The Future of Video Games as an Art:
On the Art of Playing with Shadows

Ellen Sandor and Janine Fron, (art)ⁿ

October 26-27, 2001

Keywords: videogames, art, photography, PHSColograms, interdisciplinary collaboration, (art)ⁿ

In 1839, William Henry Fox Talbot coined the phrase the "art of fixing a shadow" to describe his invention of the negative-positive photographic process. For more than a century, photography has been a ubiquitous part of our everyday lives, and is perhaps the most powerful visual medium of the 20th Century.

Nintendo’s Mario 64 is often cited by game industry professionals as an exceptional example of integrating gameplay with the game camera. As players move through the Mario 64 game environment, the game camera follows their every move. In essence, the game camera is the player’s shadow. At the click of a button on the controller, players can center the camera behind Mario to make observations about the game from his visual point of view. Another click rotates the camera angle, showing players panoramic views of the environment, which can also be enhanced with zoom in and zoom out features. In Mario 64 and other games, players can use the game camera to set the pace of their experience. Like photographers standing before their subjects, engaging the camera in the game world can provide players with a feeling of creative control over the game’s destiny.

More recent games, such as Nintendo’s Pokémon Snap, and The Sims by Maxis, offer players freedom to experiment with photography as a narrative tool. Pokémon Snap engages players as a Pokémon Trainer, embarking on a photo safari to capture candid shots of Pokémon characters. Collected images from each turn are rated by Professor Oak, based on a set of rules devised to teach players how to take desirable portrait photographs that are well framed, and ideally capture characters in states of spontaneous action. These snapshots can be saved in a player’s photo album and printed.

The Sims foreshadows a new kind of creative empowerment, where players can be artists, and game environments can be 21^st Century art studios. In The Sims, players have the option to capture screenshots from the game, introducing performance photography to computer games. Players can submit their family sagas and teleport their families to other players, which are also rated by most-viewed and most-downloaded categories. The photo essays and personal objects posted by this vibrant community are inspiring new directions for creating art in game worlds, and have the potential to unleash a new generation of artists.

In the 1990s, Chicago-based collective, (art)ⁿ, began producing a series of virtual portraits in collaboration with artists, animators and game designers. In the spirit of Man Ray and the Surrealists, this collection of work renders the likes of Franz K., Donkey Kong, and Killer Instinct as early virtual icons, and further documents the evolution of character animation in video games and film.

During 1994-1995, (art)ⁿ collaborated with Tim and Kevin Stamper, the highly acclaimed game designers from Rare in England, to create PHSColograms for Nintendo of Donkey Kong and Killer Instinct. These unique art objects, three-dimensional digital photographs, were produced from CGI data Rare created for both games. (art)ⁿ worked with Rare on rendering the required frames for the PHSCologram process, and determined the ideal camera position for the final art piece. The stunning results were significant in that the material for these works came from the original game artwork, and also proved that artists and game designers can create a shared, visual language.

The invitation for the 1995 exhibition included the following artists’ statement, opening a dialogue for social policy that may be relevant to some current aims of the University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center and other academic programs in the U.S. "Pop terrorism cannot exist in the absence of media; an act of terrorism is, in effect, a media event, manufactured by the disenfranchised, as much for attention as a means to an end. The slower loop of word-of-mouth communication made historical terrorism less overt, more subtle. There would be no reason to blow up an aircraft, a building, a city, if the eyes of the world were blind to the result. To the individual warrior, the world is a video game – a button is pressed on a remote control, followed by earthshaking special effects, and the score is tallied over a period of days, the loop closed by the media. It is, if you will, a form of graffiti, an act of creation – the ultimate high score list."

(art)ⁿ was formed by Ellen Sandor in 1983 with her peers from The School of the Art Institute. The original group included sculptors, a fashion photographer, holographers and video artists, and continued to evolve over the past 18 years to include computer artists. The (art)ⁿ group has also collaborated with scientists from the Scripps Research Institute, NASA, the U.S. Army, as well as animators, architects, painters, and Virtual Reality artists. (art)ⁿ is a model for successful collaboration, where works are produced as ensemble projects that require the skills and diversity of all involved to generate a rich collection of ideas, realized as a singular statement. This style of working, interdisciplinary collaboration, is one way that games may be produced as the community attracts new audiences.

In more recent years, games have caught the eye of the art community at large, opening a new channel for the future of games in art, as presented by artists using new media and museums. Austria-based Ars Electronica, for the first time in its 20-year history, awarded a 2001 Golden Nica prize to an online interactive computer game, Banja, developed by TEAMcHmAn in France. MASS MoCA presented Game Show, a 2001 exhibition and catalogue, aimed to explore how artists are using game structures in their work. The Whitney Museum of American Art presented Bitstreams and Play’s the Thing: Critical and Transgressive Practices in Contemporary Art in 2001. Bitsreams included John Haddock’s "isometric screenshots" which draw on the visual vocabulary of video games, to stage socio-political content like the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Also in 2001, SF MOMA hosted "ArtCade: exploring the relationship between Video Games and Art." This two-day event assembled artists, academics, industry pioneers, designers and technologists to discuss the dynamic between games and art.

In 2000, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki presented Alien Intelligence, which included a mosaic floor mural in the museum entrance of Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft, titled Output – 62.500 Materialized Pixels by Arno Coenen & Rene Bosma. Moderna Museet in Stockholm presented Museum Meltdown in 1999, produced by Tobias Bernstrup and Palle Torsson, artists inspired by the popular computer game Half-Life. Museum Meltdown immersed museum visitors in a virtual simulation of the Moderna Museet, with selected art objects incorporated as game targets for museum players to destroy.

In 1996, Larry Mangel, a former gallery owner founded Bozart Toys, a company in Philadelphia that produces educational children’s toys and games designed by museum-exhibiting artists and designers. The company’s web site states, "The world-renowned artists who design our toys are afforded the opportunity to reach a different audience – children – while combining learning and fun with each toy that’s created. The Bozart Toys company is a wonderful vehicle for transporting creative vision to the world." William Wegman’s ABCards use images of the photographer’s iconic Weimaraner dogs to teach children how to associate words with letters and objects. Kaleidoscope House, designed by photographer Laurie Simmons, and architect Peter Wheelwright, is an "interactive creative play environment" set in a contemporary home, with interior objects designed by leading designers. Karim Rashid recently designed an attractive, affordable chess set and backgammon game that draw inspiration from the early Modernists. Man Ray, László Moholy-Nagy and Salvador Dali also designed chess sets, crossing art with play. Other artists of note, who have used toy objects and role-playing elements to make dramatic artistic statements include Hans Bellmer, Cindy Sherman and David Leventhal.

While the arts community continues to explore games as art, and artistic statements may emerge from game players, it is important to acknowledge that there are fundamental differences between both industries. The art world seeks to find new voices, explore new ways of making art, and also includes a large number of people dedicated to education, criticism and preservation of what has been made to date. Innovation through social discourse and examining public issues are a major driving force in the art community. The game industry is mostly composed of pioneering male programmers and animators, and exists to attract an audience for the sake of commercialized entertainment. Games are big business, with products produced as unlimited editions, in which the initial monetary value of the best selling game is higher than the value of the most successful, editioned, contemporary artwork sold today. The size of the audience is significantly larger for one game than for the edition of one artwork. Yet the diversity of people working in the art world and studying art as a profession is larger than those in the game industry. There are a number of dedicated educators working to implement formal education programs for games, which may invigorate the community as a whole with fresh ideas, interest in other art forms, respect for history, and awareness of social responsibility.

In relation to cultural policy, real innovation may come from collaborative research facilitated by the art community and the game community to inquire about the very nature of play – as a social tool and as an art form. There are scores of articles written about video games and violence, yet relatively few games are dominated by violent content. The game industry draws much influence from the film industry, yet there are many other art forms, such as dance, sculpture, video art, photography, performance art, painting, literature, poetry, music and new media, that can be learned from, as well as all of the professionals and educators working in these areas. As the demand for games continues to grow, it is essential that people from all disciplines participate. If video games are to emerge as an accepted art form, we must establish channels of creativity for all voices to be heard. Collaboration skills and interdisciplinary backgrounds are new desires being voiced by game designers at conferences and in gaming literature, while artists and museums are exploring games as art. If we can open up the playing field, together we can mobilize a new literacy for understanding the world we are living in, and how it will be remembered, and maybe even, construct a better virtual playground for future generations to express new hopes and dreams.

Ellen Sandor, Director

Janine Fron, Creative Director

(art)ⁿ

847 W. Jackson Blvd., 6^th Floor

Chicago, IL 60610 USA

312.432.1870 voice

312.432.1850 fax

artn@artn.com email

www.artn.com web

References

On The Art of Fixing a Shadow: 150 Years of Photography, National Gallery of Art

http://www.msnbc.com/news/622389.asp

Nintendo: http://www.nintendo.com/

Man Ray: http://www.icp.org/exhibitions/man_ray/index.html

Rare Ltd.: http://www.rareware.com/

Igrams: http://www.artn.com/igrams.html

Electronic Visualization Laboratory at University of Illinois at Chicago: http://www.evl.uic.edu/

"Gamers Score at Arts Festival", Steve Kettmann, Wired, September 7, 2001

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,46598,00.html

Game Show, MASS MoCA: http://www.massmoca.org/visual_arts/index.html#gameshow

Whitney Museum of American Art: http://www.whitney.org/

Alien Intelligence, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art

John Haddock’s Isometric Screenshots: http://whitelead.com/jrh/screenshots/index.html

"Once It Was Atari, Now It’s Art", Kendra Mayfield, Wired, July 19, 2001

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,45146,00.html

Museum Meltdown, Moderna Museet

http://www.modernamuseet.se/eng/utstallningar/35_page1_eng.html

Cindy Sherman: http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/sherman/

"David Leventhal’s dollhouse history", Christopher Benfey, February 19, 1997, Slate.com

The Sandor Family Collection: http://www.sandor-collection.com/

Bios

Ellen Sandor, an MFA graduate from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, is the founding artist and director of (art)ⁿ. In 1983, in Chicago, she produced the first large scale, digitally immersive environment entitled PHSCologram '83. This compelling installation opened a dialogue in new media circles for what would later become known in the digital era as 'Virtual Reality.' For, Sandor's work not only catalyzed the evolution of photographic documentation into time-based environments, it sketched the potential for fine arts applications of virtual reality. Ellen Sandor is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of Art & Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has co-authored juried papers and lectured by invitation in Europe, Canada and the United States.

(art)ⁿ, is Ellen Sandor's Chicago-based collaborative group of artists who are dedicated to the aesthetic pursuits of imaging art, science and technology. (art)ⁿ's works were first shown at SIGGRAPH in 1985. (art)ⁿ is currently comprised of Ellen Sandor, Fernando Orellana, Pete Latrofa, Keith Miller and Janine Fron. (art)ⁿ collaborates with outside artists and scientists including Chuck Csuri, Chris Landreth, Ed Paschke, Karl Wirsum, Miroslaw Rogala, Thomas McLeish, NASA, and the Scripps Research Institute. These interdisciplinary collaborations have spawned a body of work, which is unparalleled for its pioneering aesthetic and historical importance. Commissioned installations for 2001 include "Battle of Midway Memorial" for Midway Airport in Chicago.

(art)ⁿ is represented in public and private art collections including the International Center of Photography, Smithsonian Institution, The Art Institute of Chicago, Fred Jones Jr. Museum, Musée Carnavalet Paris, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Museum of Jewish Heritage and others. 2000-2001 exhibitions include "Chorus of Light: Photographs from the Sir Elton John Collection", High Museum of Art, Atlanta, "The Print Biennale", Brooklyn Museum of Art, N-Space Gallery, SIGGRAPH 2001 Los Angeles, "HIFA 2000", National Gallery of Zimbabwe, and "Paris En 3D", Musée Carnavalet Paris.

PHSCologram® is a trademark of (art)ⁿ. U.S. Patent Numbers: 5,113,213, RE: 35, 029, and 5, 519, 794.