Game Art – Assassins Creed
The prevalence of video games in the modern society has made them as the expressive medium of those who have an inclination towards video games. Video games have attracted phenomenal artistic talents since the arrival of the very first video game at home forty years ago. A combination of traditional forms of art such as painting, sculpture, writing, music, cinematography, storytelling – artists are offered by video games a then unprecedented way of engaging and communicating with the audience. The Arts of Video Games exhibition has provided artists with the opportunity to express themselves regarding their understanding about video games.
This exhibition at the Smithsonian is the first among the exhibitions which explore video games’ evolution during its forty years of existence in the form of traditional art. The exhibition focuses on the creative utility of innovative technologies and brilliant visual effects. The Art of Video Games exhibition features most of the influential designers and artists during the gaming technology’s five eras, from the early pioneers to those temporary designers. The focus of the exhibition includes graphics interplay, storytelling ad technology through the best video games for 20 gaming systems that range from Atari VCS to PlayStation 3. The evolution of video games was demonstrated through the eighty games which were selected for the exhibition with the public’s assistance. Video footages and still images were the mode of presentation of games in the exhibition. Other features of the Art of Video Games exhibition include screen shots of the games in large prints, celebrated gaming consoles and video interviews of 20 artists and developers. The exhibition’s curator is Chris Melissinos, a gaming system and video games collector and Past Pixels founder.
Artists who showcased their works at the exhibition have a wide array of tools from which to develop their piece which include improvements in software and hardware, and the Internet’s humble beginning. The elements of the common gameplay can also be recognized in the entire exhibition. Each gaming technology’s era features a game which displays how gamers interact with different virtual worlds which highlights the innovative standards from which the standard of the video games are set. The playable video games include Super Mario Bros., pac-Man, Flower, Myst and The Secret of Monkey Island.
The general public was invited by the Smithsonian art museum to assist in selecting the games which are to be showcased at the exhibition. The curator of the exhibition, Chris Melissinos is the one who selected the 240 video games included in the ballot. He worked with an advisory unit consisting of designers, game developers, journalists and industry pioneers in order to come up with the final games to be showcased at the exhibition. The criteria for selecting the games include visual effects, how they fit in the exhibition’s narrative and creative utility of novel technologies. The number of votes casted is almost 4 million which came from 119,000 people from 175 countries around the world. This exhibition is a great manifestation of the great journey of the video games world since its beginning forty years ago.
