SFMOMA Art Game Laboratory: Call for participants
SFMOMA’s Education Department is looking for proposals from artists and designers of all disciplines for simple experiments that use the vocabulary of game play to engage SFMOMA’s visitors. Selected projects will be installed in the Koret Visitor Education Center on the SFMOMA’s second floor, where they will be available for public use. Art Game Lab participants are also encouraged to present components of their projects at alternate community venues or online. The onsite display will open at SFMOMA in January 2012; once a project is selected, satellite and online components may begin before the exhibition’s opening and continue after its closing.
About the project:
Art Game Lab is a participatory educational display space in which artists, curators, game designers and experience designers present new platforms for collaboration and audience participation at SFMOMA. Building on ideas of experimentation, critique, and play, the project will engage visitors to ask their own questions about the art on view and the institutional context of the museum. Proposed projects should use the vocabulary of game play to encourage audiences to access the artworks, galleries, space and culture of the museum in enjoyable and innovative ways. They may also present complex issues of institutional authority, empowering audiences to ask questions about how meaning and value are
constructed within the walls of a museum.
Art Game Lab is a collaborative partnership between SFMOMA and members of the Bay Area community. Proposals are encouraged from creative community members including but not limited to: artists, experimental arts organizations, independent curators, game and experience designers, and representatives from adjacent fields that provide platforms for creative practice and experimentation.
Proposals can be digital, analog, or a blend of the two, but they must consider the space of the museum and its audiences intelligently. Games should be available for visitors to play autonomously with a simple set of instructions; games that require human facilitation will not be considered except in special circumstances. Game proposals can draw from existing game types such as Tower Defense, First-person shooter, Dice, Scrabble, Cranium, Apples to Apples, Bingo, Pokémon, Parlor Games, Alternate Reality Games, Scavenger Hunts, etc.
Potential outcomes of proposed games:
- Get visitors talking about art on view, model conversation for them to talk about art, notice details that they might not otherwise see – materials, processes, hidden stories, etc.
- Get visitors to engage with complex issues of curatorial/institutional authority in simple ways
- Encourage visitors to take unexpected paths through the museum
Proposals should include:
1) Project Description: Please describe the project in detail and explain how it would engage/utilize the space of the museum. Explain how the game will work logistically, and call out the experience and
education goals.
What do you hope participants will think and notice while they are playing the game?
What paths will they take through the museum galleries and public spaces? What information will they gather? How will the experience conclude?
What are the physical and conceptual takeaways after game-play has concluded?
Please also specify your project’s presence across the various potential exhibition venues: the visitor education center, the galleries and other public spaces in the museum, the web and/or other community presentation platforms, the Bay Area at large.
2) CV and bio: What kind of artistic, design, and/or public engagement experience have you had? What in your past work qualifies you to undertake the project you propose?
3) Up to 5 work samples: For images and video clips, include a list of information including: title of work, dimensions (if applicable), medium, and year. Limit the number of images to five. Keep image file sizes to a minimum, preferably under 1 MB. Limit video clip to 5 minutes in length. Please do not email video or audio files, contact SFMOMA staff for ftp instructions or use YouSendIt.
4) Resources list and rough project budget: What kind of resources do you need to complete this project? How would it be displayed? Please be as specific as possible: include furniture, hardware and technology, printed materials, wall graphics and signage, etc.
Project Resources:
SFMOMA can reimburse for materials, pay for printing/fabrication, and provide modest honoraria for project partners. We are looking for partners who see an advantage to their own practice in collaborating with SFMOMA on this initiative. In addition to the aforementioned modest budget for printing, construction and purchase of materials, SFMOMA has 200 iPod Touch units, used for our exhibition multimedia tours, and several desktop computers that could support interactive multimedia and web-based projects. The museum could also promote online project components via its own social media and web presences.
Please direct applications and questions to Erica Gangsei, Manager of Interpretive Media,
egangsei@sfmoma.org
Application deadline August 15, 2011
