Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Art Vote To Help The Smithsonian Determine the Video Game Art Canon
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 12:55 PM
In a little more than a year (March 16-September 30, 2012, to be exact) the Smithsonian American Art Museum in D.C. will open what is sure to be a landmark new media art exhibition, The Art of Video Games. In the meantime video game collector Chris Melissinos, who is curating the exhibition, is asking players for help determining the essential canon of video game art by voting online.
In addition to turning the spotlight onto designers and developers, the exhibition will feature a total of 80 video games spanning the five eras pictured above—some will be playable, others represented by concept drawings, stills and other artifacts. Gamers who feel strongly are encouraged to vote for their favorites from an expansive field that includes 240 possible canonical games, and since the polls went up yesterday response has been so overwhelming that the Smithsonian's voting system crashed and the site is currently undergoing maintenance.
Eek! Your enthusiasm has overwhelmed us and we’re experiencing technical difficulties! Please have patience while we fix this.
But any day now we'll all be able to vote for the games that got us through infancy, elementary school, high school, college and post-college and early adulthood. Speaking of which: have you played the old NES video game version of The Great Gatsby?
(ArtInfo)
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