Videogames and Art

Grethe Mitchell is a writer/researcher and Reader in Digital and New Media at the University of Lincoln, UK. She has a long standing interest in videogames and the relationship of these to other cultural artefacts and outputs. She has collaborated with Andy Clarke on numerous papers and presentations on videogames and videogame art, including public lectures at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and at La Villette Numérique: Biennale of Digital Art, in Paris. Her continuing research involvement in this area included recently leading the development of an innovative movement-based computer game for children using the Kinect, as part of a two-year AHRC grant-funded project on children’s games and play cultures – and subsequently leading a further grant-funded project looking at the various ways in which movement is captured, analysed, documented and re-presented within the Arts and Humanities.Andy Clarke is a writer and unaffiliated researcher. He has collaborated on numerous papers on video games and video game art, as well as on other topics. He is an authority on video game art and has been invited to speak on this subject at the Bienniale of Digital Art at La Villette in Paris ('La Villette Numerique' 2002) and at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (2006). He maintains a wide range of academic interests and is Co-Founder of COSIGN, using this unique series of cross-disciplinary conferences to establish and develop the field of computational semiotics. In the art thread of these conferences, he has exhibited numerous examples of video game art, including those by Brody Condon and others.

• Introduction – Grethe Mitchell and Andy ClarkeSection I: OverviewsFrom Appropriation to Approximation – Axel StockburgerMeltdown – Rebecca CannonVideogames as Literary Devices – Jim AndrewsHigh-Performance Play: The Making of Machinima – Henry Lowood“Cracking the Maze”: Curator’s Note – Anne-Marie SchleinerSection II: Artists on ArtTwo Interviews with Brody Condon – Andy ClarkeIn Conversation Fall 2003 and Spring 2012: Interviews with Joseph Delappe – Jon WinetFigures in a Landscape: In Conversation with Gibson/Martelli (igloo) – Grethe MitchellThe Idea of Doing Nothing: An Interview with Tobias Bernstrup – Francis HungerStaying in to Play: The Works of John Paul Bichard – John Paul BichardAn Interview with Eddo Stern – Andy Clarke and Grethe MitchellThe Isometric Museum: The Sim Gallery Online Project (an interview with Curators Katherine Isbister and Rainey Straus) – Jane PinckardThe Evolution of a GBA Artist (2004) – Paul CataneseFrom Fictional Videogame Stills to Time Travelling with Rosalind Brodsky, 1991–2005 – Suzanne TreisterVirtual Retrofit (or What Makes Computer Gaming So Damn Racy?) – M.A. GreensteinPerspective Engines: An Interview with JODI – Francis HungerHow Independent Game Development looked in 2002 (an interview with Julian Oliver and Kipper) – Melanie SwalwellMedieval Unreality: Initiating an Artistic Discourse on Albania’s Blood Feud by Editing a First-Person Shooter Game – Nina Czegledy and Maia EngeliSection III: Games and other Art FormsShould Videogames Be Viewed as Art? – Brett MartinSome Notes on Aesthetics in Japanese Videogames – William HuberThe Computer as a Dollhouse (excerpts) – Tobey CrockettNetworking Power: Videogame Structure from Concept Art – Laurie TaylorFan Art as a Function of Agency in Oddworld Fan Culture – Gareth Schott and Andrew BurnWill Computer Games Ever Be a Legitimate Art Form? – Ernest W. Adams Notes on Contributors and Artists

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