[VIDEO] The Nîmes Open Game Art places video games at the center of society.

For ten years, the Nîmes Open Game Art (Noga) festival has offered a unique perspective on the world of video games and digital technology, bringing together playfulness, art and politics. The new edition, which has just opened in the Nîmes library network, takes on a new dimension: the exhibition can be held in the Carré d’Art room, whose surface is doubled. The theme chosen this year ties in with current questions: Can we build a society around video games?

“Over the yearsexplains Caroline Very-Mathieu, Head of Digital Library Development. we realized that there are games created by the industry, as well as independent studios, associations, collectives, citizens, students who solve social problems. Today, video games cross our lives. For a long time in the cultural environment, discourse was very critical. We’re trying to show how it can be a unifying factor, an integrating factor, a tool for reflection.”

love, nature, politics

In the Carré d’Art room, with especially attractive (and environmentally responsible) scenography by Kati Samari, gamers and families can walk through four worlds, each time with games and consoles. The less mobile can use the help of intermediaries. The fifteen games presented are divided into four categories. The section “Love and feelings” allows you to discover “Sea of ​​loneliness“, an adventure game depicting the torment of a young girl,”He takes twowhich imposes the solidarity of the main characters or “Florencewhere a young woman lives her first love story.

The journey continues with “Nature and Ecology”, an invitation to contemplation “intersections“protection of endangered fauna and flora in”Alba“opening the post-apocalyptic universe in”Far away: lonely sails“Politics and Society part causes alienation of the world of work with”Stanley parable“or consumer society with”Unboxing“. Finally, the exhibition ends with a flashback to Dystopian Worlds three games later.”Two exes: Manking Divided“, “Cyberpunk 2077” as well as “Inside“.

Paper and digital

At the same time, Noga honors the artist Etienne Miner, a fan of the hybridization of paper and digital technologies. After “tired of dematerializing”, the creator of the game has created objects in which everything is mixed thanks to new technologies, books that fade or whisper. Then, with the advent of smartphones, Étienne Miner, creator of the Volumiques issues along with Julien Hognon, began creating paper games in which phones are connected via apps. So in a pirate game”world of heroes“, the phone is a boat. For the escape game”Unlock“, it is used to test puzzles.

These questions will also be at the heart of all the meetings that mark the festival. This Thursday there will be a round table “Creating a society around the video game”. Thanks to Minecraft, the kids at the Marc-Bernard Media Library created a city with rules and community in mind. Within the framework of the festival, a cycle of master classes will be held with the association “Art Therapy Fabric'”, artists Paulette and Isabelle S.D. Sentis to create the third episode of the video game “TraceS”, dedicated to the history of the fight against AIDS.

We can finally form a society around poetry. This is what artist Leon Lenclo offers with his pocket conferences, or Octavio López, a professor of electroacoustics at a conservatory who came up with an interactive sound installation to discover video games in music.