[spectre] Space Invaders: Art in the Computer Game Environment

[Marieke Istha]

Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam presents

Space Invaders
Art and the Video Game Environment:
Exploring the increasingly blurred boundaries between video-game space 
and real space.

28 August – 6 November 2010
Opening 27 August from 17.00 - 19.00 hrs with DNK DJ UNIT (Masterfader & 
The Snail) and Live Visuals by Riley Harmon

Jeremy Bailey, Aram Bartholl, Mark Essen, Cao Fei, Anita Fontaine, Riley 
Harmon, JODI, Michael Johansson, Ben Jones, Yuichiro Katsumoto, Walter 
Langelaar, Ludic Society, Julian Oliver, UBERMORGEN.COM

Full information about the exhibition: http://nimk.nl/eng/space-invaders

In Space Invaders: Art in the Computer Game Environment the Netherlands 
Media Art Institute brings art and games culture together. In an 
artistic, playful yet serious manner, Space Invaders reveals the 
influence of games on art and society. This group exhibition with Dutch 
and international media artists examines the increasing blurring of the 
boundaries between game worlds and reality. In Space Invaders media art 
works illuminate the migration of the physical world into gaming 
systems. Conversely, gaming elements are more and more finding their way 
into physical space. By infiltrating both game environments and real 
spaces, the artworks clarify the nature and influence of the computer 
game environments, and provide greater insight into the role that 
computer games play in contemporary culture.

 From minimalistic adventure games based on text to the detailed cities 
of Grand Theft Auto, which are based on the actual street plan of New 
York, the world of the computer game is developing to ever more 
realistic levels. In addition, games are presently no longer defined by 
progress in a literal sense – beating a field – but increasingly 
concentrate on creating an environment in which the player has the 
freedom to set out on his or her own explorations: an environment that 
looks and feels like the real world. Moreover, the internet has created 
conditions for on-line gaming, which often has still less to do with 
winning and losing and more with the cultivation of social communities 
and human networks that extend into 'real' life, like Farmville. 
Equipped with wireless technologies and GPS, games have abandoned a 
stationary existence to make their way through physical space as mobile 
and other available applications. In short, tentoonstellingsgames mix 
various media and physical spaces to create an alternative, playful 
reality. Physical and virtual space are becoming more and more hybrid in 
nature and constructed and invented spaces come ever closer together.

With this information as background, one can recognise two approaches in 
the exhibition Space Invaders. On the one hand the exhibition looks at 
the most fundamental environment of the computer game: inside the 
computer. What sort of connections do the games and artworks make 
between physical and virtual space in the computer world? For instance, 
while in early text games an imaginary space was evoked by means of text 
(Colossal Cave Adventure), there are now the detailed cities of Grand 
Theft Auto, and recently the development of 'augmented reality' games 
has come into vogue, games that mix computer images with reality in a 
plausible manner (LevelHead – Julian Oliver). On the other hand the 
exhibition presents the introduction of game elements into the physical 
world: from the performance of video games in 'real life' (Cosplayers – 
Cao Fei), and the reduction of the urban game ‘Parcours’ to a virtual 
and digital level (Parcour Ready Played – Ludic Society), to works that 
remove the game data from the screen (What It is Without the Hand that 
Wields It – Riley Harmon, First Person Shooter – Aram Bartholl).

Walter Langelaar also blends the physical exhibition space and virtual 
gaming space by means of a gaming engine on which the visitor can exert 
influence. The visitor has to relate here physically to the dizzying 
mixture of physical and virtual space. Finally, the duo JODI present 
their performance-installation SK8MONKEYS ON TWITTER, in which 
unreadable texts are uploaded to a twitter account by means of 'skating' 
on an keyboard, and a connection is made with the skateboard games by 
Tony Hawk.
In short, Space Invaders shows the increasing blurring of the boundaries 
between the real world and the game world. In this exhibition gaming is 
more than sitting in front of a screen and playing a game; the relation 
with the real world is never far away.

Space Invaders: Art in the Computer Game Environment has been produced 
and curated in association with Heather Corcoran from FACT, Liverpool.

The educational program of this exhibition is supported by the Amsterdam 
Fund for the Arts (AFK).

Openinghours: Tuesday - Friday from 11 - 18 hrs, Saturday and the first 
Sunday of the month 13 - 18 hrs


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Netherlands Media Art Institute
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1016 EV Amsterdam
T 31 20 6237101
F 31 20 6244423
http://www.nimk.nl

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