Beyond Dark Flow

This exhibition explores games as digital and physical spaces of collective attention. It centers on the current landscape of independent gaming communities represented by co-curators who create sites and practices for critical play in the digital world: Boshi’s Place (Brooklyn), an artist collective showcasing experimental games, and researcher Catherine L. Hansen (Tokyo), who leads a curriculum on gaming culture at the University of Tokyo. We also introduce Aging in Play (New York), a group that co-designs game sets with older adults using everyday materials as a form of community care. Play is recontextualized through alternative and exploratory modes of interactivity, beyond addictive and repetitive loops designed to keep players’ attention captive. Extractive mechanisms of “dark flow” (Schüll) are countered by renewed agency over lived experience.

Featured artists: Boshi’s Place, Hatim Benhsain, Joey Schutz, Mut, pondlife, Catherine L. Hansen & students from the University of Tokyo, Aging in Play (Hao Jie Sim, Xiaolan Fu, Kelsey Zhang)