Isabelle Arvers: Art + Games World Tour
Artist(s):
Title:
- Art + Games World Tour
Exhibition:
Medium:
- Game Art, Podcast, and Web Archive
Category:
Artist Statement:
To celebrate my 20 years as a curator in the fields of art and video games, in June 2019 I embarked on a world tour that took me to: South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, India, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, Ghana and Togo where I got stopped by the Pandemic in March 2020. I am now pursuing my World Tour online, in Africa and in the Middle East, from Togo, where I do live now. By meeting digital artists and independent game developers in the Global South I intend to give a more nuanced overview of the different ways gaming communities across the world are exploring the issue of diversity, with an emphasis on female, queer and decolonial practices. In each country I visited, I interviewed around 20 artists, game makers, curators, activists, hackers and gave lectures and workshops about the relationship between art and video games. The aim is to break the boundaries between the art and the game world and to promote alternative, independent and experimental games to enhance diversity – gender, race and representation – in video games and to promote the use of games as a pedagogic tool and as a tool of expression to raise awareness about social, cultural, political and environmental issues. Meeting media artists and indie game developers and then writing articles about their games or distributing podcasts of their interviews is also a way to better understand local culture through the lens of video games. In each country, I try to focus on meaningful games that deal with culture, history, or politics. My expedition also investigates how we can create new concepts of “working together” and new connections within the worlds of game art, independent games, games DIY art. In Togo, I am now collaborating with different art collectives on mutual game art projects. For Digital Power, I am presenting podcasts of the female, non-binary, transgender artists, activists and game makers that I met during my art and games world tour, and a hybrid documentary in progress, featuring the interviews with video games and artwork recordings.
Other Information:
Issues: Collaboration, Diversity, LGBTQ, non-Western, Queer, and Transgender
