Last night, I was graciously invited to the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards by the Wheeler Centre. It was a fun night (although I wish I’d been in a more sociable mood) and because my head is in a games + culture space, I found myself looking at the experience through a slightly odd filter.
I’ve been asked to give a presentation on the cultural influence (although that’s not a perfect descriptor) of games in a few weeks and I thought I’d share my thinking on this (large) topic in a series of posts here, including the state of things, education, IP, how other mediums deal with their creative culture, the bleeding of games into other forms, and whatever else crosses my mind.
First up is to establish a bit of where we are, which was triggered by this post We’re not the clever country if we’re not a creative country on The Punch. It’s a look at the impact creative industries have on the economy, with a specific focus on games and the Interactive Skills Integration Scheme, and it got me thinking about a couple of things. In this post I want to look at some of the influences on our local industry in 2010 and the role of education.
Recently, the Australian Council for the Arts commissioned a number of pieces from four established performing arts organizations looking at the idea of artistic vibrancy. Three of the four pieces – On Orchestra, on Theatre, and on Dance, dissected their own practices as mediums and institutions, beginning what is hopefully a longer term conversation and evolution.
The fourth, which you can read in full here, was by Richard Mills, the Artistic Director of West Australian Opera, and it attempts to explore the wider issue of heritage rather than focusing on his company’s practice.
Read moreThose who do not have imagination cannot imagine possibility.
The Wheeler Centre here in Melbourne recently ran a series of panels under the banner of ‘Critical Failure‘. These took in film, books, theatre, and the visual arts, and were designed to promote debate. And promote debate they did, with it spilling out of the Wheeler Centre and across the internet on Crikey, the ABC, in the Guardian, and on blogs.
I think these debates are incredibly interesting, both because they reveal the huge schism between those critics working in traditional print media and those working online (and, in fact, their opinions of online), and also because of what you can learn from them about criticism and how it might relate to games and the broader culture.
Click through for my thoughts…
