[Gallery Walk] 'Is Gaming Art?' A Museum Owning Pac-Man and SimCity Asks the Question

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, 'Game Society' Exhibition
Featuring 40 Works Including MoMA Collections
Exploring the History, Grammar, and Impact of Games on Art and Society

Discussions on whether games should be recognized as art have been ongoing steadily since the 21st century. Whenever the achievements of over half a century of commercial game history have attempted to be incorporated into 'art,' there have been strong voices of opposition and criticism. Various analyses have pointed out that games are closer to sports than art, and that the logic of production, use, and enjoyment differs from that of art. Meanwhile, the government passed a partial amendment to the Cultural Arts Promotion Act last year, legally including games within the category of 'cultural arts.' Through this, games have been legally recognized as a genre of cultural arts in Korea. Now that games have become art, an exhibition at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art explores their trajectory as both works and experiential tools, asking how games have permeated everyday life.

On the 11th, a press preview for the special exhibition "Game Society," themed "Games and Society," was held. The photo shows the exhibition view of "Game Society" at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Jongno-gu, Seoul. [Image source=Yonhap News]

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is holding an exhibition titled "Game Society," which surveys the history and grammar of video games as well as their impact on contemporary art and society, at its Seoul branch until September 10.

This exhibition introduces a total of about 40 works, including 9 games collected by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in the early 2010s, domestic games, and over 30 works by 8 contemporary artists who have influenced and been influenced by video game grammar and aesthetics.

The acceptance of games as a genre of art is considered to have begun in 2006 when Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, then French Minister of Culture, announced games as cultural products and a form of artistic expression. Through this, the French government approved tax support for the game industry. In the United States, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) recognized games as a genre of art and designated them as eligible for support by including games in the category of art project grants in 2011.

Ramhan, an audience member directly experiencing 'Tutorial_How to Uninstall My Twin'.
Photo by Yonhap News

Earlier in the U.S., the Museum of the Moving Image in New York began highlighting games as art by holding the exhibition "Hot Circuits: A Video Arcade" in 1989. In 2012, MoMA included 14 games in its collection, such as Pac-Man (1980), Tetris (1984), Another World (1991), Myst (1993), SimCity 2000 (1994), vib-ribbon (1999), and The Sims (2000). These titles were officially registered as part of the collection. This exhibition welcomes visitors with 7 works, including 6 MoMA collection pieces like Pac-Man, Minecraft, SimCity 2000, and Portal, as well as Halo 2600 and Flower from the Smithsonian Museum (the latter also held by MoMA).

The exhibition is divided into three sections: "Art Games, Game Art," "World Beyond the World," and "Identity Games." "Art Games, Game Art" reflects on games as a medium. Visitors can watch video works by Harun Farocki and Cory Arcangel and directly experience video games such as Flow, Flower, and Halo 2600. Notably, Cory Arcangel's "Super Mario Movie" (2005) hacks the game cartridge to fragment and recombine the screen, creating a new story and offering fresh enjoyment.

Lawrence Lek, Notel (Seoul Edition), 2023, Multimedia Installation,
[Photo by National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art]

In "World Beyond the World," Lawrence Lek's "Notel ? Seoul Edition" (2023) realizes a fully automated futuristic luxury hotel through the fictional company Notel Corporation. It subtly expresses the boundary between AI-replaced labor and ultra-luxurious life. Jackie Conolly's "Descent into Hell" (2021) uses game graphics from SimCity, Minecraft, and others to reenact childhood trauma and alienation, reconstructing the narrative anew. Through this, it presents the infinite possibilities shown by game worlds and offers a new perspective on society.

In "Identity Games," works by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Cory Arcangel, Lu Yang, Ramhan, and MoMA collection pieces Portal and Pac-Man are presented together. Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, a Black transgender artist, demonstrates through the video game "Damn, I Live Because of That Woman" (2021) how her choices and actions affect others. Ramhan's "Tutorial: How to Uninstall My Twin" (2020) is a VR game where the audience sits in a dental chair and leads the play as the protagonist. This section examines the expanded meaning of virtual reality accelerated by strong synchronization between games and society, while questioning the limits and possibilities of social experiences felt by communities through the game medium.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Outside the exhibition space, at Seoul Box, Kim Hee-cheon's installation video "Cutter 3" (2023) is screened. The work, which navigates reality and virtuality, existence and non-existence, real-time and images, addresses existential issues and runs until August 13.

The video games introduced in this exhibition support accessibility devices planned and developed by the Assistive Device Open Platform, a research and development organization of the National Rehabilitation Center, as well as Microsoft's Xbox accessibility game controllers, allowing all visitors to comfortably enjoy the games on site.

Hong I-ji, the curator who planned the "Game Society" exhibition, said, "I was curious whether visitors playing Pac-Man directly at the exhibition could recognize it as an artwork and what differences they would feel compared to playing games on their phones at home." She explained, "This exhibition will be an opportunity to directly observe what questions visitors ask after experiencing playing games at a museum, a new experience."