The Art of Online Gaming
by Kim Gurney
A new stream of contemporary art practice that creates computer games as artworks is challenging accepted notions of what constitutes 'art', according to two of its leading proponents. Artists Honor Harger, webcasting curator at London's Tate Modern (www.tate.org/modern/audiovideo), and Adam Hyde, a software developer, told a Cape Town audience recently that artists were beginning to develop computer software and hardware as creative tools.
Speaking at the South African Museum, Harger said: "Artists are creating software that does not make sense as a tool until it is used. Interaction is required between the author's idea and the user - and that interaction is the actual artwork." She added: "This is changing the notion of what art can be. The traditional relationship [between artist and viewer] is deconstructed by positioning the audience as participant."
Most artworks in this fast-growing genre are satirical re-workings of existing computer games and programmes. They often have a political dimension and a biting social message. For example, the Antiwar Game (www.antiwargame.org) by New Zealander Josh On (a speaker at last year's 2002 Design Indaba) could not have been discussed at a more appropriate time. Harger and Hyde demonstrated the game's exploration of the US attack on Iraq - on the very day that the war in real life began.
Another game, called Blacklash (www.mongrelx.org), is a remake of the original arcade game Backlash. But instead of fighting aliens, the user shoots down racism in the streets of London. In other examples, artists also used the code or actual programming language itself as a medium for creative exploration.
Harger said such New Media art was breaking the mould of traditional art practice - not only by its content but also by its modes of production, delivery and the whole creation process. She added: "Games by New Media artists can question the traditional relationships formed around computer games to subvert and re-interpret them."
New Media artists are by necessity part technicians and the whole genre therefore also questions the relationship between artists and technology. Gaming is now one of the highest grossing entertainment industries and a key form of cultural production, Harger said. As such, this genre is likely to become a burgeoning art form.
Cape Town will in July play host to an exhibition - called 'Replay' - of New Media artworks that further explore this important development in art. The exhibition venue is still undecided, but the idea is to create a context for South African audiences to engage with recent New Media artworks produced in the UK and elsewhere and to explore how play, interaction and competition can be used in an artistic context.
South Africans are by no means lagging behind in this medium - see our featured new WEBSITES of the month. For further international examples, visit:
artcontext.com/act/97/space: Space Invaders Act, by American artist Andy Deck, is about the corporate takeover of public space in the US;
www.triggerhappy.org: This game, by UK artists Thompson & Craighead, offers another reinterpretation of the classic Space Invaders arcade game.
