Even just the videogame »buzz« (that has continued uninterrupted over the last five years) would have been a good reason to push the monumental Asturian institution »Laboral« (dealing with art, science and technology) to invest some resources in the field. But what they have done, under the inspiringly resolute direction of former Arco director Rosina Gómez-Baeza Tinturé, is to develop a trilogy of exhibitions complemented by a full program of conferences, lectures and workshops. The impressive result is that a large portion of the intersections between art and videogames has been hosted in Gijon during the last year. »Gameworld« was the first, and was also one of the four different exhibitions hosted for the official Laboral opening. Curated by Carl Goodman (American Museum of the Moving Image) and Daphne Dragona, (Mediaterrae festival), it boasted forty artists and game designers divided into four categories: »Digital Game Canon« (games that were historical milestones), »Games Recoded« and »Experimental Gameplay« (art and videogame), and »World/Game«(game representation and simulation). »Playware« was the second exhibition, defined as an »expansion pack« (the typical additional software that lets you add new content and/or functionalities to the original game), and it was curated by Carl Goodman again and Gerfried Stocker (Ars Electronica artistic director). In the end, it really seemed like an expansion pack, focusing on the form and interface of games in a genuine aesthetic perspective. Last but definitively not least is the current »Homo Ludens Ludens«, curated by Erich Berger, Daphne Dragona (again) and Laura Baigorri. This final act seems to represent the summa of the discourse initiated one year ago. Trying to capture the ineffable essence of playing in front of retro-illuminated screens, here the works compose an intricate composition of interface exploitation, virtual/real ambivalence, rules and preconception misuse, and scientific scrutiny of players’ behaviors. Visitors face different meaningful signals testing the different exhibited works. One of the most intriguing was »Objects of Desire« by Ludic Society. Once you entered the game philosophy it was truly destabilizing to feel literally surrounded by objects easily identifiable in reality, which were commanding tasks to accomplish in order to raise your score. This strange establishing relationship with innovative rules makes it a spatial conceptual game with enthralling stratified levels. France Cadet’s »SweetPad« was disturbing as well. By slowly and carefully caressing an alien black rubber hemisphere, you control a fast and furious character inside the classic shoot-’em-up game »Quake 3 Arena«. It’s a hardcore emotional reverse-engineered interface that was really able to mesmerize visitors through a psychological challenge, just as the famous and celebrated Painstation did on a more physical and opposite level (facing pain and blood after playing an innocent ping-pong game). The »danger« in the games became almost metaphorical in Molleindustria’s »Faith Fighting«. A classic fight game can be played with players impersonating one of the most popular religious icons (God, Jesus Christ, Prophet Muhammad, Buddha, Budai or Ganesha) against one of the others. This weird identity playing includes a censored version for Islam-sensitive players and an irresistible drum’n’bass soundtrack. Space and artificial presence are also the core of Julian Oliver’s »levelHead«. Moving a few physical cubes in a restricted area makes a silhouette move inside the connected augmented-reality rooms, seamlessly calculated inside the same cubes. It’s a VR abstract space game that affects the visitor taking care of the little figure walking around only in the screen projection, as a sort of amplified mirror.
A different room was reserved for some of the most interesting documentaries (or works that actually document playing gestures, attitudes and contexts). The already classic »8 Bit« by Martin Ramocky and Justin Strawhand, appropriately surveying the videogame art scene and interviewing the protagonists with a critical approach. Ge Jin’s »Gold Farmers« attracts a lot of interest because of its unique ability to enter real Chinese multiplayer »gold farmers« and interview the workers. The reality pictured is poetically scary, with people constantly switching back and forth, finding themselves on the edge between reality and the screen, but determined as well to share passion and playful attitudes outside of their claustrophobic working environments. Finally Denny Ledonne’s »Playing Columbine: a true story of videogame controversy« testified to how far a videogame can be judged as something dangerous by different sectors of society, and hence how controversial it can be.
This two-pronged investigation (works on one side and documentaries on the other) allows visitors to the exhibition to experience related artworks and contextualize them in the broader framework of artists’ specific and personal perspectives. The meaningful playing activity (both instinctual and deeply involving our primary senses) has been mediated at a new unknown level by the finest videogame industry and then by a remarkable number of digital artists. Its role is very important in terms of contemporaneity, pushing our senses to perceive and adapt to different and simultaneous stimuli, culturally overlapping and intertwined, and this exhibition succeeds in reflecting this. Furthermore the exhibition reflects the videogame attitude of embodying a paradigm for the representation of reality dynamics and contemporary life at large. Artists work to implement the interaction factor in abstract simulations through workarounds for perceptual limitations. Their grammar has already started to become an Esperanto for dealing with conflicts and relationships. The visitor’s gestures, sense mash-up and coordination testing have an active impact on the database of sense and engagements that is constantly developing in the exhibition space.
http://www.laboralcentrodearte.org/exhibitions/show/64