Thoroughly steeped in media theory, fluxus art, game design, and dance music, Bushwick-born Babycastles knows how to throw a party. But are they ready for Broadway?
Last weekend, the video game art collective hosted a summit at New York’s Museum for Art and Design, combining presentations on game design with musical performances and access to a dystopian children’s playroom.
The presentations were a high point. Clever pop culture deconstructions from the AV Club’s John Teti complimented working game development sessions from NYU’s Eric Zimmerman. Panels of “public game makers” such as a Ramiro Corbetta, JR Blackwell, and Matt Parker dove into frenzied debates about soccer and what makes games ‘accessible.’ Later presentations brought in stars of New York’s indie game and game art scene including Doug Wilson and Eyebeam’s Kaho Abe.
But the actual games and game art experiences proved rough and incoherent. Arriving on the 7th floor, visitors confronted a rich jungle made of paper, aluminum foil blanketing and wooden staging. Screens had been installed into paper tree trunks and in silvered crawlspaces, but few were working. An unused CRT monitor sat in a sea of mini beachballs, suggesting either an unrealized project or something broken.
For the entirety of Saturday afternoon, this focal point of the Babycastles residency at MAD sat in disarray. A few artists tinkered on electronics, but it took hours during the museum’s busy Saturday before a Duck Hunter mod and enchanting two-player Marioball interface were fit for play.
The result was a museum exhibition that captured the raw energy of Bushwick experiments but failed to translate to something audience-ready. The Babycastles team was understandably focused on the summit’s programming, but wandering its rich- and broken – physical media environment left something to be desired. Perhaps the team should have closed the floor for certain hours while they worked on restoring function to their displays and games. As it was, visitors wandered perplexed and confused – sentiments Babycastles more often produces with their game where those emotions can be captured and re-focused back on the liberating act of play.
If the Babycastles summit wanted to solidify the growing importance of New York’s indie game community and bring their rich art theory toward’s the city’s marquee museum world, it succeeded. But if MAD wanted to bring the creative energy of Babycastles and game art to a broader audience, it fell short. Attendees seemed quite familiar with each other, likely having seen Babycastles work in the past or been to similar game/art events at NYU’s Game Center.
In contrast to events like Come Out and Play, where hundreds of families in park space have felt called into public games, Babycastles at MAD pushed museumgoers back with lack of invitation or explication. It also lacked a curatorial dimension that Cory Arcangel’s Whitney Retrospective provided to successfully guide the uninitiated through game art and it’s concerns. While the summit certainly shows courage from MAD and allowed insight into Babycastles frentic design process, it lacked a clear way in for many visitors.
