Since their inception, computers have served as engines of play. Many of the earliest computer games were programmed by researchers and scientists for the stated purpose of technological inquiry. The desire to create an engaging (and yes, fun) experience complimented rather than contradicted their more ambitious aims. In the past decade, the increasingly sophisticated simulation, media processing, and networking capabilities of computers, and the development of new, intuitive interfaces, have spurred the introduction of new types of play. Accompanying these developments is a resurgence of interest in the study and theory of play, and an increased awareness of play’s vital function in culture, learning, and the creative industries.
Playware presents the work of artists, designers, and engineers who are probing the limits and expanding the possibilities of digitally-mediated play. The exhibition establishes a continuum between two types of works:
1) ‘multiplayer’ interactive art installations that explore, often in the form of a game, new methods of playful interaction with digital information
2) ‘art game’ software made for everyday computers and gaming systems that differ from their more commercial siblings in their use of abstract, whimsical, or surreal animated environments.
With both types of work, open-ended and collaborative play is emphasized. Players are often engaged as creators –whether composers, painters, or animators– as an integral element of the experience. Lastly, the works’ minimalist approach to graphics and storytelling reveals their underlying mechanisms of digital play, allowing them to become objects of creative, playful investigation.
An exhibition curated by Ars Electronica Linz and Museum of the Moving Image
Projects
Art Games
Armadillo Run (Peter Stock), Electroplankton (Toshio Iwai), flOw (thatgamecompany), Golf? (Chronic Logic, Detective Brand), Line Rider (Boštjan Cadež), LocoRoco (Tsutomu Kuono), mono (Binary Zoo), Neon (Jeff Minter), Okami (Clover Studios), Rez (United Game Artists), Shift (Max McGuire), Toribash (Hampa Söderström), vib-ribbon (NanaOn-Sha)
Multiplayer Digital Art Installations
Bump (Assocreation), Freqtric Project (Tetsuaki Baba), Iamascope (Sidney Fels), Jam-o-Drum CircleMaze (Clifton Forlines & Tina Blaine), Metafi eld Maze (Bill Keays), Perfect Time (h.o), PingPongPlus (Hiroshi Ishii & Members of the Tangible Media Group), Reactable (Sergi Jordà & Grupo de Tecnología Musical de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Small Fish (Masaki Fujihata, Wolfgang Münch, Kiyoshi Furukawa),
Tug of War (Ars Electronica FutureLab)
