Video games will soon take centre stage at ArtScience Museum thanks to an all-new exhibition.
Named Virtual Realms: Videogames Transformed, the showcase will make its worldwide premiere in Singapore on Jun 12 before embarking on a global tour.
Organised by London’s Barbican Centre, this immersive event is co-produced by ArtScience Museum together with Melbourne Museum too. It also sees curatorial efforts by celebrated Japanese video game designer, Tetsuya Mizuguchi.
Reimagining video games as a 21st century artform, Virtual Realms spotlights interactive works by six of the world’s leading video game developers, all of whom have collaborated with top media design studios to create a series of large-scale, interactive installations.
That includes makers of the smash hit game Death Stranding, Kojima Productions, as well as thatgamecompany which wrote meditative games Sky: Children of the Light and Journey. Tetsuya Mizuguchi and the team behind Rez Infinite as well as Tetris Effect represent Enhance; Tequila Works that created Deadlight and RiME will display art pieces too.
Rezonance, Enhance and Rhizomatiks, 2021
So get excited to view six new commissions which promise kaleidoscopic realms driven by unique themes including Connection, Play and Synesthesia. Begin your journey by entering Synesthesia, where an exploration of the perceptual phenomenon awaits. Here, Rezonance (2021) will allow visitors to encounter a sensorial state as a shared experience. In fact, with the light, sound and technology developed, Enhance and Rhizomatiks design studio offer an unexpected synesthetic affair, transporting guests to other worlds and dimensions.
Then, head to Connection for works like Wall (2021). Building on the theme of human connection in Kojima Productions’ latest game, Death Stranding, the exhibit brings museum-goers into a place where a wall is the only channel of connection to two opposing worlds.
Dream Shaping, Media Molecule and Marshmallow Laser Feast, 2021
Play will also entice audiences with the celebration of fun game elements and performative sensibilities. Taking the form of a giant play area where visitors can experiment in both the physical and virtual worlds, the space is equipped with tracking helmets and a selection of oversized soft geometric forms for participation too.
Together The distance between us, thatgamecompany and Field, 2021
But that’s not all. Plenty of other exhibits and commissions are just waiting to be explored at Virtual Realms: Videogames Transformed. So to live out your video game fantasies, a trip to ArtScience Museum this June is a must.
Tickets will be available from May 31 onwards.
More information available here.
