The game theory

Khoj International Artists’ Association presents two exhibitions that explore the world of games and gaming. The first exhibition is titled ‘Of Games: Frameworks In Question’ which will juxtapose art with games and gaming technologies including the old board games of India like Ganjifas, Parallel by Harun Farocki and video games Like Osmos and Otomata. The selected works will capture image making process explored in both, games and art, and highlight the audience engagement while gaming. An interrogation of cross pollination between games and arts is the underlying theme of the exhibition.

The games that will showed at the exhibition include computer games like Façade by Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern, Osmos by Hemisphere Games, Otomata by Batuhan Bozkurt and traditional games like Ganjifa cards and Pallankuzhi from the collection of Crafts Museum, Delhi. There 

will also be a video work titled Parallel by Harun Farocki (supported by Max Mueller Bhawan/Goethe Institute, Delhi).

Through the artworks, the exhibition poses questions of aesthetics of gaming images, game design and development as artistic intervention and gaming references of digital art. The exhibition is broadly exploring two ideas: imagery of art when borrowed from games, and the hybridity of game-world narratives.Can a game be art? The traditional games exhibited here, Ganjifa cards and Pallankuzhi, demonstrate artistry in their production and presentation—but at what point does the playing of the game itself become an art form? They both necessitate an intersection of skill and chance within an alternate reality—a microcosmic world of variables, reactions, and outcomes.

The works in the exhibition include computer based games like Façade by Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern, 2005. With the Facade project, the promise of algorithmic storytelling was demonstrated for the first time at such a scale. Algorithmic storytelling is the art of telling a story which is not scripted yet. The author  or the developers in this case develop the individual characters and their mechanisms of response and parlance but nothing more. In run-time it actually seems like the characters have a mind of their own, but they are always responding within the parameters of their programmed nature. This idea is a very strong meme in games (procedural narratives etc) and in the futuristic visions and ideas for storytelling.

Apart from the above exhibition, Khoj is also bringing for works done in a month long residency in a parallel exhibition titled ‘Of Games: Theatre in Code’, that will also be on view till September 19, 2013. 11. am to 7 p.m. Akshay Rathod, Centaur, Gayatri Kodikal, Oleomingus, Pramod Kumar and Vishal Dar are the six practitioners/groups who have been developing projects exploring the game-world and its experience from different perspectives. They will present a game prototype in the opening.