A new exhibition at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center explores an oft overlooked art form: video games.
Game Theory
Open World at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center takes video games seriously as art, tracing an eighty-year history that runs from Bell Labs and Rauschenberg to a new generation of artists who grew up with a controller in hand.
VIDEO GAMES HAVE come a long way from the stand-up arcade mainstays of the 80s like Pac-Man and Space Invaders. Now, gaming happens on every type of device imaginable, allowing more than 166 million Americans to play video games at home or on the go (not to mention the 744 million gamers in China, where professional gaming leagues have taken the country by storm.)
So it makes sense that an art curator finally decided to take a deep dive into video games in art. This exhibition, Open World, opened on October 21 at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center in Oklahoma City after its inaugural run at the Akron Museum of Art.
Fine art and video games might seem like odd bedfellows. But, says the show’s curator, Theresa Bembnister, it is a combination that has become a hotbed of artistic experimentation. “The artists in Open World reference some of the most beloved video game franchises, including Super Mario Bros., Pokémon, and The Legend of Zelda,” Bembnister says in a press release. “Their work draws attention to the rich opportunities video games offer for creative expression.”
It may be surprising to learn that video games have a more than eighty-year history. And in that time, many generations of artists have been inspired by and attracted to this ever evolving and cutting-edge pastime.
Since video games are highly dependent on technology, many of the artworks in the show were created with high-tech equipment like LED screens and modern industrial materials. Others, meanwhile, were made with materials as simple as paint and paper.
And even though video games might first conjure up visions of slacker kids killing time and having a few laughs, Carina Evangelista, the director of curatorial affairs at Oklahoma Contemporary, says the show has a more serious connection to our time. “This exhibition has proven to be quite timely in showcasing contemporary art that speaks to the culture of video games since the protracted time of the pandemic has made us live through the digital world so as not to lose connection to the outside world,” she says.
The roots of the intermingling of video games and fine art can be traced to the 1960s when technology think tank Bell Laboratories started its artist-collaboration program. At the time, Bell produced a range of experimental artworks, including pieces created through the famed art non-profit Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT), co-conceived by international art star Robert Rauschenberg and Bell’s Billy Klüver. After the arcade boom of the 1970s and the advent of home video-game equipment in the 1980s, video games became much more accessible, influencing generations of artists from Bill Viola and Cory Arcangel to Brooklyn-based multimedia artist Rachel Rossin.
“I’ve been making art since I was a toddler,” Rossin says, “but because I started playing video games and using computers from age five, I can’t help but see the world through that lens.” But, Rossin adds, every generation has a unique connection to gaming as the technology changes so quickly. “I grew up in a relatively small sliver of time where technology didn’t present itself as the black box that it does now,” she says. “[Back then], it was easy to hack into programs and expose the source code, easy enough for an eight-year-old. So, that space is a really important source for my new-media work.”
Boasting the works of a multigenerational group of artists, Open World references a broad cross section of games, ranging from early-text adventure and arcade games to modern multiplayer online role-playing games—one of the first exhibitions of its kind in the U.S. When asked what a show like Open World offers, Evangelista echoes the show’s curatorial concept. “It provides audiences with expanded notions about both contemporary art and video-game technology,” she says. “And from an education standpoint, it illustrates how wide-ranging, in fact, these options are for creative impulses.”
Open World, organized by the Akron Art Museum, is on view at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center through January 22, 2022. oklahomacontemporary.org
