VGxA: The best place for artS Professionals and lovers to Start Their Journey With video games
(and the menagerie of related works!)
As someone who has spent two decades making artworks, writing essays, and curating shows about video games, I regularly struggled to find information that spoke directly to the interests—and in the language—of my friends and colleagues in the arts. Video Games for the Arts was born of a desire to fill this conversational gap.
Our goal is simple: provide a wealth of trailheads for people across the arts to explore how their field engages with video games.
VGxA is a hub of tightly curated resources about video games, categorized and keyworded, each with a brief explanation of why it might be interesting and relevant. As such, it is not a comprehensive archive, nor does it feature in-depth criticism. It is deliberately the opposite, assuming no prior knowledge about games and focusing on the most valuable concrete starting places. When you want to expand your inquiry, we have a whole category called Resources that will send you to places you can dive deep. (Hi Gamescenes and Critical Distance!)
Our sharp focus on arts professionals and lovers is simply to fill a distinct online information gap. VGxA has no intention of reinforcing the stereotypical high-/low-culture split around games. Arts discourses simply have their own set of concerns, language, history, and context that are different than the majority of traditional games media. Hopefully, our site will bridge a few of those cultural fissures and preconceptions.
One core aspect of VGxA is an insistence that video games are an art form in their own right. Video games and their fans are often treated as objects to study for the production of other works. But there are countless incredible games that both enrich and benefit from the kinds of conversations that happen across arts. For game entries, if needed, we’ve included a brief description of how tricky these games might be to pick up for someone who isn’t familiar with gaming skillsets or tech knowledge. In the near future, we’re even going to create tutorial videos that explain the rudiments of getting, running, and playing video games.
For now, dive into our beta test and be in touch if you have any thoughts or ideas!
—Eron Rauch, VGxA Founder and Head Curator
Diversity Statement
Video Games for the Arts actively curates to feature diverse creators and works and to boost marginalized voices. Video Games for the Arts is pro-feminist, anti-racist, and fully supports LGBTQA+ rights. However, Eron (the primary curator) is a white dude from the American Midwest, and has blind spots and will make mistakes. If you have any suggestions to improve diversity, find mistakes, or have suggestions for works that we should include to further diverse representation, please email us! We want to do out best!
Eron Rauch
Head Curator
Eron is an artist, writer, and curator whose projects explore the infrastructure of imagination, with a focus on the endless permutations of contemporary subcultures, video games, digital communications systems, and imaging history. He received his MFA in Photography and Media from the California Institute of the Arts, where he studied with Allan Sekula and Michael Asher, and where he teaches an intermedia photography course. His projects often repurpose platforms and spaces outside of traditional visual art venues to bring disparate audiences into new conversations.
Eron’s essays and critical writings about video games and related art have been featured in Mechademia, Gamasutra, Ready:Set/ZAM, Unwinnable, and Killscreen in America, as well as WASD Magazin and Speigl in Europe. He is part of Art Newspaper’s expert panel on VR/AR/xR arts and arts displays. He is known for being one of the earliest artists to utilize video game screenshots in artworks. Heterotopias recently published his artist book about virtual Tokyo, Such is the Power of the Empty Lot: Observations on Real Estate from the Virtual Estate (featuring essays by archeologist Justin Reeve.) He is a collaborating curator for the contemporary photography section of William's College Art Museum's upcoming Repro Japan exhibit, curated a history of artists using video game screenshots titled Screen Knowledges: Origins for PhotoLA 2020, and collaborated with Glitch City to curate Night Games at IndieCade West 2019.
Lest it is not obvious, Eron rather enjoys video games. Some of his favorite recent games include Nier: Automata, Heaven’s Vault, Kentucky Route Zero, Night in the Woods, Oikospiel, EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY, Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor, Proteus, Heaven Will Be Mine, and Pathologic 2.
