BoingBoing reader Alex Steffen points us to a new exhibition opening in January at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Jan 17–Apr 4, 2004:
In conjunction with the Stanford Humanities Laboratory and the Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, the Center presents an exhibition that addresses the pervasive influence of video game culture. The program explores a variety of subject areas, from the evolution of the game and its roots in military training applications to its contemporary features and cross-fertilization with artistic endeavors. Among the anticipated projects included in the exhibition are: an interactive lemon tree-powered hand held games by acclaimed artist and graphic designer, Amy Franceschini; renderings of historic events in the isometric perspective of video games by John Haddock; and a curated show in a virtual Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in The Sims Online created by Katherine Isbister/Rainey Straus. Also on display is an interactive video game created by the youth from YBCA's education program, Young Artists at Work. An exhibition plug-in by KOP, Game Commons, will accompany the exhibition.
Update: BoingBoing reader Seth claims the exhibition's title is a case of unfair name-poaching:
Just a bitchy complaint to say that the title of this art exhibition poaches directly the name of a preexisting documentary film on Street Fighter videogame players (which was at SXSW, Sundance, etc. about 2 years ago). The film's producer (my friend Peter Kang) has been inundated by emails and calls asking whether the film (understandably very popular with gamers at festivals, but not yet in full release due to music licensing issues, and therefore more tantalizingly difficult to see) is playing at this show, to which it has no connection at all.
The Center seems to have poached the name. Even among hardcore players given to obscurantism and inbred slang, this phrase is (or was, pre-documentary) totally obscure. The festival organizers ignored totally repeated attempts by Peter (who ran the fabulously successful boutique design co. Kioken, and is too nice/busy to think about really pushing them, though he is understandably really upset- he's got a very expensive property which they're obfuscating) to at least clarify the situation, before finally responding to say "We came up with it on our own" (???- seems uncontroversially a reference to *something*) and "it refers to pinball". The "pinball" followup at least makes the "we came up with it on our own" sound remotely plausible, though in fact those answers (from the same person) are simply mutually exclusive. Further "pinball" is a pretty implausible inspiration for a naming a show that has no connection whatsoever to pinball. Like most arts center people trying to stay on top of the ever-cresting wave of cool, they probably asked someone whom they adjudged "hip", who coughed up the last sexy-sounding game-related phrase they'd heard. And even if they had somehow come upon this themselves, it doesn't seem really to matter- there's still the copyright stemming from the creation of a known property. I guess being an arts center means you're free to give actual artists the finger?
