Gaming the Network Poetic: Contextualizing Networked Videogames in Art

Videogames have historically used networking either to connect players for competition or cooperation, or to provide an ephemeral connection to allow the upload, comparison, or assessment of single-player achievement data. The majority of videogames take place on a screen and on established platforms, each of which have physical, technical, and sociocultural constraints that suggest how a player might interact. Recent art games, such as those by Jason Rohrer and the Atari VCS games of Ian Bogost, highlight experiments in a more focused use of the medium from concept to interaction, both between the player and the software but also foregrounding the code (both social codes and actual software) of the games. This paper documents the development and exhibition of Gaming the Network Poetic, a series of five networked videogames developed by the author, and raises questions about the aesthetic, mechanical, and audience-related considerations of developing and installing videogames in a contemporary art gallery.