Art School 2.0 (from a-n)

 I grew up playing video games. My niche is the RPG role-playing genre. I don’t think gaming in the context of art is written enough about by artists. One of my former lecturers, who taught me, has in the past written about participatory new media art and the embodied gaze. Link for the journal here.

I think video games are a form of art, albeit without the building that calls it art.

I’ve been playing the new Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. (What’s with these island-themed games since the pandemic?), But these are games where the player creates their own imagined world. I have a sense of humour, so I called my island, Art School 2.0, and proceeded to add well-known characters such as Becoming Animal (dressed up as a bear), Karl Marx, Banksy, and people I know in real life (the ethics would run into Charlie Brookers’ Black Mirror concept of cookies).

I’ve even created items such as an empty plate (food item) and named it Conceptual Art.

I’m quickly seeing how any establishment (simulated or not), is dependent on social capital (who I know), and there are only 70 places. Some of the ones on the island have started having children, and I let the kids stay on the island. Is this classed as nepotism?

the imbalance happens when individuals with their social capitals become networks. Individual networks combine and are shared. This eventually leads to bigger and more established groups have more opportunities than individuals with poor social capital.

There’s an attitude of treating video games as fun and as an avenue of escapism, but I believe the developers behind the games are trying to tell us something. Similar to how the creators of classic cartoons, such as The Flintstones and Tom and Jerry, were trying to say something through their animations. There was a strategy behind the deliberation of having a game that’s uncensored.