Decolonizing Art & Video Games – Isabelle Arvers Ph.D. defense – May 16th 2024
To celebrate two decades of curating art and video games, I embarked on a global tour of 17 countries in the countries from the Souths in June 2019, with a focus on celebrating women’s, queer, feminist, and decolonial practices.
My journey has led me to meet and interview nearly 300 artists and game designers, and to organize six exhibitions, which revolve around themes, such as the decolonization of imaginaries, the exploration of political and social counter-fictions through art and video games, techno feminism, immersion in cross-species imaginaries, and the dialogue between ancestral and digital knowledge.
Although the video game industry in 2019 was still led by the USA, Europe, and Japan, the video game market has experienced considerable changes over the past four years.
Southern regions have become the new strong markets for video games, characterized by their youthful populations and increased online entertainment consumption. This evolution has enabled an independent production sector to reclaim its identity, its narrative, and its representations. It has also given rise to counter-fiction from the margins.
Using strategies such as counter-gaming, misidentification (Jose Esteban Munoz), and desculonización (Re Kebra), the new generations occupy digital space to amplify their voice in the ongoing struggles to reclaim bodies and territories.
Rather than questioning the under-representation of marginalized voices in digital content, this project proposes a queer, feminist, and decolonial perspective on the geography of art and video games. It presents some 150 games and digital creations that plunge us into alternative universes, narratives, environments, and cosmogonies.
These dissident counter-fictions approach the concept of the living from a different point of view, strategically using games and art to raise awareness of the environmental, political, social, and economic challenges associated with the production and consumption of video games. The project advocates educational activism through “green games” to address these pressing issues.
Keywords: #decolonial, #queer, #feminist, #games, #Souths
DECOLONIZING ART AND VIDEOGAMES
Isabelle Arvers
Doutoramento em Belas-Artes Especialidade de Arte Multimédia
Tese orientada pela Prof(a). Doutora Patrícia Gouveia, especialmente elaborada para a
obtenção do grau de Doutor
Jùri:
Presidente: Doutor João Carlos de Castro Silva, Professor Auxiliar com Agregação e Presidente do
Conselho Científico da Faculdade de Belas-Artes da Universidade de Lisboa;
Vogais:
Doutora Margarete Jahrmann da University of Applied Arts Vienna and Zurich University of the Arts (1º Arguente);
Doutora Tania Fraga, Professora Jubilada da Universidade de Brasília e VicePresidente do Instituto de Matemáticas, Arte e Tecnologia de São Paulo (2º Arguente);
Doutora Maile Colbert, Professora Auxiliar Convidada da Faculdade de Belas-Artes
da Universidade de Lisboa;
Doutora Patrícia Cristina e Silva Figueira Gouveia, Professora Associada da Faculdade
de Belas-Artes da Universidade de Lisboa [orientadora]
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