A Subversive Way to Teach Art History to Gamers

(All images courtesy of Computer Lunch) 

Explore: Visual Art — The Power of Images
Website: Cell to Singularity 
Available March 25, 2024 at 11am EDT until April 1, 2024 at 10am EDT
Published by: Computer Lunch x Pariah Interactive

By JEFFREY GRUNTHANER, March 27, 2024

Tucked away inside the already playable app Cell to Singularity, the limited edition add-on Explore: Visual Art — The Power of Images offers a refreshingly original concept. The main game, Cell to Singularity, has been around since 2018 (it has been downloaded more than 300 million times and is available in 18 languages). While in many respects similar to Cell to Singularity, which takes players through the story of the universe (think of a scaled-down Sims game, only here the characters are cells, atoms, amino acids), Explore: Visual Art — The Power of Images won’t necessarily remind you of anything else. Gamifying art history, the app also delves into the meaning of creativity: from prehistoric mark-making to memes and A.I. generated artworks. 

Although available for desktops, this sort of game, which is only available until April 1, seems especially suited to handheld screens. The player switches between, and clicks on salient features within a map-like landscape or gallery setting. Accruing points, he or she can unlock additional information about art history, expanding the map and filling the virtual gallery with additional artworks. What makes the game enjoyable is similar to what makes scrolling through an image feed on Instagram enjoyable. But this is doom scrolling without the doom. While the number system which enables your progress verges on the astronomical (something like 2 trillion points are required to unlock certain periods), the app makes gathering these rather simple. Like reading a litany of tweets on X, the player will progress effortlessly; and within a couple of hours, the more tantalizing features of the game will be unlocked.   

The addictiveness of Explore: Visual Art — The Power of Images will most likely appeal to casual gamers more than those who want an RPG-like storyline. Also, the comparative simplicity of the graphics (which are perfectly suitable for a handheld screen) will not appeal to staunch players of open-world fantasias. Gamers looking for creativity, however, will not be disappointed. As you progresses from prehistory towards our contemporary era, aspects of art, features which tend to be overlooked, are stated in a picturesque, declarative way. For example, one item of information unlocked around the theme of prehistoric drawing reads: “As the initial stroke is joined by others, an image begins to form – a constellation of stars, an animal taken down in a hunt, a deceased leader’s journey to the underworld.” While these words ring true, their resonance also impacts how we respond to contemporary drawings: from outsider works to drawings collected in museums. 

Much of the fun of this “casual” game comes, in fact, from the genuinely philosophical quality of the game’s reflections. Art historians and specialists will agree that no single art period is detailed exhaustively. A good deal is left out. But the fact that essential works of art—including ever-memeified works like The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog and Mona Lisa—become star characters in a video game does a good deal towards democratizing would can sometimes seem like a cloistered world, relegated to the ivory towers, and discussed in only the most ponderous, barely intelligible prose. Once you get into it, the game moves quickly; the information unlocked becomes bound up with the pace of the game. Whatever facts and details the player chooses to linger over will probably hold some personal resonance. You won’t be able to write an art history  dissertation after having finished playing, but you will have a renewed interest in certain artists, their works, and the historical periods they emerged from.    

The main “room” of the game is the gallery, which gradually fills up with artworks as the player progresses from prehistory to the present. As a video game, of course, all the works “on view” (why not?) possess a different aura than they would normally emanate at a museum or gallery. The game developers seem inspired by the immense histories which are now available online. Every person has a Library of Alexandria in their phone. Why shouldn’t they also have The Louvre in their pockets? The problem with this model, as captivating as it is, is that digitally curated experiences are not always beholden to the rigors of institutional spaces. For example, while it has long been a part of art world discourse that women have made significant, if often overlooked, contributions to art, the majority of artists featured in the game are still men. And most of the art unlocked after the Renaissance comes either from Europe or North America. While the game does make mention of online activism and struggles for inclusive representation, it would have been a radical move to come out of the gate by offering this more inclusive history. 

All told, Explore: Visual Art — The Power of Images is a subversive way to reach gamers with storied works from the Renaissance as much as the Modern period. Showing how memes are a new kind of Folk Art brings the story up to the present. The game play, which mostly involves tapping your screen, is quite rewarding in light of the worlds it unlocks. Consolidating the whole history of art on a single, haptic platform, is as ambitious as it is unique. Inviting players to view artworks in a digital context, the game itself becomes a work of art. WM