Gtopia: Game Site
游托邦：游戏现场
PLACE
Shanghai Tank Art
上海油罐艺术中心
TIME
2021-12-30
2022-03-13
KEYWORDS
game, art, exhibition
Before discussing games in the abstract and broad sense, "Gtopia: Game Site" tries to scrutinize the games in the concrete, real historical context, dismantling them one by one as information processors and cultural entertainment bodies. At the same time, the exhibition also extends the field of research and exhibition, pulling the lens back farther to include the people, organizations and systems that make games: the R&D company (Coconut Island), the independent media (indienova) that silently cultivate the ecology, and the social platform (TapTap) that directly links games and people through arithmetic.
Today everyone is talking about games and all the buzzwords related to games, but we are not talking about the same thing. We start with a certain game, a certain type of game, a certain era of game, and we soon find out that they are separated from each other by mountains and seas.
Screenshot of the first game prototype provided by the creators of Montage
It is no wonder that when we start talking about video games, which have a history of 40 to 50 years, or start talking about games from a certain perspective, that we are bound to miss certain people, technology, culture, financing, history, and anecdotes, and sometimes we will fight for misinterpretation and over-interpretation.
For this reason, Gtopia: The Game Site does not provide a systematic framework, nor does it take a macro view of the "game" mammoth. Instead, we look at everyday life and focus on the 19 indie games that are likely to appear on Chinese people's phones and computers in the 2020s. What are these games? Why are they in front of us? When and where were they born, and how many people and events did they pass through before coming to our electronic devices? These games meet us in one live site after another, and "Gtopia: Game Site" is to lift the curtain and look inside, showing the whole system and subsystem of development, production, distribution and consumption, as well as some anomalies scattered outside the system.
Game design manuscript provided by the team of "A Perfect Day”
Needless to say, the game is naturally the creator's first, and the game site is the site of imagination and productivity. The game is code, pixels, words, light and shadow, the luck of touching the class and talent, and the curse of bursting liver to test and fix bugs. The game is also a game for players, live streamers, and video gamers, and the site of the game begins with each read, replay, match, collaboration, viewing, and memory. You know, the game is originally a life cheat, R&D, development, promotion, localization, e-sports, second creation, modifications, cross-media ...... game is always being born, reproduced, cloned, uninstalled, forgotten, imitated and paid tribute to by its spiritual descendants.
The title subplot provided by the creator of "Sun Wukong vs. Robot”
Further along the path of media archaeology, games are born within a certain lightcone where software, hardware, network, skills, inspiration, history of technology, history of design, history of art intersect, a special point in time and space: a certain engine change, a certain graphics card upgrade, a certain platform opening, a new console.
A glimpse of the studio provided by the creators of "Will: A Wonderful World”
Games are also born outside of games, as game studies scholars Patrick Lemieux and Stephanie Boluk detail in Metagaming, which is not just a system of rules and target rewards and punishments in the Magic Circle, but all the contingent and inevitable historical conditions that spawned, shaped, and subverted it.
The visual elements of the art provided by the creators of Gemini
The best site for our "meta-game" of anatomical games is the contemporary art space. It is another site, another set of methodology and language, another playground. While the game builds a legend in an illusory dimension, the gallery also presents a spectacle day after day. Both sides are half real third spaces, which only occasionally intersect and are basically parallel. Yutopia: The Playground" attempts to break the boundaries and introduce these imaginative twins into each other's context, giving the creators and players of the art and game worlds a possibility to care for each other.
Curatorial Concept
Connected or stand-alone, video games, as an interactive media of information and cultural processors, have always needed to constantly create and maintain the illusion of an otherworldly world, transforming the binary code of 0 and 1 of new media technology into a fascinating and lingering otherworldly world through the engine, text, sound, performance, graphics, touch and other technologies and human creativity.
A manuscript of the game trailer sub-screen design provided by the creators of Finding Paradise”
In "Gtopia: Game Site", we choose 19 works that have special creative experiments and breakthroughs in these creative aspects to dissect the seemingly mixed games in time and space: in time, we step back to the beginning when game artists and designers have nothing but a whimsical idea in their heads, and see how they go through the steps of prototyping, iteration, testing, user generation, and so on, and gather sand into a tower; in space, we take the game In terms of space, we split up the architecture, characters, art, animation, text, narrative, levels, and subsystems of the game, and use the microscope of system theory to see how each part of the final giant system looks like and the tension and buffer within the system.
The inside of an accompanying notebook provided by the creator of Self.
Looking beyond individual game works, "Yutopia: Game site" further demolishes the outer walls of game studios and turns the backstage into center stage to see how independent studios and distribution and communities, the basic units of creative production, further ground and push these virtual mini-universes to each of our eyes. From brain to prototype, from engine to screen, from R&D studio to subway and internet cafe, the site of games is also the site of people, and let's see how we meet.
“A Perfect Day" video interview between the mastermind and the main beauty
This is the first time in China to move quality games for the public as live items, cultural works and research objects into the art museum cutting reproduction. Following the concept of two thematic design exhibitions in the past decade at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, "Gtopia: Game Site" presents games as important participants in contemporary culture and art life that cannot be ignored. At the same time, the exhibition also experimentally introduces game making itself into the exhibition hall, capturing the disappearing production relationship and production process crystallized.
Curatorial Team
Producer Yang Jing
Curator and researcher of game art, PhD from School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. She curated "Game Symbiosis" at Shenzhen Animation Biennale, which is the first time in China to present independent games in a contemporary art style, and "Forgotten Engineer", created in collaboration with French contemporary art collection institution DSL, which is the first experimental work combining art collection and video game in the world, has won many awards in the game industry and contemporary art field, and has been exhibited in art academies and art museums at home and abroad. His academic works have been presented at DIGRA World Video Games Annual Conference, ISEA International Symposium on Electronic Art, Linz Electronic Art Festival in Austria, Christie's Global Art Education Forum, Documenta seminar in Kassel, etc.
Advisor Li Zhenhua
Veteran new media art curator, pioneer in the field of new media art curation in China and Europe. Currently working in Zurich, Berlin and Hong Kong. He is currently the curator of Art Basel Hong Kong (since 2014), the recommender of Summer Academy of Paul Klee Art Museum, Switzerland, the recommendation of Prix Pictet Photography Festival, Switzerland, the international advisor of "Digital Revolution" of Barbican International Exhibition, UK, the international advisor of SymbioticA, Australia since 2015, and the international advisor of Video Too, Hong Kong. Since 2015, he has been an international consultant for SymbioticA in Australia, and a consultant for Hong Kong Video Taki. Li Zhenhua has edited the artist's publications Yan Lei: What I Like to Do, Feng Mengbo: Journey to the West, Hu Jieming: One Minute of One Hundred Years and Yang Fudong: The Fog of Dissociation. 2013 Art Review was published under the title Text. 2015 Art Power List Curator of the Year Award (2014), Art News Asian Art Contribution Award Curator of the Year, and the 3rd Ural Contemporary Art Industry Biennial in 2016. In 2016 the 3rd Ural Biennial of Contemporary Art Industry (2015) received the Russian Innovation Award Regional Contemporary Art Program Award.
Curator Liu Xiaoyi
Artist and curator. Graduated from the École des Hautes Études d'Art et de Design de Valence in Grenoble, France, and received a Master's degree from the National Diploma of Advanced Plastic Arts (DNSEP), awarded by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication.
Curator Rashel Li Rui Xuan
Curator and writer. She is currently the editor of UNArt 2020 online magazine and the collection curator of Arthur Art+Data, a New York-based art information platform.
Curator Li Zhen
Artist and curator. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, Italy, and holds a PhD in Fine Arts from the Macau University of Science and Technology. He is engaged in research and practice related to community art and digital art.
Exhibition Venue: TANK Art Center, Shanghai
ShanghaiTANKArt Center is a non-profit art institution, a groundbreaking and multifunctional art center where the public can get close to art, architecture, city, nature and the outstanding Huangpu River landscape through contemporary art exhibitions, events and activities.
"Location
Tank Art Center is located at 2380 Longteng Avenue, Xuhui District, Shanghai. It is located in the heart of Xuhui Riverfront, along the Huangpu River.
"Historical Background
The five oil tanks belonged to Shanghai Longhua Airport, the first airport in China (decommissioned in 1966). The interior of the tanks is spacious, with a height of more than 15 meters, and features an industrial dome and curved circumference.
"Architectural Layout
The Tank Art Center consists of five oil tanks, three of which are connected as exhibition spaces for the museum, while the rest are used as supporting functions. It is an art ecology that integrates various exhibition spaces, parks, green spaces, plazas, river views and cafes, and is a vibrant art and cultural landmark in Shanghai.
Exhibition Period
December 30, 2021 to March 13, 2022
Venue
Tank Art Center
Opening Hours
Tuesday to Friday 12:00-18:00
Saturday, Sunday 10:00-18:00
Closed every Monday
Tickets: ¥50
