Hello all,
I have been following the conversation thus far, and while I don't have
anything in particular to insert at this point, I thought I would place an
open-ended offer to field any questions with regard to MoMA's efforts to
collect, exhibit, and preserve video games.
For a bit of context, the effort to collect video games at MoMA was led by
Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator of the department of Architecture and
Design. Here is the blog post that announced this initiative in 2012:
http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/11/29/video-games-14-in-the-collection-for-starters
Here is blog post from 2013 providing an update on the seven most recent
acquisitions:
http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2013/06/28/video-games-seven-more-building-blocks-in-momas-collection
These acquisitions are very much an extension of Paola's efforts to collect
born-digital artworks and design objects – ranging from complex software
based artworks such as Martin Wattenberg and Marek Walczak's *Thinking
Machine *(2003-04), to objects firmly within the design realm, such as the
collection of 23 digital typefaces:
http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2011/01/24/digital-fonts-23-new-faces-in-moma-s-collection
For more context on how Paola frames video games within the exhibition
context, see her TED talk:
https://www.ted.com/talks/paola_antonelli_why_i_brought_pacman_to_moma
Some great installation shots can been seen in this article from The Verge:
http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/17/5419530/moma-collection-of-ideas-exhibition-paola-antonelli
There is very little publicly available information on what our media
conservation team has been doing to preserve these games, but there is a
bit of information about Eve Online here:
http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/24/5441866/eve-offline-how-do-you-archive-a-universe
and some information about Dwarf Fortress here:
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3034130/asides/how-the-worlds-craziest-video-game-is-changing-moma
I would be happy to field any questions about our conservation practices.
Best,
Ben
--
Ben Fino-Radin
Digital Repository Manager
*The Museum of Modern Art*
25 w 53rd st, New York, NY 10019
(t) 212 408-6408 | (c) 585 764-1320
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