https://ispr.info/2026/07/01/call-museums-and-video-games-collection-interaction-and-playable-heritage/
500 word abstract by 31 August 2026. (Soon.)
“Full paper” by 30 November 2026. (Not too soon, but how long is a “full paper”?)
What would I write about?
- Video Games in Museums: Exhibition, collection, display design, acquisition, and museum interpretation of video games; criteria for selection, display, interaction, preservation, and mediation.
- Museums in Video Games: Representations of galleries, exhibition displays, archives, collections, storage facilities, wunderkammern, archaeological sites, and cultural institutions in game worlds; the narrative, spatial, and symbolic functions of the museum as a playable environment.
- Semiotics of Interaction: Paths, thresholds, interfaces, maps, inventories, instructions, objectives, rules, and action programs; comparisons between museum visits and gameplay experiences.
- Enunciation, Spectatorship, and Agency: Positions of the visitor, player, and spectator; regimes of vision, presence, participation, waiting, manipulation, and interpretive responsibility.
- Collection, Inventory, and Value: Forms of collecting in museums and video games; catalogues, databases, achievements, completionism, rarity and scarcity, accumulation, selection, and cultural hierarchies.
All of these are oddly relevant in one way or another which does make me think I could/should write a something.
The most sensible something would presumably be to write something about v r 6 and what it is and what it is for. Most obviously to talk about the design process, the idea of curation and installation in a videogame, the idea of presenting behind the scenes work, though through new kinds of scenes…
What form would it take, though, and would there be an argument or a mere reporting?
To know that I would have to do some sort of analysis of my process documentation to reflect on quite what it is that I think I’m learning, what I think I’m proving…
Can’t just be “it’s interesting to do x”?
Could it be about the evolution of the v r games in general? What they are about? What are they about? They are about the bush Chad saw in Alan Wake. The desire to share with people who don’t make games what games are made of. To show the materials and to help someone marvel at those materials like Chad can, by taking them out of context, by offering comparison, staging, space, techniques…
Which are generally speaking a lot of the objectives of museums too… presenting things for our closer and more informed consideration and comparison? To marvel at the materials of the world.
It’s also just fun to make museums… I have my own enthusiasms for engines and assets.
I can only speak from the position of design. I can’t try to be an academic or a curator or etc., I can only speak of my design sense and action. That is what I can contribute… both the process and the intent and the outcome (maybe).
If I were Kent Becking what would my abstract do?
The first states the problem. The second states why the problem is a problem. The third is my startling sentence. The fourth states the implication of my startling sentence
The problem is that games are sealed. (For players, but even for makers if I think about my lack of attention to many materials despite my professional interest?)
That’s a problem because games are complex and important “artifacts” that we deserve to think about deeply.
Creating videogame museums of videogames can expose the materials for visitors and even more especially for the museum maker. Museum as design structure, curation as attention. The interplay between design and player experience in this context is much much closer. Estrangement fits in this. Museum as Technique.
The implications of this are a greater depth of appreciation games, game makers, asset makers, computers, and an opening up of the accessibility of games and game design.
That’s not the worst argument I’ve ever made in my life?
I wanted to celebrate the assets of Maksim Bugrimov, and Maksim Bugrimov as well, I wanted to think about what assets are and what they mean on their own, I wanted make my own meanings with assets outside games, I wanted to share with player the sense of magic in seeing behind the curtain of the world, I wanted to show them the beauty of a shrub asset the way Chad saw it that day in Alan Wake. The only way I can really get my thoughts straight about all those ideas is to make a game that tries to communicate them. And so I made a musem of videogame assets made by Maksim Bugrimov in a videogame.
Videogames are sealed. They are sealed especially for players who mostly have no way at all of seeing behind or through or into the world behind the world they play in. Even for those of us who make games, manipulate the assets, rev the game engines, it is all too easy to seal ourselves into a vision only of the world to be, the world we are bringing about, and not to see the very pieces and materials and stuff we are working with.
The seal is a problem because videogames are important and we all deserve to think about and encounter their inner nature. The seal is a problem because all technology is important and dominant and authoritarian and we all deserve to think about and encounter its inner nature. We need ways to step through the hard, polished surfaces of software to see inside. We need looking glasses to go through and games are looking glasses that can give us entry not just into their worlds, but into themselves.
A videogame can be a museum of videogames. A museum in a videogame can show and expose the materials of videogames, its own materials, for anyone who visits. Players can spend time estranged from play and playthings to look at the pieces of their worlds up close and unfamiliar. Makers can spend time estranged from their tools and objects to look at the pieces of their worlds up close and unfamiliar. This is museum as technique.
When we can walk inside the walls of the games we play, when we can find them strange again, when the bend of a bush in a forest is a marvel, then we can come to new understandings. We can see more clearly, play more deeply, and make things new.
I like Museum as Technique quite a lot and sticking with Shklovsky. I should re-re-re-read Shklovsky to pick out elements that will fit within this.
Do I go all the way to Peirce and the triad? Seems risky in an actual semiotics thing… like kinda pointless to go “a little bit” when I don’t know much or don’t remember much. The idea would be that it might help separate out the bits. But I think it’s probably more foolish than helpful.
Some things…
We are getting close.
Mmm… so we’re probably juuuuust about at a point where I could do this abstract properly and send it. That would be a pretty dream scenario to finish today? Not due until 31st though so there’s a full week home before it has to go in… I guess it’s a q of “strike while the iron is hot” or not?
If I revisit those categories I think
- Video Games in Museums
The asset approach is a form of this. Questions of exhibition (why assets), collection (which assets), display design (staging), acquisition (ethics, communication), interpretation (poetic license), selection criteria (I have them), display (again), interaction (interesting question), preservation (a kind of archiving), and mediation (interpretive stance for the player)
- Museums in Video Games
Representations of galleries (ArtExpo asset, traditional ideas, spatial design), exhibition displays (ropes, placement, safety), archives (game as archive), collections (again), storage facilities (not really), wunderkammern (nice word and yet), archaeological sites (eventually), and cultural institutions in game worlds (at least evoking that); the narrative, spatial, and symbolic functions of the museum as a playable environment (mine is like the play of attention? interpretation? encounter? not so much a game…).
- Enunciation, Spectatorship, and Agency
Positions of the visitor (who are you, a capsule, a viewer, a camera, an interested/curious person), player (do you play? is it playful?), and spectator (difference?); regimes of vision, presence, participation, waiting, manipulation, and interpretive responsibility. (I like interpretive responsibility?)
- Collection, Inventory, and Value
Forms of collecting in museums and video games (mine is pretty bespoke, esoteric, preferential); catalogues, databases, achievements, completionism, rarity and scarcity, accumulation, selection, and cultural hierarchies.
So yeah very clearly I’m addressing ideas they want addressed.
So then the question is how do I write the abstract? Do I simply improve the one I already have and send and if they’re not so into it I would have time to tweak it around?
–
I wanted to celebrate the 3D modeler Maksim Bugrimov, whose assets I’ve long been a fan of. I wanted to think about what assets are and what they mean on their own. I wanted make my own meanings with assets outside games. I wanted to share with players the sense of magic found in seeing behind the curtain of a videogame world. I wanted to show them Maksim’s monsters and apolocalypsis with all the beauty of the shrub asset Chad saw that day in Alan Wake. So I made a videogame musem of videogame assets by Maksim Bugrimov in a videogame.
Videogames are monoliths, sealed off from their players who mostly have no way of seeing behind or through or inside the world they play in. Even for those of us who make games, who manipulate the assets, who rev the game engines, it is all too easy to see only the world to be instead of the pieces and materials and stuff we are working with.
The seal is a problem because seeing within is special, privileged, and important. The seal is a problem because technology writ large is dominant and authoritarian and we must think about and encounter its inner nature. We need ways to step through the polished surfaces of software and cellphones to see inside. We need looking glasses to pass through and videogames are looking glasses. They can give us entry not just into their worlds, but into themselves.
A videogame can be a museum of videogames. A museum in a videogame can show and expose the materials of videogames, its own materials, for anyone who visits. Players can spend time estranged from play and playthings to look at the stuff of their worlds up close and unfamiliar. Makers can spend time estranged from their tools and objects to look at the stuff of their worlds up close and unfamiliar. This is the videogame museum as technique.
When walk inside the walls of the games we play, when we find them strange again, when the bend of a young tree in a forest is a marvel, then we can come to new understandings. We will see more clearly, play more deeply, and make things new.
…
Well, reader, I sent it in.