A multi-colored image from the game Sound-Self, which involves participants speaking into a microphone while wearing a virtual reality headset. The game then converts the sound into colorful designs that are seen on the VR screen. Sound-Self is one of nine games in the upcoming Chicago Design Museum exhibition, "Hey! Play! Games in Modern Culture." (Robin Arnott)CHICAGO — An interactive exhibition that
encourages play and offers guests a look at the world of games beyond what’s
found on Xbox or Steam is set to open Oct. 20 at the Chicago Design Museum. Co-curators
Brian Schrank and LeAnne Wagner, both School of Design faculty members, created
“Hey! Play! Games in Modern Culture,” with all ages and experience levels in
mind.
“The exhibition brings a new perspective to games, hopefully
a broader lens to view them through,” said Wagner. “Generally, our society
supports a pretty narrow view of games, console based, first person shooters
and violence, but there's a great pantheon of experiences that happen in games.
The different experiences are what we want to encourage in this show. There is
so much more to games than a console and controller. This exhibition encourages
guests to use their bodies, interact with people and have new experiences.”
The exhibition features nine games that range across three big
areas in gaming: high art, outsider art and indie games, said Schrank. High art
games can help connect history and art and incorporate elements of graphic art,
music or story. Outsider art involves individuals who aren’t necessarily
trained in the arts and won’t be in the elite art galleries or museums, but
involve art done out of obsessiveness. Small studios or independent artists who
are blending art and commercialization make indie games.
“We had a lot of flexibility and openness to how we shaped
the exhibition,” said Schrank. We looked at how games have been exhibited in
the past. We decided we wanted to incorporate all three areas of gaming. Our
exhibition is like a wine tasting, we are giving you different games to try, feel
and interact with. We are hoping people will learn what games can do outside of
familiar ones like Pac-Man, Madden NFL or Monopoly.”
A few of the games on display and available to play at the
exhibition include Robin Arnott’s “Sound-Self,” Feng Mengbo’s “Long March:
Restart,” and Champlain College Emergent Media Center’s “Spacebox.”
“Sound-Self” involves putting on a virtual reality headset,
laying on the ground, and making noise into a microphone. The game visualizes
the noise with designs on the screen and was created to help individuals cultivate
a dynamic and playful mindfulness, said Schrank.
“Long March Restart” takes a fresh look at the military
retreat of The Chinese Communist Party’s Red Army under the command of Mao
Zedong in 1934. Retreating from the Chinese Nationalist Party, the Red Army
traveled over 8,000 miles in 370 days. The game involves participants standing
in a long hallway with a side-scrolling screen on both sides. Using a
controller, participants run a character on the screen back and forth while
battling flying Coca-Cola bottles, said Wagner.
“Spacebox” uses an ordinary cardboard box to bring
participants back to their childhood, where any object could become a game, said
Schrank. The box has hidden censors that are triggered by moving the box’s
flaps back and forth. The movement triggers a screen that shows a spaceship
flying.
“‘Spacebox’ was designed to show that games can be made from
anything,” said Schrank. “It reminds participants of childhood and brings about
a sense of magic and wonder. We want people to go home and think ‘I can make
that game; I can play with this stuff.’ We want to inspire people.”
The other games on display include “SuperBetter” by Jane
McGonigal, “Slapsie” and “Parachute Game” by Bernie DeKoven, “Videoball” by Tim
Rogers, “Untitled Game” by JODI, a collection of games by Anna Anthropy, and
Terry Davis’s TempleOS operating system ready for play on a desktop computer.
Founded in 2012, the Chicago Design Museum is located on the
third floor of the Block Thirty-Seven mall at 108 N. State St. It’s open from
noon to 7p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. “Hey! Play! Games in Modern Culture”
runs through Feb. 17, 2018. Admission to the museum is free, but donations are
encouraged. There is an opening reception Oct. 20, which is a ticketed event. Information
about the reception and the Chicago Design Museum is online at https://chidm.com/.
Sources:
Brian Schrank
bschrank@cdm.depaul.edu
312-362-5838
LeAnne Wagner
leanne.wagner@depaul.edu
312-362-1288
Media Contact:
Russell Dorn
rdorn@depaul.edu
312-362-7128