Event: The Game Worlds of Jason Rohrer (February 10, 2016 - June 2016, Davis Museum at Wellesley College, United States)
From the press release:
On February 10, 2016, the Davis Museum at Wellesley College will present The Game Worlds of Jason Rohrer, an exhibition that invites visitors to experience video games as art. The exhibition—the first known instance of art museum presenting a solo exhibition to a video game maker—tells the comprehensive story of Jason Rohrer and his collective creations. It will feature fifteen of the video game creator’s finished games alongside sketches, ephemera, and other related materials. In addition, the exhibition will provide six separate stations with laptops for visitors to experience games featured in the exhibition. Four games will be highlighted with large, experiential build-outs.Inside a Star Filled Sky: A game for one player. There is a complete world inside every enemy and power-up that the player encounters in the game, forming a branching, infinite tree of worlds that goes all the way down and all the way up.Sky 2 Primrose: Elegant and deceptively simple, Primrose is Rohrer’s contribution to the puzzlegame genre. Diamond Trust of London: A game about deception played between two players, each controlling a diamond trading company. Cordial Minuet A two-player online strategy game, based on the principles of medieval black magic, which must be played for real money. The Game Worlds of Jason Rohrer is support
A maker of visually elegant and conceptually intricate games, Jason Rohrer is among the most widely heralded art game designers in the short but vibrant history of the field. Rohrer initially entered the national spotlight with his 2007 game Passage, which premiered at GAMMA, an experimental game show organized by the Kokoromi collective. In 2012, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) acquired Passage into its permanent collection, under the Architecture and Design Department. The Game Worlds of Jason Rohrer was conceived of by Mike Maizels, the Mellon New Media Curator at the Davis Museum, while reading a profile on Jason Rohrer. After conducting further research, Maizels decided to create an exhibition with Rohrer’s creations that would connect the video game to a historical tradition of presenting art. “This is a notable milestone in the history of the form, but video games have been enjoying increasing attention in the art world for the past two decades,” said Maizels. “The museum and video games worlds are colliding, and we hope to portray this in a way that is dynamic and exciting for visitors.
The four games to be highlighted with large-scale build-outs are:
ed in its entirety by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Video game creator Jason Rohrer will give a talk in the spring. Details on this talk and additional programming will be provided on the Davis Museum website."
As a reminder, Rohrer's Passage (2007) is part
of MoMa's videogame collection. Wellesley College is locate don 106 Central St., Wellesley, Mass.The exhibition will be accompanied by a book/catalog titled The Game Worlds of Jason Rohrer, edited by Michael Maizels and Patrick Jagoda and published by MIT Press, which "Offers a comprehensive account of the artist’s oeuvre. The book documents all seventeen of Rohrer’s finished games, as well as sketches, ephemera, and related material, with color images throughout. It includes entries on individual games (with code in footnotes), artist interviews, artist writings, commentary by high scorers, and interpretive texts. Two introductory essays view Rohrer’s work in the contexts of game studies and art history."LINK:
Jason RohrerLINK:
Davis Museum at Wellesley CollegeSubmitted by Matteo Bittanti (via Christian Nutt @ Gamasutra)