[spectre] Zero Gamer exhibition at London Games Festival.

[marc garrett]

Zero Gamer exhibition at London Games Festival.

FRINGE: Lounge & Zero Gamer exhibition, London Games Festival.
http://www.http.uk.net/zerogamer/exhibition.shtml

Open: 1pm-6pm, Monday 22 - Friday 26 October
Venue: 01zero-one, Hopkins Street, Soho,
London W1F 0HS
Free to attend.

Zero Gamer looks at games played, unplayed and unplayable, the spectator 
and the spectacle. Sometimes we just like to watch, and machinima, 
gameplay videos and spectator gaming events take the activity out of 
interactivity. Games that play themselves, video documents of in-game 
performance, game engine experiments and challenging documentaries on 
gameplay.

The exhibition is co-curated between critical game theorist Corrado 
Morgana in partnership with HTTP Gallery and Furtherfield.org

Works by
Axel Stockburger
Jodi
The Ghost
Corrado Morgana
Ljudmila
Progress Quest & more...

More Info:

Download Catalogue:
http://www.http.uk.net/zerogamer/zero_game_catalogue.pdf

Keynote Text by Axel Stockburger 2007.
The devil makes work for idle thumbs:
http://www.http.uk.net/zerogamer/keynote.shtml

Zero Gamer.
Collaborative, curatorial text by Ruth Catlow, Marc Garrett & Corrado 
Morgana 2007.

This is the second exhibition, produced by HTTP Gallery as part of the 
London Games Fringe Festival to focus on the intersection of media art 
and games cultures. In 2006 Game/Play, a networked exhibition focusing 
on the rhetorical constructs of game and play in a media art context, 
was installed alongside the World Series of Video Games in London. 
Visitors to the Trocadero moved between the frenzied competition of the 
WSVG events, part of the mainstream festival, and a more critical 
engagement with a selection of artworks presented as part of the Fringe. 
The exhibition comprised of a series of games that subverted the 
stereotypical genres and an installation of [giantJoystick] by Mary 
Flanagan which "highlighted the spatial and social role of the game 
interface." Visitors seemed to slip happily between modes of engagement.

The meaning of contemporary media art is often crafted by the context in 
which it is encountered by its audience or participants. The way in 
which participants interact when engaged (in games and art) remains an 
important factor for both artists and game designers, gamers and 
audiences for videogame-art. This provides a starting point for this 
exhibition. It considers on the one hand, avidly and actively immersed 
gamers, and on the other, the gamer-in-every-viewer of art games who 
encounters game modifications, appropriations and detournements as jolts 
to the mesmerizing flow and illusory worlds of regular game play. They 
are thereby placed in a more thoughtful and reflective relationship with 
them. This is the fertile antagonism that informs Zero Gamer.

So, what happens when the action is taken out of interaction?

To read the rest of this text:
http://www.http.uk.net/zerogamer/exhibition.shtml