Videogames As Art, Ctd

Yesterday, the Smithsonian American Art Museum announced that two videogames, Flower and Halo 2600, have joined their permanent collection, saying the acquisitions “represent an ongoing commitment to the study and preservation of video games as an artistic medium”:

In a statement, the museum called Flower — in which players control the wind — “an entirely new kind of physical and virtual choreography.” Interactivity was also cited as a reason for its inclusion in the collection, with the museum saying “the work cannot be fully appreciated through still images or video clips; the art happens when the game is played.” Halo 2600, developed in 2010 to work on the 36-year-old Atari 2600, is less obviously beautiful. Instead, it “deconstructs the gamers’ visual and virtual experience” by re-imagining the 3D shooter on a 2D plane, displaying “the ever-changing relationship between technology and creativity.”

Philippa Warr weighs in:

Other museums and arts-based institutions have already begun adding videogames to their collections, but not always as artworks. The Museum of Modern Art in New York has acquired Space Invaders, Minecraft, EVE Online, The Sims and many other games for its own collection, but as examples of world-class interaction design rather than fine art. … As cultural institutions begin adding games to their collections it will be interesting to see how they approach the technical side of medium — preservation of source code, whether updates, patches, DLC and special events are encompassed in that holding, how to make the work available to visitors and researchers and so on. Which specific titles are acquired will also be revealing both of individual institutional collection policies and the ways in which we choose to define art.

Previous Dish on the subject here, here, and here.