Fwd:_Pong.mythos_-_Eroffnung/opening_-_info

PONG.mythos


Opening: Friday, 10 February 2006, 19:00
11 February - 30 April 2006
Wurttembergischen Kunstverein, Stuttgart
http://pong-mythos.net


An exhibition about one ball, two bats and our life in a digital world


[The Project]
From 11 February to 30 April 2006 the Wuerttemberg Art Association in
Stuttgart hosts the premiere PONG.mythos exhibition, curated by Andreas
Lange. PONG.mythos presents over 30 works that revolve around the
computer
game Pong. Pong, in the early 70s, turned the simple game of tennis into
the signal for the emergence of the computer game industry. Since then,
it
has developed from its historical origin in game halls to an important
social, scientific and cultural reference system.

[The Artists]
//////////fur//// (D), Ascii Art Essemble (NL/SLO), Ralph Baer (USA),
Blinkenlights(D), Jaygo Bloom (GB), Blunty (AU),James Clar (USA) (tbc),
Dirk Eijsbouts (NL), VALIE EXPORT (A), Kiia Kallio (FI),
Stephan ST Kambor(D), Andrew Milmoe (USA), Mathilde MuPe (NL),
Josh Nimoy (USA), Noel Nissen, (USA), Oska Software (AU),
Alan Outten (GB), Niklas Roy (D), Leif Rumbke (D), Antoine Schmitt (F),
Jan-Peter ER Sonntag (D), Olaf Val (D), buro vormkrijgers (NL),
Philip Worthington (UK).


For the first time the complex manifestations of one of the largest and
most popular establishment myths of our digital information society are
united in one place; the pong.mythos exhibition shows artistic, popular
and scientific works that expose how influential this little game has
become. Over 20 international artists take up the Pong game and its
myth
directly. The exhibition moves consciously between the terrains of
computer history, the entertainment industry, science and art; research
projects that use Pong as an experimental playing field for future human
computer interfaces are presented along with historical game consoles
and
a Pong game for the blind.


[THE MYTH]
In 1972, when Nolan Bushnell founded Atari, the first video game
company,
to manufacture the Pong game console, he was hardly conscious of the
historical dimension of this act. The emerging digital games also marked
the beginning of the digitization of daily life. Computer games were the
first applications with which many humans learned computer engineering.
In
this sense, Pong, apart from its meaning for computer games history,
has a
significant social value. The success of Pong stands - in the sense of
concrete and transferred history - in direct connection with the
development of our digital information society.

Pong.mythos is a cooperation between the Computer Games Museum in
Berlin,
the Wurttemberg Art Association, The Games Convention/Messe, Leipzig,
Kornhausforum, Bern and other partners.

Pong.mythos is funded by the German Federal Culture Foundation and has
received support from the Royal Netherlands Embassy, Messe Leipzig and
Migros Kulturprozent. After the premiere in Stuttgart, the exhibition
will travel to Leipzig and the Games Convention (23.8. - 27.8.2006 ) and
to Bern and the Kornhausforum (17.8.2007 - 16.9.2007).


[The Computer Games Museum]
opened in 1997 with the first constant exhibition of the digital
interactive culture. Since then, the award winning venture has organized
or participated in 26 national and international exhibition projects.
http://www.computerspielemuseum.de


[ANDREAS LANGE]
Is the Director of the Computer Games Museum since 1997 and the curator
of
Pong.Mythos. After he studied Religious Science and Theatre at the Free
University Berlin, he wrote His Thesis "The Stories of Computer Games -
Analysed as Myths" (Berlin 94). Since then, Lange has worked as an
exhibition maker, author, and researcher on the theme of digital
entertainment culture.

[HANS D. CHRIST & IRIS DRESSLER]
Directors of the Wurttemberg Art Association, attach "pong.mythos" to
the
award winning project"Artist's Computer Games" which they realized 2003
in
co-operation with the curator Tilmann Baumgaertel in Dortmund.



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Spokesperson: Andreas Lange
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +49 (0)30 29049215
www.pong-mythos.net

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Wurttembergischen Kunstverein
Schlossplatz 2, D-70173 Stuttgart
Tel: +49 (0)711 22 33 70,
Fax. +49 (0)711 29 36 17,
[email protected],
http://www.wkv-stuttgart.de


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