Vector X Punk Arcade, 2014

February 20 – 23
Open Space Gallery (OCADU)
Exhibition

Vector’s first cross-border curatorial collaboration sees Team Vector and the curators of the Punk Arcade coming together to bring you the Vector X Punk Arcade at 49 McCaul on the OCADu campus. Sponsored by OCADu’s Digital Futures initiative, Team Vector and Punk Arcade’s curators (Sarah Brin and Lee Tusman) have selected works which fit with the ethos of previous incarnations of the Punk Arcade.  

Punk Arcade is a games blog and exhibit (and sometimes a workshop) focused on works that are independent, minimal, offbeat, and sometimes gritty. All the featured games have been constructed rapidly, by one person or a small team, outside of the AAA world of mainstream videogames. These works are the product of increased access to game-making software tools which have opened up the field of game-making to publics who had previously never had the necessary skills.  These new designers, or “video game zinesters” (as dubbed by game designer Anna Anthropy), are shifting the pre-existing paradigm for the creation and distribution of games by creating radical work that can be distributed online for free. Punk Arcade first started as an exhibition at Little Berlin Gallery in Philadelphia, and has since reached over 100,000 people through interventions online and across the country.

Sarah Brin is an art historian and curator based in Los Angeles. Some of the institutions and publications she’s collaborated with include the SFMOMA, MOCA, The Armand Hammer Museum, Vice Magazine’s The Creators Project and others. You can learn more and say hi at sarahbrin.com.

Lee Tusman, Creative Director of Hidden City Philadelphia, received a BA from Brandeis University with a focus on Art and Social Change. Tusman served as Curator of Riverside Art Museum in Riverside, CA and has curated dozens of exhibitions and public projects for a diverse group of universities, galleries, institutions, alternative spaces and public interventions including Riverside Art Museum; California State University, Northridge;  University of California, Riverside; Division 9 Gallery; Space 1026; Little Berlin Gallery; and many others. Tusman’s projects straddle the intersection of ideas that are socially-based, urban in nature and that combine unconventional practices with traditional visual art media.

Artists:
Merrit Kopas
Ben Esposito/Arcane Kids
Ilya Zarembsky
MajorBueno (Benedikt Hummel and Marius Winter)
Daniele Guevara
Jason Corace
Michael Wilde
Benedict Fritz
Simon Wiscombe