Gallery exhibit probes the “are video games art?” question

A gallery in Burlington, Vermont is exploring the question of whether or not video games are art – a question that is either intriguing or a dead horse awaiting another kick, depending on your perspective.

But the games chosen for the exhibit are good ones, all of them checkmarks in the “art” column of the argument’s tally sheet – flOw, Flower, and Machinarium are all represented, among others.

Those whose most-recent video game experience goes back a generation to “Ms. Pac-Man” should find “Game (Life)” as interesting as the 12-to-14-year-old boys Thompson hopes will be lured into an art gallery for perhaps the first time ever. He said video games appear to be at the same place films were half a century ago, on the verge of becoming the major visual-art form of their era. More than cinema, Thompson said, video games are morally ambiguous and open-ended, leaving them ripe for artistic exploration.

“It seems like it’s about to break,” Thompson said. “Video games are going to utterly transform our culture, there’s no getting around it.”