48 | NewScientist | 7 April 2012

CULTURELAB

Masterpiece MarioThe digital worlds in video games are elevated to high art, finds Jeffrey R. Young

The Art of Video Games, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC, until 30 September

DO VIDEO games count as art? The cultural stronghold of gaming – now a $25 billion industry – is undisputed, but the earliest game creators saw themselves primarily as computer programmers or engineers. And those among them who do see their work as art are seldom exhibiting on the gallery circuit.

An exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC may change that. The pixelated realms first brought to life in dark corners of convenience stores, pubs and bowling alleys are now on display in the same building as works by artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe and John Singer Sargent.

In The Art of Video Games, museumgoers can admire images

from 80 of the most aesthetically ambitious games in the industry’s 40-year history. Those wishing for a fuller gaming experience can play 3-metre-high projections of Pac-Man or Super Mario Brothers.

The exhibition may mark a turning point. “The art world has never figured out how to deal with interactive work,” says Ian Bogost, a video-game designer and author of Persuasive Games: The

Adapt to conquerLearning from the Octopus by Rafe Sagarin, Basic Books, £17.99/$26.99

Reviewed by Adrian Barnett

EVERYTHING would be better if we learned from nature, says Rafe Sagarin. It might be surprising to hear this idea coming from

a former advisor to a US congresswoman, but Sagarin’s primary habitat is an even tougher environment than Washington’s corridors of power;

expressive power of videogames. “While you have lots of exhibits that use game technology, they’re not games as such.” He sidesteps the question of whether video games should be considered art, arguing instead that the medium is akin to fiction writing or cinema – some works earn the distinction of art, whereas others are simply meant as popular entertainment.

Curator Chris Melissinos, former chief gaming officer for Sun Microsystems, says that the growth and innovation in video games elevates them in public perception. “I think that’s important to anyone who’s ever been in their bedroom writing code or designing games and

the rock pools of California. His biologist’s-eye-view

provided a radical perspective when his time in politics coincided with the aftermath of 9/11. Faced with rigid security checks, Sagarin was reminded of the flexible dynamic threat responses of the octopuses and anemones he studied, which keep both the animals and their aggressors on their metaphorical toes. Inspired by the insight, Sagarin set out on the path that led to Learning from the Octopus.

For Sagarin, and those in power who have been listening to him, the US’s operations in Iraq and

Afghanistan were further proof of concept. Here a mighty but inflexible military machine faced the insurgents’ mercurial forces. As Sagarin notes, American survival and success came with flexibility: scrap metal bolted on as “hillbilly armour”, field commanders who ignored Standing Operating Procedures and, like the insurgents, worked on-the-fly adaptations. Social smarts, it seemed, counted more than smart bombs.

Every living species, Sagarin points out, has been under attack for its entire evolutionary history. Survival involves flexibility when confronting everything from

minor skirmishes to full-on blitzkriegs. This inchoate ability has largely withered in generally safe western societies. In showing how to get it back, Sagarin explains biology’s lessons for successful national security with a brisk, clear style, designed for the broadest possible audience. The book will be as informative to a field biologist as a field commander.

The natural history examples are linked cleverly and effectively, making surprising and provocative points to prompt discussion of how the flexibility of natural defences can be used for strategic benefit. n

helped to get a message to the world.” For the exhibition, he selected a pool of games and then the final cut was made by more than 100,000 online voters.

On the opening weekend, visitors to the exhibition sounded as though they were looking through old photo albums. “I used to build these beautiful cities,” one person said before a display on SimCity. Museum director Elizabeth Broun says it is this interaction that sets games apart: “The great thing about video games is that the player completes the artwork.”

Twelve-year-old Josh Scott said his favourite game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, is both “really fun” and a work of art. “It’s a masterpiece.” n

Visitors to the exhibition can play a giant game of Super Mario Brothers N

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