Explore a free exhibition dedicated to showcasing games created by digital artists and independent video game developers.
From 5 September 2024 - 27 April 2025, we’re transforming our first-floor gallery into a space for games created by digital artists and independent video game developers.
Fun, playful and suitable for gamers and non-gamers of all ages, Art Plays Games looks at how artists are increasingly using games as a way to challenge conventional forms of storytelling and offer us new ways to make sense of the world today. Over the exhibition’s run, the artworks and games on display will rotate, introducing something different to discover each time you visit!
The exhibition currently houses works by artists Tomo Kihara and Playfool, Porpentine Charity Heartscape, Laura Palavecino, and Ayoung Kim.
Exhibition Schedule
5 September - 20 October 2024: Rachel MacLean, Youngju Kim, Angela Washko, Sahej Rahal.
29 October 2024 - 5 January 2025: Tomo Kihara and Playfool, Porpentine Charity Heartscape, Laura Palavecino, and Ayoung Kim.
14 January - 2 March 2025: More information coming soon
10 March - 27 April 2025: More information coming soon
The gallery is closed in between rotations.
Each collection of games invites you to play with some of the most pressing questions we face today: how might game worlds offer us new ways of thinking about whose stories are told and how they are represented? Can we see the world through non-human perspectives or think about the issues of climate change and ecology differently? How will our understanding of being human change as artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies become more dominant?
We’ll also host a number of free and affordable events within the space, such as talks, workshops, and tournaments that explore questions around worldbuilding, gamification, and screen culture.
Tomo Kihara and Playfool
outdraw.AI (2022 - 2024)
Tomo Kihara and Playfool present outdraw.AI—an interactive multiplayer drawing game that explores how new forms of creativity can resist the technological gaze of artificial intelligence. Players are challenged to draw prompts in unconventional ways so that other humans can guess what they are, but AI can’t! Their work expands on Alan Turing’s imitation game, which attempted to assess if computers could perform intelligence in a way that was indistinguishable from humans.
Porpentine Charity Heartscape, almanac of girlswampwar territory (2018). Game still. Courtesy of the artist
Porpentine Charity Heartscape
almanac of girlswampwar territory (2018)
Created in Bitsy, a web-based game-making tool, Porpentine’s almanac of girlswampwar territory features lo-fi graphics that seek to recreate the feeling the artist experienced when playing video games as a child. The game weaves themes of repetition and entrapment with a dream-like logic that is both humorous and absurd. Explore and interact with curious characters as you navigate Porpentine’s surreal pixelated world.
Laura Palavecino, Enchanted Sea (2018). Film still. Courtesy of the artist
Laura Palavecino
Enchanted Sea (2018)
Enchanted Sea combines music, nature, and poetic narrative in a meditative gameplay experience that encourages us to reconnect with our fundamental bond to the natural world. As a player, you can explore the depths of the Argentine Sea, where a network of jellyfish, anemones, and marine mammals coexist. Through this immersive sea simulation, Laura invites you to discover, dwell, and reflect on the delicate symbiotic relationship between Earth and all its inhabitants.
Still image from Delivery Dancer's Sphere, 2022, single-channel video, 25 min. ⓒ Courtesy of the artist
Ayoung Kim
Delivery Dancer’s Sphere (2022) + Delivery Dancer Simulation (2022)
Ayoung’s Delivery Dancer’s Sphere and its accompanying game Delivery Dancer Simulation, explore alienation and the gamification of work through the gig economy and platform labour, both of which became accentuated during the pandemic in South Korea. In a society obsessed with productivity and the optimisation of labour, time and the body, Ayoung’s work asks what might happen when these things begin to unravel, and can we imagine a world beyond it?
Header image: Photography by Kieran Irvine
outdraw.AI (2022 - 2024)
outdraw.AI is a game that explores new forms of creativity that resist the technological gaze of artificial intelligence.
almanac of girlswampwar territory (2018)
Created in Bitsy, a web-based game-making tool, almanac of girlswampwar territory (2018) features lo-fi graphics that seek to recreate the feeling that Porpentine experienced when playing video games as a child.
Enchanted Sea (2018-2024)
Enchanted Sea combines music, nature and poetic narrative in this meditative gameplay that encourages us to remember and embrace our fundamental connection to the natural world.
Delivery Dancer’s Sphere (2022) + Delivery Dancer Simulation (2022)
Delivery Dancer’s Sphere and its accompanying game Delivery Dancer Simulation, explore alienation and the gamification of work through the gig economy and platform labour, both of which became accentuated during the pandemic in South Korea.
by Ayoung Kim
Special Event
Game On
FACT
Ready, set, play! Join us for a family-friendly games tournament to challenge yourself and others with classic, indie and artist-made games.
Artists
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