4dd/guest-jl.html
Simon Veitch's 3-Dis: http://vasulka.org/archive/Artists1/Burt,Warren/FairExchanges.pdf
George Mallen's Eco-Game (see page 2): http://computer-arts-society.com/static/cas/computerartsthesis/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Communication-Game-Paper-7-main.pdf
Alan Sutcliffe's BEHAVE: http://dada.compart-bremen.de/item/artwork/736
As well as the work of younger and better know figures such as Thecla Schiphorst, David Rokeby and others
All best
Paul
On 26 Aug 2014, at 20:34, Johannes Birringer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Yes, not bad at all, Paul, bringing this up, wonderful!
> And the discussion here, though evoking contexts and convergences, has shied away from performance and dance a bit, but I expected that.
>
> Games and dance have converged for some years, not just technically but also content oriented,
> if you think of French choreographer Fabien Prioville's "Jailbreak Mind" (2009) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaWfintqsFU - or other works that choreographically played with game ideas (Xavier Le Roy, etc). In our DAP-Lab performance of UKIYO at Sadler's Wells, in 2010, we also worked/collaborated with Japanese artists and ideas on virtual and SL worlds/spaces and avatars/manga charactars that we projected against/along with the real life dancers.
> Wayne McGregor, whose research with digital technologies was exhibited
> at the Wellcome Trust a short while back, in 2013, under the title:
> "Thinking with the Body: Mind and Movement", also deployed an "engine" during the creating process, a software and an artificial intelligence program called 'the Choreographic Language Agent' (CLA) (developed by Nick Rothwell), and the results of the compositions were shown in the piece "Atomos" (also premiered at Sadler's Wells).
>
> When I brought up the question of Kinect or Oculus Rift interfaces in
> my early posting here, I don't think there was a response, so I gathered that real time performance (interfaces) were not so much on the agenda of the discussion; but if one were to seriously look at a wider evolution spectrum in our cultures of conceptual and aesthetic ideas ( design, algorithmic concepts, performance concepts) related to games people play, games people design, then it may be fruitful, and certainly exciting for choreographers/digital artists/sound artists, to widen the discussion or the curatorial vision just a tiny bit. Re: sound, I remember composer Mick Grierson, back in 2006 or thereabouts, designing a 3D first person multi-player composition and performance environment, "Noisescape," created in Max/Msp/Jitter through the application of physical modeling, games design and audio-visual composition techniques and Grierson created it to demonstrate the potential of 3D environments as a collaborative musical interface. (I trust Johannes Goebel at EMPAC may also have produced other such sonic experiments.......) - would these not also figure interestingly in the projected exposure of various design processes?
>
> For example, another exhibition recently opened in Salzburg, "Simone Forti. Mit dem Körper denken" (Thinking with the Body) - http://www.museumdermoderne.at/de/ausstellungen/aktuell/details/mdm/simone-forti-mit-dem-koerper-denken-eine-retrospektive-in-bewegung/ - and featuring choreographer Simone Forti, her works, movement ideas, and drawings, and as a historical look back to the early postmodern dance of the 60s and 70s, this of course is most interesting as Forti, just like Trisha Brown ("Primary Accumulations"), worked with instructions for movement, rule based compositions that sometimes might be considered close in spirit to game concepts (not that I would have any idea whether Judson Dance Theatre or Forti (who also worked on the West Coast and LA) had any convergence/touch points whatsoever with games designers/programers in California....or whether game designers take a look at what happens in dance or music (what a fabulous "game" scenography Heiner Goebbels cooked up for the current music theatre production of Louis Andriessen's "De Materie" at the Ruhrtriennale !).
>
> regards
> Johannes Birringer
> dap-lab
> http://www.brunel.ac.uk/dap
>
> +++++
>
>
> [Paul schreibt]
>
> I though this may be of interest to this discussion:
>
> 'What happens when video games and dance collide? As much as I'd like to announce it, Super Mario at Sadler's Wells isn't happening any time soon - instead, I'm talking about using gaming technology to enhance the creation of new work. It's something 22-year-old Ben Glover explored for his recent project, Interactive Technology in Dance. By using motion sensing gaming device Kinect, Ben recorded the movements and gestures of dancers, turning their jitters and flourishes into mathematically-generated images on a screen behind the performers.'
>
>
> http://www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/culture-profe
> ssionals-blog/2014/aug/26/ben-glover-digital-theatre-tech-talk?CMP=new
> _1194
====
Paul Brown - based in the UK mid-August to mid-November 2014 http://www.paul-brown.com == http://www.brown-and-son.com UK Mobile +44 (0)794 104 8228 Skype paul-g-brown ==== Honorary Visiting Professor - Sussex University http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/research/creativity.html
====
====
Paul Brown - based in the UK mid-August to mid-November 2014 http://www.paul-brown.com == http://www.brown-and-son.com UK Mobile +44 (0)794 104 8228 Skype paul-g-brown ==== Honorary Visiting Professor - Sussex University http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/research/creativity.html
====
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