Have you ever wanted to play a game about waiting in line at a museum? No? Well maybe you should. Video game research professor and author of the upcoming book How To Play A Video Game, Pippin Barr has made what Slate describes as "a subversively boring game" called The Artist is Present. The game actually simulates the experience of waiting in line to see the work of contemporary artist Marina Abramović, who exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2010. Her show was also titled "The Artist is Present," and apparently caused a media frenzy and a long, long line while she was there.
“I wanted to make a video game about art, [and] few works of contemporary art have that kind of famousness and stature that this [exhibit did],” Barr told Slate in a phone interview from Copenhagen this morning. “At first I just thought a game about this would be hilarious, but then I realized there could be some seriousness to it as well. No one has ever really made a video game about the experience of contemporary art.” He was unconcerned that the game might seem outdated, seeing as it came to life over a year after the show closed. “I don’t really think of it as that tied to the actual exhibit. It’s more about art in general.”
Barr’s game uses old-school 8-bit graphics to recreate many of the masterpieces at the museum such as Van Gogh's Starry Night. Oddly enough, the game's museum is closed at the same hours the real museum is closed - including holidays and Tuesdays..
The point of the game, says Barr, is to show how awesome the whole experience of an Abramović showing is.
"I didn’t do it to make a statement, or to be provocative or challenging at all. I really admire Abramović and I wanted to make the experience as authentic as possible.” Barr never saw the exhibit himself, though he wished he could have. “But I’m not sure I would have been willing to queue up at 5:30 in the morning.”
You can check out the game here.
Source: Slate
Comments
Re: A Game About Standing in Line
If it tries hard via effort(realistic painting) or simplicity(cross in piss) its art.
Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Let's renegotiate them.
---
http://zippydsm.deviantart.com/
Re: A Game About Standing in Line
Standing in a line. I always wanted to do that in a game.
Re: A Game About Standing in Line
....no...just...no. I decided to check out the game before I posted and the museum was closed. I don't really get art as I feel that many of the modern masterpieces greatness are overly exaggerated. A PAINTING OF A CAMPBELLS CAN IS NOT ART, IT'S ADVERTISEMENT. I've seen online comics and games that I feel deserve more respect.
I also don't see how zigzags is considered high fashion. Maybe I'm just a philistine...whatever that is.
Re: A Game About Standing in Line
Well, depend on how 'modern' we are talking.
Much of the stuff today is mostly a matter of social networking.. art comes down to who you can convince it is art, convince the right people and others will follow, because that is what gets you laid at parties.
'Modern' art in the older sense though (when you see a lot of those abstract pieces) was produced by people who actually had significant classical skill and were playing with reducing scenes to as minimal of an interpertation as possible. While not on display, there were some interseting intermediate sketches I got to look over years ago showing the process and it was kinda fasinating.
Re: A Game About Standing in Line
Modern as in...well modern. I do like abstract such as Salvador Dali and what not and consider them to be pieces deserving of great respect, but much of today's art masterpieces are only called such for the reasons that you listed. This and the fact that many other things are looked down upon because of the style and what not is kinda disturbing.
---