TURIN - The videogame is not only a world of playful escapism, but it is also art.
Copy of masterpieces and, in turn, a source of creativity.
Not only that: it is a political space, a place where ideas and visions are born, architecture, painting, music, poetry, cinema and comics coexist.
Not just a game, in short.
All this clearly emerges from the beautiful, unpublished exhibition Play.
Videogames, art and beyond, curated by the director Guido Curto and Fabio Viola, founder of the artistic collective TuoMuseo and one of the leading international experts in the sector.
The exhibition, which can be visited at the Reggia di Venaria until January 15, 2023, is part of the annual program of exhibitions and activities on the theme of "game".
Each of the twelve rooms of the exhibition itinerary focuses on a question on the role of the video game, recognized as the 'tenth form of art' and practiced by 3 billion people around the world.
There are no answers, every visitor will find his own.
The starting point is an ancient Hellenistic vase not far from a screen on which the images of a video game, Apotheon, an indie title developed by Alientrap and inspired by ancient Greece, scroll.
Sony's Ico video game next to De Chirico's paintings, 2006's Okami by Capcom alongside Okusai's great Kanagawa wave.
Then the references to Kandinsky, Calder, Andy Warhol, the installations of modern artists such as Tabor Robak and Bill Viola.
There are videos, paintings, prints, sculptures, video interviews.
Video games that make you think about themes such as war and
immigration.
The music of Assassin's Creed, Finally an interactive part.
In a video game room from the 80s you can play a game of Pac Man and Space Invaders, or relive the times of the first Playstation or Xbox console.
"Video games are the most current and most practiced forms of entertainment, involving young people and adults, of all social classes, of all intellectual levels and of all nations, almost without interruption, in a sort of 'globalization of happiness'. Only in some brutal contemporary dictatorships and in pockets of extreme poverty do video games find no space. And this is a signal to be grasped "explains Curto. the "Venaria Light Show: the Great Game", the
innovative and fun game of interaction and creative cooperation, which allows visitors - through a giant 4-meter keyboard - to "act" on the entire facade of the Galleria Grande, transforming it into a theater through ever-changing lighting effects and scenographies.
A fantastic, exciting "real" video game.