Museum of Design Atlanta Celebrates Women Game Designers with Summer Exhibition

Apr 11, 2013 Joe Kleiman Museums, News 0

Atlanta, GA, USA — Offering what is sure to be another popular and engaging summer exhibition, the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) in partnership with Georgia Tech is pleased to announce an interactive show highlighting the work of women game designers and artists titled “XYZ: Alternative Voices in Game Design.” “XYZ” seeks to challenge the misperception that women neither play nor create video games. The exhibition opens July 12 and runs through September 1, 2013.

Museum visitors will have the opportunity to enjoy the interactive aspects of the exhibition. For art and design connoisseurs, “XYZ” provides a diverse and expansive picture of the art of game design, and offers even seasoned gamers new insights into what games are and can be. The show will include not only familiar mainstream games, but alternative genres such as art, independent and documentary games. “XYZ” includes a broad spectrum of works representing a legacy of alternative visions that demonstrate the capacity of game design to convey a wide range of ideas,
experiences and emotions.

The aim of “XYZ” is to celebrate women’s contributions to the advancement of the video game medium by highlighting their influence and accomplishments. Every piece in the show has been wholly or partially created by women. Today, women comprise only 10 to 15 percent of the
gaming industry, and the percentage of those participating in the actual design process is even lower. Nevertheless, women continue to serve as major creative influences in the mainstream video game industry as well as in alternative genres.

“XYZ” is being developed in partnership with Georgia Tech’s Experimental Game Lab and Digital Media Graduate Program, both in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, and is curated by a team of world-renowned game curators: Celia Pearce, director of Georgia Tech’s Experimental Game Lab and co-founder of IndieCade, the international festival of independent games; Cindy Poremba, internationally recognized game artist, member of the art game collective Kokoromi, co-curator of the international experimental game showcase Gamma and co-curator of “Joue Le Jeu/Play Along,” a landmark exhibition of video games held at the Gaîté Lyrique in Paris in 2012; John Sharp, associate professor of Games and Learning, School of Art, Media and Technology at Georgia Tech, co-founder of Art History of Games, conference co-chair for IndieCade and curator of Spacewar! At the American Museum of the Moving Image; Akira Thompson, a former Disney Imagineer, game designer and director of game maker relations for IndieCade; and Adam Rafinksi, associate curator, artist, theorist and founder of the GameLab Karlsruhe at the German art and technology center ZKM.

About the Georgia Tech Digital Media Program

The Georgia Tech Digital Media graduate programs in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture provide both the theoretical and the practical foundation for careers in digital media, design, research, and development. The aim of the Digital Media Program’s Experimental Game
Lab, is to investigate and extend the expressive capabilities of games, to foster critical analysis, and to better understand and influence the role of video games in culture. Both are part of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, which is recognized nationally and internationally for teaching and research examining the human context of engineering, science, and technology. Founded in 1990, the College is named in honor of former Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. (1911-2003).

About Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA)

MODA opened in its new home in Midtown in March 2011, and is the only museum in the Southeast devoted exclusively to the study and celebration of all things design. MODA advances the understanding and appreciation of design as the convergence of creativity and functionality through exhibitions, education and programming for visitors of all ages. MODA’s vision is of a world that celebrates design as a creative force that inspires change, transforms lives and makes the world a better place. MODA regularly features exhibitions of architecture, industrial and product design, interiors and furniture, graphics, fashion, and more. For more information, visit: www.museumofdesign.org