Program The Garden of Forking Paths
The Garden of Forking Paths exhibition draws together notable historic and contemporary computer games created by artists that push the bounds of the genre and break the orthodox set of rules. The presented pieces span the last three decades—from Jaron Lanier's 1983 Commodore64 game 'Moondust' through to Tale of Tales' 2009 release 'The Path'—a period which has seen incredible advances in technology and the birth of the information age.
All of the pieces in the show can be played by visitors, some on ‘antique’ computers that have been sourced so the older pieces can be experienced with authenticity.
Curated by Neil Jenkins.
ARTISTS:
Laurie Anderson (USA) with Hsin-Chien Huang (Taiwan), Tale of Tales (Belgium), Jaron Lanier (USA), Michael Nyman (UK), Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie (UK), Anita Fontaine (Australia) and Mike Pelletier (Canada), Andy Deck (USA)
Garden of Forking Paths Website
Education Resource
(PDF, 7.2mb)
When the NIMROD computer, the first computer designed specifically to play a game, made its debut at the 1951 Festival of Britain, few could have predicted the prolific rise of the video game, now a multi-billion dollar industry rivaling the motion picture as the most profitable entertainment industry.
Jorge Luis Borges' 1941 short story "The Garden of Forking Paths" predates the Internet but its notions of non-linearity and storyline surrounding an infinite, labyrinthine book realises multiple paths and futures echoed in the information age with hypertext, the World Wide Web and the form and structure of computer games.
Just as Borges and his contemporaries pushed the envelope of the narrative form, so too artists have been exploring the potential of this burgeoning medium to create alternative gaming strategies that communicate across platforms and fuel imaginations with new possibilities.
Upcoming touring dates:
Burnie Regional Art Gallery, 31 July – 12 September 2010
Glasshouse Gallery, Port Macquarie, 3 February – 3 April 2011
Tin Sheds, University of Sydney, November 2011
Bathurst Regional Gallery, 16 March – 29 April 2012
Past tours:
Electrofringe, Newcastle 2 – 5 October 2009
Loop Space, Newcastle 2 – 24 October 2009
Image: Cute X Doom, Anita Fontaine & Mike Pelletier
| File | Description | File size |
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 FP_Media_Release_.pdf | The Garden of Forking Paths : Media Release | 255 Kb |