GDC 11: Scenes From Giant Robot's Videogame Art Party
Posted by Joshua_Kopstein on Thursday, Mar 10, 2011
Photos: Emi Spicer
Bookending a week of awards, parties, workshops and generally good-natured industry banter at the Game Developers Conference, the fourth iteration of Giant Robot’s GAME OVER exhibit brought some seriously impressive videogame-inspired art to the GR gallery near Haight Street in San Francisco.
Over 100 pieces hung from the walls of the culture shop’s tiny back room as the conference emptied out on Friday, almost all of which were for sale (and reasonably priced, at that). Some were stylish tributes to specific games like Katamari Damacy and Minecraft. Others used the iconography of videogames to establish their own unique themes and ideas.
Several of the artists were schmoozing around the gallery too: Cory Schmitz, creator of new-wave videogame zines EXP and The Controller, and Jude Buffum, whose hyper-precise pixel art paintings mash 8-bit visual motifs with other forms of pop culture. Both have had their work exhibited across the country, most recently at Giant Robot’s Scion gallery event in L.A., and in New York for an exhibit at underground indie arcade Babycastles.
It was exciting and beautiful and also a bit depressing being a New Yorker at such a fantastic show, seeing as how Giant Robot’s sister spot in Manhattan has been closed down since late last year. I would have snatched up a few prints too, if it weren’t for all of the damn art-ruining audio equipment that filled my luggage. But merely getting to see it all in person was plenty fine by me, even if I did feel a bit upset that I hadn’t grabbed that one of the augmented reality futurecat playing games on a floating medicine ball. C’est la vie.
See some of our favorites, and more shots from the opening in the gallery below:
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Electronic musician and computer culture journalist. Contact: josh ◢at◣ motherboard ◐dot◑ tv
