Every December, we put a call out to like-minded collectives, organizations and individuals that view videogames through an arts and culture lens, asking for the favourite event or project they’ve worked on during the past year. The editor for our fifth year was Lorenzo Pilia.
In 2019 we received almost 30 submissions, with new participants from Berlin, Cape Town, Dundee, Genoa, Lusaka, Madrid, São Paulo and Tokyo. We put some extra effort in trying to highlight initiatives by members of underrepresented groups in games, and those coming from emerging territories and non-English speaking countries. If you have suggestions of other projects we should include that fit this criteria, please send them our way (we might update this post if we think they’re a good fit).
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Antwerp, Belgium / Amsterdam, Netherlands
Zuraida Buter (zo-ii) writes: “Early 2019 I made a small experimental & indie games exhibition for Dig it Up, a 1-day inspiration festival for cultural professionals in Antwerp, Belgium. I showed a selection of alt.ctrl, experimental and award-winning indie games by a diversity of creators as well as a few accessible game creation tools to inspire the cultural professionals. The exhibition was a project by zo-ii in collaboration with Devillé Arcade and CultuurConnect. Some more pictures can be found on zo-ii’s Playful Culture Instagram.”
Bari, Italy
Simona Maiorano & Carolina Velati write: “Antifa Art and Games reached its second edition; it is an international festival, the first in Italy (Bari), entirely dedicated to anti-fascism. Antifa Art and Games explores and showcases the artistic, social and political power of video games, giving space to positive cultural values such as social justice, rights, anti-racism, fight against discrimination. The mini-festival exhibited 13 video games and was attended by some independent developers who held public debates. Through Antifa Art and Games we want to promote a collective reflection on anti-fascism and on current political struggles.”
Berlin, Germany
troyduguid writes: “AAA is a collective that uses video-game engines, web technologies, performance and lectures as part of our creative practice. We think a lot about labor, collaboration and culture building and this is the basis of much of our work. Our members are based in Berlin, Moscow and Saint Petersburg. In 2019 we debuted Utopias: Navigating Without Coordinates, our third project which we have been developing for two years — available for download early 2020. In addition, in 2019 we started an ongoing community blog featuring texts from the collective.”
Buenos Aires, Argentina
María Luján Oulton writes: “In 2019 Game on! El arte en juego celebrated its tenth anniversary with an exhibition of over 40 works among machinima, alt ctrl, hacks and playful media. The exhibition showcased the current state of the art of experimental and artgames around the world with special emphasis on the Argentinean scene. As part of the anniversary celebration Game on! teamed up with GAIN to host the first edition of GAIA (Game Arts International Assembly), a three day event aimed for the game arts ecosystem to generate ideas and action plans on how to tackle common challenges and opportunities.”
Cape Town, South Africa
Ben Rausch writes: “Reclaiming a colonial-era castle in the center of Cape Town, Playtopia MGA celebrated the collision of creativity, play and technology over 3 days in early December. The fest featured 2 large games exhibitions, 2 conference streams with talks from local and international guests, and a selection of immersive artworks, commissioned for the festival. Summing Playtopia up with one image was tough, but we’ve gone with this shot from The Super Friendship Arcade: An exhibition of accessible home-made party games and alternative controllers. SFA’s corner of Playtopia represented the DIY collective’s quest to grow more diverse communities of players and creators, by framing games in a new light.”
Chicago, United States
Chaz Evans writes: “From September 20 to December 15, 2019 Video Game Art (VGA) Gallery presented Notes from the Margins of History, the first exhibition of work by Chala, India-based Studio Oleomingus shown in North America. The exhibition brought together four video games, several fine art prints, and written works based on the mysterious Gutaraji poet Mir UmarHassan, as well as a live artist talk delivered via video call from Dhruv Jani. The exhibition took place at VGA’s brick-and-mortar location in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago.”
Dundee, Scotland
Malath Abbas writes: “Arcadia Festival is a grassroots celebration exploring contemporary, alternative, and experimental play in games, space and culture. Based in Dundee, Scotland Arcadia brings together game makers, researchers and the public to explore play. Through public talks, workshops and exhibition Arcadia helps to showcase the amazing skill, talent and knowledge involved in games making from indie dev to large scale projects.”
Genoa, Italy
Marina Rossi & Maddalena Grattarola write: “Game Happens is the international festival dedicated to the cultural, political and social impact of video games. Held in a XVIII century villa in Genoa, it counts five editions so far and features two main formats: a conference, in English, aimed at industry professionals, students, and journalists, and an exhibition open to the general public, where people are invited to get hands-on experience with some of the most groundbreaking independent games, meet the developers and understand the relevance of video games as a cultural medium.
Designed as a restaurant menu, Papille is a weekly free web-zine curated by the fine folks at Game Happens. Its aim is to put video games in a wider context, and encourage people to approach them through the lens of digital culture, literature, cinema, art. A brief summary in Italian introduces each link, so that many can overcome the linguistic barrier that would prevent them from exploring further on their own.”
Hebden Bridge, England
David Hayward writes: “This year at Feral Vector, we held a pro-wrestling match titled “VIDEOGAMES VERSUS ART: THE DECIDER”. Despite crowdfunding, repeated assurances and a risk assessment, no one believed we were actually doing this, not even the venue, until a van full of burly men turned up with a 16ft wrestling ring. Videogames, Art, Business, and Videogames-But-With-A-Space all duked it out for a cardboard championship belt bearing the word “VALID”. We filmed it all, and just need to find time to edit now.”
London, England
Emilie M. Reed writes: “I curated a selection of zines on the topics of videogames, technology, and community, representing the thematic strands of Now Play This festival and showing how fans and creators use the zine format to document and communicate about their work. Next to the library area was also a space where people could make zines or contribute their own drawing and writing to a collaborative zine that was laid out and copied the old fashioned way with just a xerox machine! Here is a talk I gave at Feral Vector about the experience.”
Los Angeles, United States
Ben Esposito writes: “This year Glitch City members collaborated with IndieCade to curate Night Games 2019 in the courtyard of Santa Monica College, with a focus on unique interfaces & social interactions. Night Games always feels open and positive, and the Glitch members were honored to help coordinate. It’s for sure one of my favorite LA events of the year.”
Lusaka, Zambia
Sithe Ncube writes: “Though prosearium.net was launched in December 2019 in South Africa during Playtopia, this new initiative (which aims to document 1000 African women of all backgrounds and their experiences creating their own games) only felt real during our first workshop on the 4th January, when I was with a group of amazing women in Lusaka and I walked them through uploading their first visual novel after making one in two hours! I know this is kind of cheating since it’s 2020 but I love this picture and working with women in Zambia. Here is Tendai’s game which you can see her planning out in the picture.”
Madrid, Spain
Eurídice Cabañes writes: “The exhibition Video games: the two sides of the screen at Fundación Telefónica Madrid explored the limits between the physical and virtual worlds in a journey through the video game industry, in which we delved into its economic, socio-cultural, scientific and even its most artistic aspects. The exhibition had more than 100,000 visitors.”
Melbourne, Australia
Chad Toprak writes: “In 2019, Freeplay Independent Games Festival celebrated its 15th year anniversary in May with the theme ‘introspection’. Our keynotes Hannah Nicklin & Richard Lemarchand and international guests Gwen Foster, Holly Gramazio, and Rosa Carbo-Mascarell delivered powerful and intimate talks alongside our 50 or so local speakers. We held talks, panels, and workshops including an outdoor Traditional Aboriginal Games session. Hovergarden once again delivered a fantastic night market party, and we celebrated the winners of the annual Freeplay Awards. In October, Freeplay hosted Parallels, a series of short talks and heartfelt games. Parallels highlights some of the most unique, experimental, and personal games from Australia and beyond. Twelve game makers take turns coming up on stage to play and talk about their work, their craft, and reveal their personal journey through games. We filled up our gorgeous new venue, The Capitol, that seats 550 people, making Parallels 2019 the single biggest Freeplay event ever. We’re excited for Freeplay’s return in May 2020!”
Montreal, Canada
Tanya X. Short writes: “In association with popagenda, Pixelles hosted Mardi Culturel TD, a showcase at a local art gallery, pairing local, diverse creators’ video games and with local, diverse creations in other artistic mediums (paintings, sculptures, photography, etc). It was a beautiful evening, and exposed a new population to the possibilities of indie games as art.”
Philadelphia, United States
Shawn Pierre writes: “The photo, taken at Indy Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the brainstorming session of our every-so-often game jam, Profit Jam. This jam focused on making a game, releasing it, profiting as much as you can from the entire experience, whether that means making money, or learning a new skill. More information can be found on the Philly Game Mechanics website.”
Pittsburgh, United States
Paolo Pedercini writes: “Last Stop: New Urbanist Games for Transit-Oriented Teens was a celebration of public transportation as portrayed, idealized or fetishized by videogames. It showcased some chill games like Mini Metro, Short Trip and 4EVER transit authority along with Train Simulator 2019, which worked rather well as a kind of party game / co-op puzzle. The centerpiece was a big physical game about planning a commute on a future-Pittsburgh transit map. We also put a gigantic subwoofer in the basement that shook the entire building every 5 minutes, accurately simulating a the passing of a subway train. A public transportation advocacy group was tabling at the show connecting the theme to concrete local campaigns.”
Reykjavik, Iceland
Joon Van Hove writes: “The second edition of our games & art festival Isle of Games took place in 2019, and as we started to see ourselves more and more as an art collective, we focused on showcasing work made by the Isle of Games team and collaborators themselves. This included stories written by Iceland-based authors for the Choosatron, Live Games performances with local poets, comedians and musicians, and a debut by our invited artist Moshe Linke. The picture is from the APE OUT + LIVE JAZZ show we produced with local improvisational jazz performers, which went on to become a standalone show afterwards. We are again ready to re-evaluate our format for the future, but have seen a lot of success so far, and will likely curate a new exhibition in 2020.”
São Paulo, Brazil
Andre Asai writes: “Firmeza Fest was an experimental games festival featuring an expo area with recent and upcoming Brazilian independent games, talks revolving around game design and public interviews with the game devs. The idea was to highlight fresh titles and promote conversations on the pains and discoveries of making games in Brazil.”
Tokyo, Japan
Nomi writes: “GÆMZ Meetup is a round table meet-up which was founded in 2019 for the people who follow and/or create art games, experimental games, playable media, and playful media (and dope shit), and for those who think of games as an art form. We gather regularly to share our projects, experiences, knowledge, and to play/playtest games; additionally, we organise offline game jams and field trips.”
Toronto, Canada
Sagan Yee writes: “Game Curious at Evergreen Brick Works is a free, public event series. In April we invited six multidisciplinary artists to a 3-day game jam: participants were asked to design playful analogue experiences inspired by the interconnected networks of natural and urban systems showcased at the centre. The games and creative process were then published in the form of a digital and printed zine, called Six for Bricks.”
Vancouver, Canada
Leanne Roed writes: “Heart Projector is a collective focused on curating shows of experimental games that are free and open to the public. Regeneration, one of our shows this year, took place at the Western Front gallery in Vancouver, BC, and was guest curated by Montreal artist Maize Longboat around the subject of Indigenous games.”
Want more international inspiration? Check out the 2015, 2016, 2017 or 2018 posts. Do cool game arts stuff and would like to be included in a roundup next year (or possibly even this year, if we find the time to update this post)? Email us!