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Picture from the immersive room at the exhibition Nova Pantalla

Videogames 'made in Catalonia'

Nova Pantalla is an immersive and interactive space that brings the artistic and social sides of the videogame industry to the wider public.

Until 4 September, Palau Robert is introducing the first exhibition dedicated to the videogame industry in Catalonia. Its name is Nova Pantalla and has been organised by the Direcció General de Difusió de la Generalitat.

The exhibition highlights all the satellites that revolve around the video game universe: entertainment, of course, but also artistic creation, economics and finance, university studies and training, industry, technology, and so many other socio-cultural aspects that make it an extremely stimulating and relevant sector for the country.

According to the latest data, there are 167 videogame studios in Catalonia which employ more than 3,000 professionals: programmers, animators, scriptwriters, visual artists, game experience designers, musicians, sound engineers, and quality controllers, but also streamers and YouTubers. With an annual turnover of around 500 million euros, the Catalan industry leads the sector in Spain — where it represents 51% of its total — and has become one of the most prominent creative hubs in Europe, especially for the mobile sector.

The exhibition lays out the different manifestations of this dialogue between gamers, such as the media, content creators, trade fairs and social networks. For this reason, Nova Pantalla invites visitors to dive deeply into this world through immersive installations, interactive content and games including Endling, Narita Boy, Arise: A simple story and Koral. The exhibition has an informative, distinctive and playful character, intending to reach both amateurs and all those who have never approached the interactive medium. There is also a section dedicated to "serious games", which use video games as a medium for educational or research purposes.

Curated by the journalists Joan B. Galí, Albert García and Marc AngrillNova Pantalla addresses the videogame ecosystem as a social phenomenon with roots in the 1980s that generated an entire community around it while vindicating it as a cultural artefact of artistic interest. For this reason, the launch was attended by the Consellera de Cultura, Natàlia Garriga, and its contents include a spectacular and evocative immersive video created expressly for the occasion.

Publication date: Friday, 22 April 2022
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