A door between two worlds
K, here’s a test. What were you doing 19 years ago? If the answer is ‘making plans to visit Game On, the first major UK exhibition to explore the vibrant history and culture of videogames’, then snap party held at the event, where the likes of Steven Poole could be found mingling among a galaxy of games from across the ages. This Barbican exhibition felt important, staged with the kind of attention to detail you’d expect from such an organisation, displaying 125 playable games and exotic original hardware such as a DEC PDP-1 minicomputer alongside a sparkly yellow cabinet. Yes, we thought at the time, finally videogames are getting the recognition they’ve avoided for so long – what comes next? Game On 2.0 arrived in 2010, but we’ve had to wait until this year for the Barbican to provide a next-generation kind of event in Virtual Realms, an exhibition with ambitions on a different scale, featuring unique interactive works created by industry names such as Tetsuya Mizuguchi. As we discover on p80, the journey from conception to live event has been an extremely challenging one, but you can visit it now – at least if you’re near Singapore, where it’s making its debut. It’s due in Australia next year and after that will theoretically go wherever anyone is willing to fund it. Perhaps we’ll order some trays of canapés and host another get-together if it makes it to London in the future.
