Deadline: July 31, 2010 Submit to: info [at] toplay.us
Are you a game maker? Are you telling compelling stories about your life or the world around you? Are you doing interesting things through games and interactivity that cannot be done elsewhere?
If you are telling a story, relaying an experience, or interacting with a player in an innovative or novel way we want to see it. Learn to Play is calling for submissions of work for a new museum show built around games as art. Learn to Play will be opening this fall as parallel programming for the 2010 01SJ Biennial. The theme is “Build your own world.”
What makes a game art? Is it a compelling experience? A story that cannot be told elsewhere?
Learn to Play is an Art Museum exhibition of video, board and social games. This call is to let artists, coders, designers, etc. nominate their work or the work of others.
Why is this happening?
The tools for game design are now ubiquitous, and we know that people are making compelling mini-games and vignettes in addition to full-blown games by indy designers. Our hope is to reach out into the communities and find work from today’s emerging creators.
Who is doing this?
The Euphrat Museum of Art at De Anza College, Cupertino, as parallel programming with the 01SJ Biennial
How do you submit work?
We are working on a submission process that will be posted as the deadline approaches. At this time you can drop us an email at info [at] toplay.us and we will keep you up to date when our submission system opens. We are happy to screen games that are playable on multiple platforms. Send us the link along with your name and what the game is about.
When are the deadlines?
Our first round of submissions is due July 31.
Learn to Play is about the expression of art and life through games.
The San Francisco Fine art Fair is the first major internationally-ranked fine art fair in The City for nearly a decade. Hundreds of Millions of Dollars of art was exhibited from May 21 to May 23. The wealthiest art collectors around came out to peruse future works to add to their collections and somewhere in the middle of it all was a good old fashioned game of MKDDR (Dance Dance Mortal Kombat). It may seem like an odd juxtaposition; people are there to buy art for exorbitant amounts of money. Whereas, my art is not for sale and it never can be, for it is a mashup of two distinct properties, each with their own well established copyrights. However, if we look at MKDDR the art piece, not the product, we see that it was not out of place at all. The SF Fine Art Fair entrance experience was curated by none other than Zer01. Zer01 sits at the intersection of art and technology and at the intersection of art and technology is where Dance Dance Mortal Kombat makes perfect sense.
On Tuesday, April 20th at 7pm the second grand master tournament of Mortal Kombat Dance Dance Revolution will take place. This is a double elimination tournament. Come early to get in on some practice rounds. The fighting will take place in Room 241 of the Art building on the San Jose State Campus. In case you’re not from around these parts, here is a map to the SJSU Art Building (the green arrow not the ‘a’)
On March 21 2010 we burned down our gallery. Its strange to think about a virtual organization going virtualer. Due to the fact that more and more of our work existed in different worlds or often between worlds we decided to let go of our home. We are now digital nomads wandering from realm to realm. The Ars Virtua Gallery and New Media Center had a long and illustrious history with an impressive roster of artist exhibitions and performances. This is not an end as much as it is a rebirth.
The performance of destruction was carried out by Second Front. The building burned and crumbled to the ground. Then a war broke out in the ruins, it was all very poetic, and by morning all that was left was a small crater full of green grass. I took several photos of the event, and a discussion thread grew spontaneously out of one of them. Many old friends that helped establish Ars Virtua in its fledgling years returned for one last hurrah. It was good to catch up with familiar “faces” before we were all set ablaze with flame throwers and nukes. A post gallery performance was held a week later by Selavy Oh and Qiezli Hixantapo. Dealing with the life and afterlife of the space. We all went to heaven… for a little while.
The members of Ars Virtua are not stopping what they do or even slowing down. We have a new intern, Jen (Aliah Nakajima), keeping us on track and a new show opening in Chilbo.
I’m working on an artshow for late summer that combings games, art and education. Its called Learn to Play and it will be amazing, but that’s not what this post is about. Through some connection with De-Bug I ended up meeting La Mar Williams who is working on a project that parallels our own. We found ourselves in a lively discussion about the impotence of death and repetition in games. For instance, because you die a lot in Queens is what gives it much of its meaning. As we reviewed indi-games that we would like to include in the show he asked me if we were also looking at the modding community and I was like “yes, of course” and then he turned me on to the awesomeness that is Gravity Bone. Watch these: Gravity Bone Part1, Gravity Bone Part2
…But don’t get sidetracked. What I want to do here is promote La Mar’s Project, You Meet the Nicest People Making Video Games. This documentary he is working on involves traveling across the country to interview indi-game devs. It sounds like the way I way I want to spend my life. He is still rising funds but even if it is not completed by summer, I’d like to find a way to work elements into Learn to Play.
The year is 2010… what happen? Life got a little interesting and I ended up traveling the world for a bit. Delhi -> Vancouver – > Tokyo – > Dubai. Dubai is kind of its own story / project. I then taught too many classes at once. And pretty much half a year went by before I had a chance to catch my breath. Now I’m breath catching. Time for retroactive blogging!
The Game Development Club at San Jose State has been pulling guest speakers from the industry since its inception but now we are beginning a renewed focus on the indi community. We are essentially indi developers after all. The landscape is changing and I believe it doesn’t need to be all about landing a corporate job after school anymore. Well, I always believed this but having an arts background means you’ve been planning to and looking forward to being poor your whole life. With the rise of the indi however, the students are beginning to also see a non-corporate future as a viable one as well. So with new direction and ambition we are aiming to bring in big names from the world of the little guys. The first one being Anna Anthropy
Anna is well known in the indi game world as not just a developer but also a collaborator, speaker, critic, and judge. She made time in her schedule even though GDC was happening all over the place. It was a big win, sorry EPIC! win for the club to have her grace our presence. We are stoked and hopefully its just the beginning with many more speakers to come.
On Thursday Oct 29 at 6.30pm somewhere in the San Jose State Art building, it all went down. Fourteen brutal rounds of a no-holds-barred video-game up-mashing amazed and horrified onlookers. By 8pm the smoke had cleared. Only one mortal stood victorious.
This video is an attempt to re-cap that momentous night, in about 3.5 minutes. Our video and audio was mad glitchy from what I can only assume to be a lethal combination of smooth moves and toasty uppercuts, making editing an intense process. Although he doesn’t know it, once again Tettix saved my ass.
The Tournament event went fantastically. Thank you to everyone for coming out. I leave you now with a fun little clip of a friendly pre-game warm up match between Namphoung and I. You can see the fight on the monitor in the background.
I’d like to thank The Cadre Laboratory for New Media, The San Jose State Game Development Club, and James Morgan’s Furlough Days.
Yes! its on! (not unlike a barrel wielding gorilla)
Hey Kids,
If you are in the San Jose side of the bay, and looking for some
gaming randomness to do this Thursday,
My friend James and I are putting this little event together
because… why not?
The DDR Mortal Kombat dance off to the death is happening this
Thursday Oct 29 at 6:30pm in the Art building on the San Jose State
campus in room 241.
bring your friends and Fatality! them with your smooth moves.
- John
Shea, a CS student and I burnt the midnight oil putting together a highlight reel of games made in the last few semesters. The Game Development Club at SJSU puts together student game challenges with themes such as “pong”, “platformer”, “shmup”, “tower defense” and a few that are open to interpretation. We also have highlights from two of our guest speakers Jameson Hsu from Mochi Media and Shannon Posniewski of Cryptic Studios. A lot of our footage was a bit poor but we did what we could. I am a little proud of it so I thought I’d show it off. Enjoy.
Music: Tettix – Technology Crisis II
Also, here is a picture of Mega Man shooting Cultural Irrelevance by Marek
There have been many articles about WoW: Emergent Media Phenomenon, but few authors have delved down to specifically address individual work. However, Dave Barton at the Orange County Weekly recently wrote a critical review of the work at Laguna Art Museum but added there are “A few glimmers of hope”. The article closed with a very positive review of our piece, /hug.
“The piece that made the biggest impression on me was an installation that comes from a collective called /hug (slashhug), whose volunteers seek out and assist “noobs” (new players) who may otherwise get “ganked” (gang killed) by more experienced players. Hippy-dippy though it may be, the group’s preference for an anarchist spirit of cooperation and service over rape, pillage and competition seems such the antithesis of the stereotyped fanboy, I couldn’t help but have admiration for their insurgency. They offer a much-needed critique—and the lone voice of dissent—to the game, as well as much of the exhibition.”
Someone at the OC Weekly likes us.