June 14 - October 4, 2009
"Games
are the most elevated form of investigation." -Albert Einstein
"WoW is the most sophisticated happiness engine that exists now."
-Dr. Jane McGonigal
"Games may provide new ways for museums to have a profound impact on
society if they are designed, as alternate-reality games are, to change
people's real-world behavior." -Dr. Jane McGonigal
WoW: Emergent Media Phenomenon
explores various forms of cultural production based on World of Warcraft in particular and on
gaming in general. While surveying Warcraft's Fifteen-year history, the
exhibition looks at artistic practices that have been influenced by game
culture. The actual works by the producer of World of Warcraft, Blizzard
Entertainment (headquartered in Irvine,
California), provide a starting
point and reference.
Fourteen international artists were selected to consider this movement with the following themes in mind: elements of desire, the collapse of fantasy, medievalism, creative critiques, and public intervention. Artists in this exhibition take on the visual marker of World of Warcraft to consider, implications of gaming, and their greater impact on our culture. In addition to the works of these artists, fan art and the growing culture of machinima (computer animation that uses the graphic engines from video games) will be explored in this exhibition.
Gaming is a movement that encompasses a large population and holds the potential to greatly impact society. Jane McGonigal, a game designer and researcher, states, "This is a new generation of hard-core gamers, and what they're doing is generating unprecedented participation bandwidth. They are donating more cognitive cycles, more heart share to game worlds and virtual worlds than we've seen dedicated to any project before." The artists in this exhibition have extended these concerns.
The
exhibition
is curated by Grace Kook-Anderson and is accompanied by a booklet
published by Laguna Art Museum. As part of
the exhibition, you'll receive a booklet featuring essays by the
curator;
participating artist, Eddo Stern; and the curator at Blizzard
Entertainment, Tim Campbell. This booklet is published by Laguna Art
Museum.
Participating artists: selected artists from Blizzard Entertainment, including
Chris Metzen, Sam Didier (a.k.a., Samwise), Chris Robinson, Justin Thavirat,
and Roman Kenney (all from Irvine); Aram Bartholl (Berlin); Jorg Dubin (Laguna
Beach); Alexander Galloway (New York); Jacqueline Goss (New York); Auriea
Harvey and Michaël Samyn, Tale of Tales (Ghent, Belgium); John Klima
(Lisbon, Portugal); Cyril Kuhn (Los Angeles); Antoinette LaFarge (Irvine);
Mashallah Design and Linda Kostowski (Berlin); Robert Nideffer and Alex Szeto
(Irvine); Airyka Rockefeller (San Francisco); Eddo Stern (Los Angeles); The
Third Faction (Azeroth); and Zeng Han (Guangzhou)
PROGRAMMING TO DATE
Sunday, June 14 at 1:00 PM
Zeng Han is a photographer based in Guangzhou,
China who has just completed
a semester at School of Visual Arts in New
York. Zeng will be discussing the concept of
"soulstealers" in his work.
Saturday,
July 11 at 1:00 PM
Aram Bartholl's WoW workshop will be held the day before his
lecture. Bartholl will extend the project shown in the exhibition out onto the
streets of Laguna Beach.
Everyone is welcome to participate and enjoy an afternoon of art making and
have the opportunity to be involved in a collaborative performance. The
workshop and performance will be documented on video, and the edited version
will be shown in the exhibition.
Sunday,
July 12 at 1:00 PM
Aram Bartholl, based in Berlin,
is interested in the way network data manifests into the everyday world.
Bartholl investigates this in the physical space through performance,
installation, and video. With World of Warcraft, Bartholl investigates this
manifestation through the one of the most popular online role-playing games.
Sunday,
July 26 at 1:00 PM
Jacqueline Goss, based in New
York, creates film and video in order to explore the
ways we think about ourselves through systemic machines, like politics,
culture, and science. Goss will talk about her work in game space, animation,
and the documentary form.
Sunday,
August 16 at 1:00 PM
Robert Nideffer, "Playing with Bosch"
Robert Nideffer, based in Irvine,
will compare the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch that illustrate fantasy with
religious narratives with the images in World of Warcraft.
Sunday,
September 13 at 1:00 PM
Antoinette LaFarge, based in Long
Beach, questions the mode of fiction through
performance, digital media, games, and writing. In this way, LaFarge looks at
World of Warcraft and other role-playing games as one way of constructing a
fictional narrative.
Thursday,
October 1, UC Irvine, TBA
This forum will include artists Antoinette LaFarge, Robert Nideffer,
Eddo Stern, and Jeff Chamberlain, the cinematics project lead at Blizzard
Entertainment. The forum will be moderated by the associate director at
UCI's Beall
Center for Art and
Technology, David Familian.
This exhibition is generously supported by Blizzard Entertainment, the Samia Family and Tierzero.
--
/hug is a project of The Third Faction Collective:
Third Faction is an affiliation of geographically dispersed entities with a collective interest in exposing binary systems in synthetic environments. via in-world performances, the collective operates simultaneously across various platforms including World of Warcraft and Second Life. the collective includes: Thomas Asmuth (MyriamMoore), Mez Breeze (BowwToxx), John Pierre Bruneau (Cretivcowman), Jenene Castle (Mohana), Steve Durie (Tookis), Kyung Lee (Sootso), James Morgan (Deaxter), Ali Sajjadi (Layli), and Liz Solo (Sliz). Third Faction members question the politics, allegiances, and narrative conventions of Synthetic Worlds. the cross-factional collective officially formed in World of Warcraft on valentine's day 2008 in a self-declared temporary autonomous zone.