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 MµPe (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 Württemberg 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. www.computerspielemuseum.de