http://www.lagunaartmuseum.org/Current-Exhibit.htmlThis exhibit of Warcraft-inspired art at the Laguna Art Museum perked my interest as it raises questions of how digital media branding can be recast as art. Blizzard is based in Irvine, and this exhibit underscores how Cultural Studies has reshaped (obliterated?) former definitions of art. I wonder where the advertisement ends and the art begins-but I am no art historian. Notice that Alexander Galloway is listed as one of the artists.
I took this from the website for those who don't want to open another tab:
Fourteen international artists were selected to consider this movement. These works look at elements of desire, the collapse of fantasy, medievalism, creative critiques, and public intervention. Artists in this exhibition take on the visual marker of Worldof Warcraft® to consider, implications of gaming, and their greater impact on our culture. In addition to the works of these artists, fan art and the growing culture of machinima (computer animation that uses the graphic engines from video games) will be explored in this exhibition.
Gaming is a movement that encompasses a large population and holds the potential to greatly impact society. Jane McGonigal, a game designer and researcher, states, "This is a new generation of hard-core gamers, and what they're doing is generating unprecedented participation bandwidth. They are donating more cognitive cycles, more heart share to game worlds and virtual worlds than we've seen dedicated to any project before." The artists in this exhibition have extended these concerns.
I'm also curious if anybody knows what "cognitive cycles" and "Heart share" are? Are these new forms of quantifying participation in digital culture?
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting thing for me was your sentence "for those who don't want to open a new tab". Was this working with the assumption that opening a new tab is a nuissance/too much work?
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