The minimalist furniture does make it seem a bit like a laboratory, only instead of Bunsen burners and exotic glassware, there are computers running various games. And the players seem to be experimenting, bending their minds around different styles of virtual space. This variety is one of the gallery's strengths. "The Games Lab offers visitors to ACMI a hands-on experience of gameplay. A changing series of exhibitions are designed to explore differing areas of game culture and the history of games. When visitors view games in the gallery we hope they will look beyond the fun and entertainment to appreciate the designed object and reflect on the impact of videogames as both an expressive medium and appreciate them as cultural artifacts."
The uncomfortable-looking seats seemed designed to make sure people don't get too attached to particular games. Like movies, games are a time-based medium. Unlike cinema, however, each player travels at his own pace. Stuckey sees this as a positive. "What is interesting is it has created new kinds of ways to visit a center like ACMI with some visitors returning multiple times to play through differing games. ... Games Lab is very popular with families and children. It also attracts the famously elusive demographic of 13 - 25 males, who rarely attend museums. As it is a free exhibition, visitors to ACMI will walk through and look at the work on display, even if they don't choose to play themselves." Far from there being problems with people hogging the games, then, the lab seems to have given rise to some social dynamics not often observed in galleries and museums.
Playing for Posterity
Galleries are privileged spaces. The objects within them are the way a given generation or era chooses to represent itself and its culture to the future. No doubt, this is one reason why art institutions have been so reluctant to go near such a famously ephemeral media form, whose standards and benchmarks change quickly. Stuckey says, however, senior staff members at ACMI were supportive of the idea, perhaps realizing any treatment of screen culture would ring hollow without including videogames. With screen culture, at least, the idea is to represent our culture to ourselves as much as the future.
In this respect, the Games Lab doesn't just give people a chance to experiment with games they may have not come across otherwise, it's a cultural experiment itself, highlighting many of the issues surrounding videogames. Questions about privacy and the relation of public institutions to their clientele caused the AMCI to change acmipark's design so it didn't store users' avatars or their personal details.
Through its lifespan, the Games Lab has played to a number of eclectic themes. "In the program so far, we have looked at serious games that explore political ideology, character in games, mobile phone games using augmented reality, machinima and the pioneering Australian Game developers Beam Software [now called Krome Studios Melbourne]." One of the most important events is the annual exhibition of notable entries to the Independent Games Festival.
This support of the indie scene is perhaps where cultural institutions can make their greatest contribution. Showing independents enriches the industry as a whole. "Although," Stuckey says, "it should be stated and celebrated that independent games and the game art scene have both developed outside the realm the conventional institutions, using online networks to avoid most traditional forms of gate keeping." There is a valuable role for more traditional functions of the museum here, also. "The archiving and collecting the work of the Australian games development industry is also a traditional museum role that we are considering as a next stage."
The Eberts of this world notwithstanding, the question is not so much whether or not games are art, but how they challenge hidebound notions of art. Through spaces like the Games Lab, it appears cultural institutions are taking stock of these challenges - and perhaps someday, avid kids will be dragging their parents into the Australian Centre for the Moved Image.
Darshana Jayemanne is a Melbourne-based writer and culture vulture.
