I hadn't seen this before --The Unfinished Swan-- what an elegant idea. The FPP -- first-person painter! I wish the creator hadn't chosen to go eerie with the mood, that seems like cheating a little... it's so easy to go scary. Still, it's beautiful And it's an XNA-developed title. Interesting.

The Unfinished Swan - Tech Demo 9/2008 from Ian Dallas on Vimeo.

This is super-adorable as well as being super-practical; form+function, what could be better?

Rock Band drum cozies!

The look cute AND dampen the annoying clickety-clack of the plastic heads. Great idea!

(Thanks, Alex!)

Well, it's on the school's website so it must be official! I'll be giving a talk on the art of videogames at Whitman in Walla Walla, WA, this Thursday. I'm still working on the slides... but I will post them here after I give the talk.

I'm a little obsessed with the DIY marketplace Etsy.com right now, and especially with their elegant little application that lets you browse by color. It's pretty useless for actually finding anything but it's really beautiful as a way to organize photos and data. Click on colors, pull up the photos, move them around, zoom in - it's very nicely conceived! Now if I could only find that perfect citrine necklace....

Wow! This looks neat.

MORE...

I went to the GAMMA 01 event last year in Montreal, it was fun - a party, with music (Freezepop played although they got stuck in customs and arrived super late!) and DJs made music on DS Lites, and the experimental games were there projected on walls so people could play. The crowd was a mix of game developers, artists, musicians, and Montreal party people.

What I love about Kokoromi is that they explore the notion that games can be used to make art - that they are a medium for self-expression; and by that I don't mean projects like the excellent iam8bit, in which games are evoked in the service of more traditional visual arts; I mean that the gameplay itself is treated as a potential artform - that interactivity is key to the experience.

Can't wait for this year's GAMMA!

Inspired by the lack of good poems about games, these writers have formed the Game Poet Society. Their ambitious goal is to post a new poem twice a week.

From the "about" page:

Fanfiction currently resides as the only popular method of extrapolating concepts from video games in a literary sense, and the differences between our poetry and fanfiction is something that we think needs to be noted here.

Where fanfiction almost exclusively consists of characters from video games portrayed in author-determined situations where the plot is most important, poetry focuses more intently on the method and tone with which the message is being delivered. A fanfiction will chronicle a character’s actions and hijinks in situations outside of the actual game, but the poem’s tendrils are capable of far more elaborate feats.

I watched City of God, finally, last week, and it shattered my peace of mind that night. I've avoided seeing certain movies in the past knowing that they would disturb and upset me, but recently I've cued up my Netflix to go back and see the films I've missed, because I decided that it's important to see art that doesn't always make me feel good. Using art as a salve alone is foolish - and a one-dimensional way to experience humanity.

I was talking about the film with friend and fellow-GGA poster Matt, and he noted that videogames have not yet reached that stage of being deliberately disturbing the way that City of God is. If a videogame is no longer fun, we tend to stop playing. How can you make a videogame not "fun" and still compel players to go on?

I think Matt might not be quite correct. I remember playing Manhunt with an unshakeable conviction that the game wanted to disturb me, to take to to places that weren't fun. Of course, it all depends on your definition of "fun" - some people like scary movies, I usually don't. But here was a game that took an extremely creepy premise and played it out to the logical extreme, forcing the player into the uncomfortable role of both victim and murderer.

Yet you could argue that Manhunt used a cheap trick - it set up the situation in order to exploit it for someone's idea of "fun." You could say that the developers did not mean to convey any message beyond entertainment. City of God was entertaining, in the broadest sense of the word, but it was also a portrait of hopelessness and a cycle that trapped its inhabitants; it was also in some ways a social history of gang violence in the slums from the seventies to the eighties. Manhunt does not have enough external references to be about anything other than what it is.

If games are to be taken as art, the next step has to be for some game developers to abandon the concept of "fun" - or at least, to rework it and to challenge it.

Of course, I should mention that videogames already disturb many people - politicians, some parents, Jack Thompson. They would argue, I think, that we've already reached the point where games explore thoroughly unpleasant territory. But most gamers would argue that the exploration still stays in the realm of fun, however it may look to an external observer.

Games that deliberately challenge and provoke and disturb are being made in academic circles, in experimental projects, among the avant-gard. But we are still a long way off from a commercial game like The House of Sand and Fog or Hotel Rwanda, in spite of the fact that both of the themes in those films could be very effectively - and chillingly - explored in an interactive medium. Is it just a matter of time before we see games like those movies? Or is the inherent nature of engaging the player anathema to certain unpleasant, unpalatable themes? Are those themes easier to digest in a more "passive" form?

I've been reading a lot of the whole Roger Ebert "games are not art" business for the past few weeks, and I've got to the point where I thought I'd take my two-cents and firmly add them to some sort of piggy bank. So the questions: are games art? My answer: does it matter?

Hear me out.

The DS was made to change the way that games are played.

If the PSP changes anything about the way games are played, it's that now when you play, you might actually look hot.

Sony marketing's ability to present the PSP as a "lifestyle accessory" rather than a gaming system has really impressed me. Witness Korean website PSPStyle. This is a series of 3 model galleries on the themes of 3 classic fairytales, The Little Mermaid, Snow White, and Cinderella. Throw in some glamour, add a PSP, and there you go.

And that's what's so odd, really. I mean, yes the PSP is a sleek little device. It fits into the style of the photographs, but, I mean, they're so posed and awkward. It's like they decided to do Gothic Lolita night on The Price is Right. It's not really sexy or mysterious, it's just silly.

When it comes down to it, the best glamour shot of a PSP wasn't even made by Sony marketing. It was made by some girl. I linked to the original picture from Kotaku a few days ago. Much to my surprise, the girl writes for gaming blog-thing RedAssedBaboon under the name of Hatsumi. She has in fact written about "the picture," finally proving that ours isn't the only website where women will fondle gaming hardware and then reflect on it.

One the one hand, I think it's really awesome that our gaming devices can look like something you'd want to be seen using. I remember when critics praised the Gameboy Advance SP because it was so small that respectible people could carry it discreetly. Why shouldn't the world learn to see people who play games as playful, sexy creatures? On the other hand, there's the flag waving nerdcore gamer in me who wants a handheld to be awkward and gangly because it means that when I do see one it's like a little sign saying "I am of your people."

This is, of course, ridiculous. Random guy on the street with a GBA SP is no more likely to be anything like me than random guy on the street with a PSP. It's great that gaming can be trendy, and that the 300 pound guy on the train the other day and Paris Hilton are both PSP owners. Maybe now there'll be some demand for game-related clothing that breaks the basement-casual standard? After all, if there's one thing we gamers know how to do, it's play (and pwn) well with others, and the pool of "others" just got a whole lot bigger. Right now, gamers are coming out of the basement, into the lime-light, and you know what they look like? They look like me. They look like you. They look like Hatsumi. But they're all here because they love games. No doubt we'll get to have arguments over who was a gamer "before it was cool," but if it means that we can argue over a friendly wi-fi deathmatch, then I'm looking forward to such inanities.

On IndTV. It's in the fourth panel on the top row.

Thanks to Souris for the link.

Also, Souris has a post about I am 8 Bit, 80's inspired videogame art showing in Los Angeles, April 19-May 20. It's right around E3, so you should all drop by.

The Start Gallery in SOMA will open a show featuring art inspired by videogames. There's an event hosted by the club Polo's Blue Cube on March 10 - during GDC - with music until 2 am and some classic playable games as well as pieces from the art show. Should be pretty fun.

Walk of Game is a, you guessed it, hall of fame for games. God damn, what is it about videogames that compells everyone to pun so much?!? I mean if I never have to see another article titled "Game Over" or "One Up" or some other cutesy take on "gamer lingo" I will die happy. IN any case, the first-ever induction ceremony will take place March 8th at the Metreon. That's during the GDC, so you can come by after the sessions. I'll be there with a shiny press pass, cheering on Link and Mario. Oh, and Sonic, too, I'd never forget you!

A fellow named Jim Davies has a small online gallery of paintings he has done based on Pac-Man. I particularly enjoyed "Demonizing Pac-Man" and some of the other anti-Pac-Man propaganda.

Sometimes the really cool stuff on the web is hidden in plain sight. Take space-invaders.com.

A masked Parisian artist has taken his love for classic gaming aesthetics into the streets with a series of Space Invaders-themed mosaics. He's been plastering up his pixellated graffiti since 1998, and has attracted a few copycats who have invaded their own towns. Of particular interest may be the maps he provides to many of his pieces, if you happen to find yourself in Paris, Tokyo, New York, or one of the other cities bombed by the aliens. If you're like me, however, you'll just have to use the requisite photo archives.

Be warned that the site runs a little slow on the Western side of the Atlantic.

Found an interesting article by Erin Bell of GameCritics over on Ludonauts talking about an experimental hack of a Super Mario Bros. ROM that removes all the enemies, blocks, pits, and coins. In other words, the game is changed to a single endless level where you can control Mario as usual, but all goals are removed.

Interestingly enough, the traditional time limit remains, and the music still speeds up when 90 seconds remain. Mario can run and jump forever across scrolling backgrounds, but will never reach any sort of terminus before dying when the clock reaches zero.

I'm sure there's a metaphor in that somewhere.

Bell goes on to talk about the ways that different players dealt with the game environment: dashing ahead forever, jumping to make rythms with the jumping noise, etc.

Say, children, what does it all mean?

I love the idea of playing with traditional forms of feminine arts. Knitting, for example, is fascinating to me because you're converting the one-dimension of string into a two dimension textile which can then be wrapped around a three-dimensional body and then unraveled to express the fourth dimension of the passage of time.

A more pointed take along those lines is Subversive Cross Stitch. There's nothing inherent about cross-stitch that needs to be "God Bless Us Every One" or "Home Sweet Home"; in fact you can stitch up your own more appropriate slogans as you desire: "Get Lost" or "Happy Fucking Holidays."

Wintertime makes me want to do crafts. I think I'd like to make up my own crossstitch patterns. Any suggestions on how to do that? Do I just sketch it out on graph paper?

[Thanks to Audra for the link!]

Next week a 2nd century Roman 20-sided glass die goes up for auction at Christie's.

If you've got 4-6 thousand dollars to spare, I suggest you enter your bid now.

The catalog entry notes: "Several polyhedra in various materials with similar symbols are known from the Roman period. Modern scholarship has not yet established the game for which these dice were used. "

Well, I think *we* all know what game it was used for! But my question is, before the fantasy Middle Ages, in what setting did the Romans play D&D? Ancient Egypt? Biblical times? Babylonian?

[Many thanks to Stephen for the link!]

One might imagine that Lara Croft, having already expanded her franchise beyond the boundaries of the pc/console arena and onto the silver screen, might be looking for ways to expand her realm of influence and extend her reign as one of the most recognizable female icons in gaming. But artist Becky Schaefer has taken her places she might not have imagined.

Schaefer's works--needlepoint kits and framed 'found' works with subtle additions--insert this game-world icon into a wholly different universe. Though she is still toting her gun, it's unclear whether she'll really need it. Rapelling down a large sunflower plant or from a rainbow-hued hot air balloon, posing with one leg on an old wooden fence in a farm landscape, lounging with her pistols by the ocean--not the usual day's work.

Hugh Hancock from Strange Company forwards me this: Scottish Television has made a 22-minute documentary about machinima, the art form that uses videogame technology to make animated films. The documentary is called Artery: Machinima.

Thanks, Hugh!

Bless codeman38 - he's crafted a series of a fantastic fonts inspired by 8-bit videogames: Font Stuff from codeman38, drawn in large part from NES RPGs. Curvy! Blocky! Bubbly!

codeman38 explains how he made the fonts, crediting his inspirations and software. And he's released both Mac and PC versions for free download! Now that's good conduct - cheers.

(From the fabulous folks at boingboing)

Writer Jim Munroe plays a friendly Canadian tourist in the short video, "My Trip to Liberty City" (Quicktime movie). A great little exploration of agency, gamespace, and identity.

Also, it's funny!

(Thanks, yi!)

Gaming can lead to obsession. Nowhere is this more evident then in the hardware and software assembled by dedicated gamers. Each person's collection reflects their tastes. I solicited game collection photos; one person sent me this picture of some extensive machines and software:

Mel Chin, North Carolina artist, blends science, technology, and art. A too-brief PBS bio hints at a fascinating inner life. The piece that most intrigues me is KNOWMAD, a video game Chin created with software engineers based on the tribal rug patterns of nomadic peoples.

This post at kuro5hin attempts to answer the question of whether or not video games can be considered art, by discussing what it means to be an art form, and seeing if video games fit the bill.