Neoludica is an Italian exhibition on art and video games, held in conjunction with the 54th International Art Exhibition-Venice Biennale. They have a facebook page and blog but they are all written in Italian.
This is the companion book for the exhibition. 256-page paperback about A5 size. It collects 30 essays from 33 artists discussing the relationship between visual art and video games.
I only managed to finish reading two essays before I gave up. I can't even describe what the first essay The Italians Do It Better!! is about except that it's got something to do with the purpose of having a video game art exhibition. It's written in an academic style that I don't think any gamer will understand or appreciate.
Take this passage for describing digital architecture in a later chapter:
The heritage cyber-architecture derived from deconstructionism, other than the splitting up of the pair architecture/habitation, consists in the possibility of broadening the idea of "form" in the direction of parametric non-Euclidean fluid geometrics, a thing that as not happened yet in video games.
It's like that for all the essays. No gamer I know talks like that.
The pictures in the book are of photos with context that's difficult to associate with, video game screenshots and art inspired by video games (the abstraction of fan art). Photos of people playing with computer/console cables? Seriously? I would rather see pictures of how the cables have evolved. And they do not even show the many games that have undisputed good or iconic art.
I regret buying this book based on the book title which has the words art and videogames, and video games should be two words by the way.
I'm not sure who the audience is for this type of book, certainly not for gamers who actually play video games.
Neoludica Art and Videogames 1966-2011 is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)
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6 Comments
first comment in your blog,
Submitted by Francesco Segala on
first comment in your blog, following you since a lot of time...
this is very embarassing for me, because here in Italy we don't have a videogame industry, it's not something "worth investing for". then these books came out and all these people who don't care for this subject speak about it as they do with anything: with a sofisticated use of words that make you feels like they-are-very-smart-and-they-know-what-they're talking-about.and-you-just-don't.
It's sick. And it's sad, because people like me, who wanted to apply in videogame or movie art departments, don't have neither university where to study these subjects nor a work to find, so we can just go outside the country. the concept artist here just don't exist as a job.
Oh your blog it's really fantastic, thank you very much for inspiring me (and a lot of people) with every arcticle you write!
That's really interesting to
Submitted by yazzydream on
That's really interesting to hear about! And explain's Parka's negative review (pretty unusual in of itself). So thanks for sharing!
And that's really too bad about the book. That cover is so boss!
...and I was about to buy it
Submitted by Francesco Segala on
...and I was about to buy it!dammit!
about image #4: is sad to see
Submitted by algosuk on
about image #4: is sad to see a video game where you kill migrant coming from albania
for find a new life in italy, i think that this is racism.
It's no racist game: the
Submitted by HYPNEROTOMACHUS on
It's no racist game: the contrary. It's ironic game against italians racist!
I just bought this book, and
Submitted by coldbanken on
I just bought this book, and I can say its hard to understand for a gamer, but I think this book is not intended for them, instead its really enjoyable if you are studying Arts and want to know some examples on how the industry of videogames has influence over contemporary artistic expressions.
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