The Art of Video Games

The Smithsonian American Art Museum is doing two awesome things with their upcoming show, The Art of Video Games, which opens in March 2012. First of all, they're doing a 6-month exhibition on video games, treating them as "a compelling and influential form of narrative art" - which I wholeheartedly agree with, and I'm excited that the Smithsonian is recognizing them as such. Secondly, they're taking the idea of participatory, crowd-sourced exhibitions to heart by letting us vote on which games will be included.

It makes sense. There is not really a canon, in a scholarly sense, of video games, so letting the public vote is a good way of putting some curatorial authority in the hands of experts who feel strongly about the subject - gamers. The 240 possible choices were selected by the curator, Chris Melissinos, along with an advisory group and the museum, but the 80 games featured in the show will depend on the outcome of the online voting. This not only builds anticipation among people who voted (I, personally, can't wait to see if my choices make it into the show), it will also lend legitimacy to the exhibition in the eyes of visitors whether or not they voted. Gaming is one of those pop culture topics where, I'd imagine, we are much more likely to trust the opinions of "normal people" than museum curators.

I do wonder whether the voting process is basically just a popularity contest. The website reminds visitors that "this is an art exhibition, so be sure to vote for games that you think are visually spectacular or boast innovative design," but I'll admit to looking for the games I loved and voting for them for the sake of nostalgia more than for their aesthetic characteristics. On the other hand, when it comes to video games, I think "visually spectacular" and "innovative" tends to translate pretty closely into "I LOVED THAT GAME." Popularity probably is a decent measure of a game's artistic and narrative significance.

It will be interesting to see if the Smithsonian takes this approach again. Would they be wary of putting something more "scholarly" in the hands of the public, and would that even be appropriate? It might not be something visitors would want to go see, even if they might have been interested in voting.