Game Artworlds: The Early Years

Game Art Worlds: The Early Years is a series of conversations with pioneers of Game Art. It brings together interviews with seminal artists whose work helped redefine the landscape of game-based practices. The project traces the emergence and evolution of a phenomenon that continues to shape how game-based art is conceived, experienced, and debated today. Most of these interviews were conducted in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

Text by Mathias Jansson and Matteo Bittanti.

All interviews are in English unless otherwise indicated. 

Daphne Dragona, curating Game Art

Katherine Isbister and The Art of The Sims

Rosemarie Fiore’s arcade game photographs

Suzanne Treister: Capturing the essence of gaming since the 1980s

Miltos Manetas, the first machinima-maker

Interview: Tale of Tales and the aesthetics of art games

Axel Stockburger’s game/r spaces

Eddo Stern, pioneer of Game Art

Stephen Honegger’s “Container” (2002) and “Escape from Woomera” (2003)

Bruno Martelli and Ruth Gibson (igloo) on SwanQuake (2007)

Orhan Kipcak (ArsDoom, ArsDoom II) (1995-2005)

Tobias Bernstrup and Palle Torsson, Museum Meltdown (1996)

Antonio Riello & Italiani Brava Gente (1996)

Konrad Becker on Synreal: The Unreal Modification (1998)

Anne-Marie Schleiner’s “Cracking the Maze” (1999) a decade later

Martin Berghammer’s RELOAD exhibition (Shift e.V Gallery in Berlin, 1999)

Tilman Baumgärtel curator for the exhibition "Computergames by Artist” (2003)

Sylvia Eckermann on “Hotel Synthifornia” (1998)

Margarete Jahrmann and the “Synreal exhibition” (1999)

Josephine Starrs’ “Bio Tek Kitchen” (1999)

Robert Nideffer and “The Tomb Raider Patch” (1999)

Carlo Zanni’s “Average Shoeveler” (2004)

Joan Leandre’s “retroYou” (1999-2004) & “Velvet-Strike” (2002)

Julian Oliver’s Selectparks.net and QTHOTH (1998-1999)

Joseph Delappe, pioneer of online game performance art

Mauro Ceolin: Emblems and Landscapes

Mauro Ceolin [Italian]

Chad Chatterton and acmipark

John Paul Bichard, a pioneer of in-game photography

Damiano Colacito plays Doom [in Italian]

Riccardo Amabili’s Pixel Painting  [in Italian]

Aram Bartholl’s metagames [in Italian]

Enrico Mitrovich [in Italian]

Marco Cadioli [in Italian]

Antonio Riello: Art, Politics, and Games [in Italian]

Jon Haddock’s screens are actually windows