Video Games at MoMA

It appears that not only the Smithsonian considers video games to be art.

Last week, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City brought fourteen video games into its permanent collection. As many as 40 video game may find a home in the halls of MoMA, but as of now the roster is limited to the following titles:

• Pac-Man (1980)
• Tetris (1984)
• Another World (1991)
• Myst (1993)
• SimCity 2000 (1994)
• vib-ribbon (1999)
• The Sims (2000)
• Katamari Damacy (2004)
• EVE Online (2003)
• Dwarf Fortress (2006)
• Portal (2007)
• flOw (2006)
• Passage (2008)
• Canabalt (2009)

This initial group will be installed in the museum’s Philip Johnson Galleries in March 2013.

In a press release, MoMA states the following:

"Are video games art? They sure are, but they are also design, and a design approach is what we chose for this new foray into this universe. The games are selected as outstanding examples of interaction design—a field that MoMA has already explored and collected extensively, and one of the most important and oft-discussed expressions of contemporary design creativity. Our criteria, therefore, emphasize not only the visual quality and aesthetic experience of each game, but also the many other aspects—from the elegance of the code to the design of the player’s behavior—that pertain to interaction design. In order to develop an even stronger curatorial stance, over the past year and a half we have sought the advice of scholars, digital conservation and legal experts, historians, and critics, all of whom helped us refine not only the criteria and the wish list, but also the issues of acquisition, display, and conservation of digital artifacts that are made even more complex by the games’ interactive nature. This acquisition allows the Museum to study, preserve, and exhibit video games as part of its Architecture and Design collection."

Games MoMA would like to secure in the future include Spacewar! (1962), Pong (1972), Space Invaders (1978), Asteroids (1979), Zork (1979), Donkey Kong (1981), Super Mario Bros. (1985), The Legend of Zelda (1986), Street Fighter II (1991), Chrono Trigger (1995), Super Mario 64 (1996), Grim Fandango (1998), Animal Crossing (2001), and Minecraft (2011).

The MoMA collection follows a similar exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.