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Via Edge

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Passage

The Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) last week announced that it is bolstering its collection of work with 14 videogames, and plans to acquire a further 26 over the next few years. And that’s just for starters. The games will join the likes of Hector Guimard’s Paris Metro entrances, the Rubik’s Cube, M&Ms and Apple’s first iPod in the museum’s Architecture & Design department.

The move recognises the design achievements behind each creation, of course, but despite MoMA’s savvy curatorial decision, the institution risks becoming a catalyst for yet another wave of awkward ‘are games art?’ blog posts. And it doesn’t exactly go out of its way to avoid that particular quagmire in the official announcement.

“Are video games art? They sure are,” it begins, worryingly, before switching to a more considered tack, “but they are also design, and a design approach is what we chose for this new foray into this universe. The games are selected as outstanding examples of interaction design — a field that MoMA has already explored and collected extensively, and one of the most important and oft-discussed expressions of contemporary design creativity.”

Jason Rohrer

MoMA worked with scholars, digital conservation and legal experts, historians and critics to come up with its criteria and final list of games, and among the yardsticks the museum looked at for inclusion are the visual quality and aesthetic experience of each game, the ways in which the game manipulates or stimulates player behaviour, and even the elegance of its code.

That initial list of 14 games makes for convincing reading, too: Pac-Man, Tetris, Another World, Myst, SimCity 2000, Vib-Ribbon, The Sims, Katamari Damacy, Eve Online, Dwarf Fortress, Portal, flOw, Passage and Canabalt.

But the wishlist also extends to Spacewar!, a selection of Magnavox Odyssey games, Pong, Snake, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Zork, Tempest, Donkey Kong, Yars’ Revenge, M.U.L.E, Core War, Marble Madness, Super Mario Bros, The Legend Of Zelda, NetHack, Street Fighter II, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario 64, Grim Fandango, Animal Crossing, and, of course, Minecraft.

Art, design or otherwise, MoMA’s focused collection is an uncommonly informed and well-considered list. And their inclusion within MoMA’s hallowed walls, and the recognition of their cultural and historical relevance that is implied, is certainly a boon for videogames on the whole. But reactions to the move have been mixed. The Guardian’s Jonathan Jones posted a blog last week titled Sorry MoMA, Videogames Are Not Art, in which he suggests that exhibiting Pac-Man and Tetris alongside work by Picasso and Van Gogh will mean “game over for any real understanding of art”.

Canabalt

“The worlds created by electronic games are more like playgrounds where experience is created by the interaction between a player and a programme,” he writes. “The player cannot claim to impose a personal vision of life on the game, while the creator of the game has ceded that responsibility. No one ‘owns’ the game, so there is no artist, and therefore no work of art.”

While he clearly misunderstands the capacity of a game to manifest the personal – and singular – vision of its creator, he nonetheless raises valid fears that the creative motivations behind many videogames’ – predominantly commercially-driven entertainment – are incompatible with those of serious art and that their inclusion in established museums risks muddying its definition. But while many commentators have fallen into the same trap of invoking comparisons with cubist and impressionist painters, MoMA has drawn no such parallels.

“We have to keep in mind it’s the design collection that is snapping up video games,” Passage creator Jason Rorher tells us when we put the question to him. “This is the same collection that houses Lego, teapots, and barstools. I’m happy with that, because I primarily think of myself as a designer. But sadly, even the mightiest games in this acquisition look silly when stood up next to serious works of art. I mean what’s the artistic payload of, Passage? ‘You’re gonna die someday.’ You can’t find a sentiment that’s more artistically worn out than that.”

Adam Saltsman

But while he doesn’t see these games’ inclusion as a significant landmark – in fact, he even raises concerns over bandwagon-hopping – he’s still elated to have been included.

“I’m shocked to see my little game standing there next to landmarks like Pac-Man, Tetris, Another World, and… all of them really, all the way up to Canabalt,” he says. “The most pleasing aspect of it, for me, is that something I have made will be preserved and maintained into the future, after I croak. The ephemeral nature of digital-download video games has always worried me. Heck, the Mac version of Passage has already been broken by Apple’s updates, and it’s only been five years!”

Talking of Canabalt, creator Adam Saltsman echoes Rohrer’s sentiment: “Obviously it is a pretty huge honour, but I think it’s also important to note that these selections are part of the design wing of the museum, so Tetris won’t exactly be right next to Dali or Picasso! That doesn’t really diminish the excitement for me though. The MoMA is an incredible institution, and to have my work selected for archival alongside obvious masterpieces like Tetris is pretty overwhelming. “

MoMA’s not the only art institution with an interest in videogames, of course. The Smithsonian American Art Museum ran an exhibition titled The Art of Video Games earlier this year, while the Barbican has put its weight behind all manner of events, including 2002?s The History, Culture and Future of Computer Games, Ear Candy: Video Game Music, and the touring Game On exhibition.

Eve Online

Chris Melissinos, who was one of the guest curators who put the Smithsonian exhibition together and subsequently acted as an adviser to MoMA as it selected its list, doesn’t think such interest is damaging to art, or indeed a sign of out-of-step institutions jumping on the bandwagon. It’s simply, he believes, a reaction to today’s culture.

“This decision indicates that videogames have become an important cultural, artistic form of expression in society,” he told the Independent. “It could become one of the most important forms of artistic expression. People who apply themselves to the craft view themselves as [artists], because they absolutely are. This is an amalgam of many traditional forms of art.”

Of the initial selection, Eve is arguably the most ambitious, and potentially divisive, selection, but perhaps also the best placed to challenge Jones’ predispositions on experiential ownership and creative limitation. It is, after all, renowned for its vociferous, self-governing player community.

“Eve’s been around for close to a decade, is still growing, and through its lifetime has won several awards and achievements, but being acquired into the permanent collection of a world leading contemporary art and design museum is a tremendous honour for us,” Eve Online creative director Torfi Frans Ólafsson tells us. “Eve is born out of a strong ideology of player empowerment and sandbox openness, which especially in our earlier days was often at the cost of accessibility and mainstream appeal.

Torfi Frans Ólafsson

“Sitting up there along with industrial design like the original iPod, and fancy, unergonomic lemon presses tells us that we were right to stand by our convictions, so in that sense, it’s somewhat of a vindication of our efforts.”

But how do you present an entire universe to an audience that is likely to spend a few short minutes looking at each exhibit? Developer CCP is turning to its many players for help.

“We’ve decided to capture a single day of Eve: Sunday the 9th of December,” explains Ólafsson. “Through a variety of player made videos, CCP videos, massive data analysis and info graphics.”

In presenting Eve in this way, CCP and the games players are collaborating on a strong, coherent vision of the alternative reality they’ve collectively helped to build, and more importantly, reinforcing and redefining the notion of authorship. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an apologist for videogames’ entitlement to the status of art, or someone who appreciates the aesthetics of their design, the important thing here is that their cultural importance is recognised. Sure, the notion of a game exhibit that doesn’t include gameplay might stick in the craw of some, but MoMA’s interest is clearly broader. Ólafsson isn’t too worried, either.

“Even if we don’t fully succeed in making the 3.5 million people that visit the MoMA every year visually grok the entire universe in those few minutes they might spend checking Eve out, I can promise you it sure will look pretty there on the wall.”

Personal Comments:

Passage is still available here, a game developed during Gamma256.

Canabalt is available here, while mobile versions are available for few bucks (android, iOS).