The Museum Of Gaming Newsletter 1

This paper outlines experiences and lessons learned in organizing a variety of digital art exhibits for small and large scale events. The perspective is provided as a cross-disciplinary set of heuristics, drawing on the decade long experience of the curator-artist and paying particular attention to playable electronic media (e.g. games and toys) as installation works in an art context. Lessons learned from exhibits organized or co-organized by the author in the United States, Europe and Asia are shared. These events were offered with support from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Leuphana University, the University of Utah, Abertay University and others. Additional observations are provided as an artist who has exhibited at more than 40 events in the last decade. Formally the paper offers an ontology for defining distinguishing between exhibits, festivals and showcases. It is not the intention of the author to create a compendium of exhibition and curation practice. Instead the aim is to provide context and a starting point for the evolving intellectual examination of curatorial practices around digital games. It is hoped that these assertions support the growth of such work by providing a starting point for other practitioners.1

ArLis: Art Libraries Journal, 2018

Over the past half-century video games have become a significant part of our cultural environment, in part, by leading advances in both technology and artistic innovation. In recent years librarians and researchers have recognized these games as cultural objects that require collection and curation. Developing and maintaining collections of this fast moving and somewhat ephemeral media, however, poses challenges due to constantly advancing technology and a corresponding lack of consistent terminology. This article addresses the literature and critical issues surrounding collections of video games within libraries and presents a case study of the University of Michigan's Computer and Video Game Archive (CVGA), one of the largest academic archives of its kind. Moreover, video games are situated in a humanistic approach to the field of game studies as the article draws on the relevance of methods from art history and film studies.

2010

This thesis examines the exhibition of videogames in major cultural institutions. The focus is on the curatorial narratives presented by differing exhibitions, specifically the context in which the works are ‘framed’. Of particular interest is the extent to which context supports the interpretation of videogames as cultural artefacts. It will consider how differing approaches to display can construct videogames as activities and/or as artefacts. This analysis provides an understanding of the narratives that are currently being generated from the display of games in these institutional environments. Through their displays, museums and galleries organise collections into narratives, into recognisable histories and into doctrines, mediating the relationship between visitor and objects. These narratives have historically been embraced as culturally legitimising and authenticating. What can it mean to exhibit videogames in the museum? What can the museum learn from exhibiting videogames?

Ozchi, 2010

We address the challenge of creating intersections between children's everyday engagement and museum exhibitions. Specifically, we propose an approach to participatory design inquiry where children's everyday engagement is taken as the point of departure. We base our discussion on a design workshop -Gaming the Museum -where a primary school class was invited to participate in exploring future exhibition spaces for a museum, based on their everyday use of computer games and online communities. We reflect on the results of the workshop, and broadly discuss the everyday engagement of children as point of departure for designing interactive museum exhibitions.

Proceedings of the 22nd Conference of the Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group of Australia on Computer-Human Interaction - OZCHI '10, 2010

We address the challenge of creating intersections between children's everyday engagement and museum exhibitions. Specifically, we propose an approach to participatory design inquiry where children's everyday engagement is taken as the point of departure. We base our discussion on a design workshop -Gaming the Museum -where a primary school class was invited to participate in exploring future exhibition spaces for a museum, based on their everyday use of computer games and online communities. We reflect on the results of the workshop, and broadly discuss the everyday engagement of children as point of departure for designing interactive museum exhibitions.

The importance of the work of retro gamers and fan communities within the field of videogame preservation has been acknowledged and the need for institutional collaboration with these communities has also been recognised. There are, however, minimal examples of how museums might realize this opportunity. This thesis examines the curation of a local history of Australian videogames for the era of the microcomputer and, in the process, provides an example of how museums can effectively engage with online communities to document and display videogames. Local game histories form a crucial component of a response to the call for a critical historiography of videogames. Notable scholars to have proposed the need for such a historiography include Raiford Guins, Henry Lowood, Jakko Suominen and Melanie Swalwell. Responding to this need, I undertake research on an important chapter of Australian videogame history. In addressing the challenges of curating videogames, which are understood as both ‘artefacts and experiences’, I explore what museums can learn from the practices of retro game communities. Online retro gamer communities have created extensive archives of early microcomputer games, developing systems and procedures for their preservation and documentation. Through examination of retro gamer sites and other player made artefacts, I develop a novel argument for the importance of player memory in capturing how people experienced videogames and engaged with broader game culture. The importance of personal memories for videogame history is further explored in the case study of the Popular Memory Archive (PMA). The PMA website is designed as both exhibition and archive with the intent of engaging online communities in sharing their recollections of 1980s games. Through an analysis of the PMA I examine new ways of documenting and displaying born digital work. This thesis contributes to broader questions about the display and collection of digital heritage by museums confronted with the challenges of a future in which screen culture will no longer leave material traces. Born digital artefacts need to be recorded and represented through the documentation of their systems and the experiences they afford their users. Through an analysis of retro gamer sites and the PMA, I present an exemplar for future collaborative practice between museums and online communities for the display and documentation of born digital artefacts.

The Principal Wellington High School PO Box 4035 Wellington [email protected] Dear Prue I would like work with you and your team to teach Science at WHS. I have the skills, experience, enthusiasm and energy to teach Year 9 -13 Science and could assist with IT, Art, History, Geography, Cultural, Media and Social Studies. Here's what I have to offer and why I believe I am well suited to teach at WHS.

In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds). Museums and the Web 2011. , 2011

How should one design educational games for learning in museums? This paper advances the state of the art in games design of serious pervasive games. We analyze the game design of the two serious pervasive games built during the "PLUG, Play Ubiquitous Games and play more" project. We compare their desired objectives to the really completed ones. We then conclude with a section on what serious pervasive game design should be.