Should video games be considered art?

Jeffrey R. Young, contributor

Visitors to the exhibition can play a giant game of Super Mario Brothers (Image: Nintendo of America)

Masterpiece Mario, a new exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, elevates Pac-Man and other beloved games to high art

DO VIDEO games count as art? The cultural stronghold of gaming - now a $25 billion industry - is undisputed, but the earliest game creators saw themselves primarily as computer programmers or engineers. And those among them who do see their work as art are seldom exhibiting on the gallery circuit.

An exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC may change that. The pixelated realms first brought to life in dark corners of convenience stores, pubs and bowling alleys are now on display in the same building as works by artists such as Georgia O'Keeffe and John Singer Sargent.

In The Art of Video Games, museumgoers can admire images from 80 of the most aesthetically ambitious games in the industry's 40-year history. Those wishing for a fuller gaming experience can play 3-metre-high projections of Pac-Man or Super Mario Brothers.

The exhibition may mark a turning point. "The art world has never figured out how to deal with interactive work," says Ian Bogost, a video-game designer and author of Persuasive Games: The expressive power of videogames. "While you have lots of exhibits that use game technology, they're not games as such." He sidesteps the question of whether video games should be considered art, arguing instead that the medium is akin to fiction writing or cinema - some works earn the distinction of art, whereas others are simply meant as popular entertainment.

Curator Chris Melissinos, former chief gaming officer for Sun Microsystems, says that the growth and innovation in video games elevates them in public perception. "I think that's important to anyone who's ever been in their bedroom writing code or designing games and helped to get a message to the world." For the exhibition, he selected a pool of games and then the final cut was made by more than 100,000 online voters.

On the opening weekend, visitors to the exhibition sounded as though they were looking through old photo albums. "I used to build these beautiful cities," one person said before a display on SimCity. Museum director Elizabeth Broun says it is this interaction that sets games apart: "The great thing about video games is that the player completes the artwork."

Twelve-year-old Josh Scott said his favourite game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, is both "really fun" and a work of art. "It's a masterpiece."

The Art of Video Games, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC, until 30 September

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