World Building: Gaming and Art in the Digital Age

Alternative Realities WORLDBUILDING: Gaming and Art in the Digital Age examines the relationship between gaming and time-based media art. It is the first transgenerational show of this scope to survey how contemporary artists worldwide are appropriating the aesthetics and technology of gaming as their form of expression. Commissioned by the Julia Stoschek Foundation and curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, the exhibition features works by more than 50 artists, among them Rebecca Allen, Cory Arcangel, LaTurbo Avedon, Meriem Bennani, Ian Cheng, Cao Fei, Harun Farocki, Porpentine Charity Heartscape, Pierre Huyghe, Rindon Johnson, KAWS, Sondra Perry, Jacolby Satterwhite, Sturtevant, and Suzanne Treister. This catalog is conceptualized as future standard reference in the field in close collaboration with Hans Ulrich Obrist. In addition to texts by contemporary theorists, curators, and critics on the individual works, a series of newly commissioned contributions will be investigating various perspectives on the intersection of gaming and time-based media art. In the words of the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist: In 2023 3.09 billion people-almost a third of the world's population-played video games, "making a niche pastime into the biggest mass phenomenon of our time. Video games are to the twenty-first century what movies were to the twentieth century and novels to the nineteenth century."