Videogames in the museum workshop

This very special event at the V&A will present museum curators in conversation with the creators of the beautiful and fascinating forthcoming videogame, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.

In Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, players will discover the mysteries behind a richly realised and apparentlya bandoned Shropshire village in the year 1984. Players piece together the stories behind the village’s disappeared inhabitants in a setting inspired by the nuclear holocaust-inflected science-fiction of John Wyndham.

The artistry behind Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture’s leading technology, visual design, music composition and storytelling offers a broad canvas to explore how the game might be represented in a museum like the V&A. It should make for a stimulating afternoon. Come along for 1pm, in time for the event starting at 1.30pm.

Research project
The event is the fourth and final workshop of a series held for a research project called Videogames in the Museum, which is being conducted by Abertay University and the V&A, and is supported by the AHRC.

The project is investigating how the internationally renowned V&A can represent and collect videogames, and is asking such questions as, how can videogames be presented in the context of the museum’s enormous and varied audience? And what should museums role be in supporting the huge and varied body of creatives making videogames?

Programme
The workshop will kick off with a presentation by curators of the V&A’s Design Architecture and Digital Department. They will be providing a brief insight into the museum’s recent videogame acquisitions as well as looking ahead to the museum’s upcoming videogame exhibition in 2017.

We will then present a series of conversations between museum curators and game developers from The Chinese Room, the UK-based studio behind Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.

They will discuss what aspects of their work they see as important and relevant to their own practices, as well as to wider cultures of game development and the modern creative industry. They will also look at potential strategies of presenting this work, and interpreting it for wide audiences.

More information
For more information, or if you’ve any questions, contact Alex Wiltshire, network coordinator for the project, at alex.wiltshire@gmail.com.