Gameplay

Two lines playing the role of racquets move vertically; a dot representing a ball bounces off the walls of a virtual space; a vertical dashed line imitates a tennis court net; and two numbers act as the scoreboard. This is how basic Pong, one of the first games ever released, was. It was created in 1972, 47 years ago, and since then the world of videogames has spectacularly evolved. Nowadays, the industry has gone far further than fun and games and has given rise to languages and formats that have spread into other cultural settings such as art, education, research, training and, of course, technology. In order to reflect on this phenomenon, Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona (Barcelona Centre of Contemporary Culture) is holding the Gameplay exhibition, which you can visit from 19 December 2019 to 30 August 2020.

Gameplay reflects the evolution of videogames from several aspects such as creativity, artistic innovation, production, critical content and their social impact. It also highlights their growing presence in everyday life. Nowadays there are videogames for all kinds of electronic devices, but so-called gamification is also adding a fun element to settings that are not necessarily recreational such as education and work.

The exhibition displays art works by famous names such as Mary Flanagan, Joan Leandre, Harun Farocki and Mónica Rikic, among others. But it also has a collection of 28 game stations representing the different eras, formats and languages of video gaming from the classic machine with a joystick and buttons from the 1980s to new immersive formats. The exhibition also has a space for videogames created by companies, indie studios and university projects in Catalonia. A digital play centre where you can understand how video gaming is culture.

See more information through this link.