In collaboration with Associate Professor Manthos Santorinaios and the “MA in Art and Virtual Reality” of the Athens School of Fine Arts and Université Paris 8. “Enter the Game” is an artistic approach to the world of gaming and an allegory on space, seen through the perspective of virtual reality – the space of thought, the space of the human body, the space of memories, emotions and perception. The art works / games, take place within a hybrid space, between the real and the virtual. The event is part of The Art - Science - Technology Festival:
“Are you a Gamer; Change the World!”
The Art - Science - Technology Festival is a new project by Helexpo, presented within the 81st Thessaloniki International Fair, in the context of the European programme “Artecitya. Envisioning the City of Tomorrow (2014-2018)”.
Artecitya is a collaboration between 9 cultural institutions from 7 European countries (France, Germany, Slovenia, Poland, Cyprus, Czech Republic and Greece), co-funded by the Creative Europe - Culture programme of the European Union. Artecitya's main goal is to bring together artists, architects, town planners and citizens to re-create the cities we want to live in. The priority is to stimulate a vigorously innovative approach to the concept of urban life taking into account the sociological evolution and people's needs.
Helexpo ventures a new approach to the Artecitya idea, focusing on the relationship between art, science and technology, particularly on the investigation of the possibilities for social change that are embedded into all three fields. The inspiration behind this approach has been the greatly successful E-Gaming Festival organised by Helexpo since 2012, largely attended by mostly young audiences.
According to Jane McGonigal (Institute for the Future, Director of Games Research and Development) gaming can contribute to the creation of a better world, because of the special skills (superpowers as she calls them) that gamers develop: urgent optimism – belief into an immediate positive result that can be succeeded thanks to the action of the gamer; social fabric – individual players become communities that work together towards a common goal; blissful productivity – belief into hard work, endeavour and perseverance; and epic meaning – the search for an epic win. With these skills, the solution of complex, urgent problems looks feasible!
Moreover, through applications such as e-gaming or virtual and augmented reality, our perception of space and time expands, it becomes shifting and intermittent. The city –either as community (present) or as scenography (dystopic future or medieval past)– becomes versatile and flowing depending on the Gamer’s actions and movements.
Typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) are often applied to other areas of activity, typically as online marketing technique, to encourage engagement with a product or service (gamification). In the same manner, the use of such elements may be used for the reinforcement of the feeling of community among people from different backgrounds, the solution of social problems and the embracing of a healthier, sustainable way of life.
