"Games are the most elevated form of investigation." -Albert Einstein

"WoW is the most sophisticated happiness engine that exists now." -Dr. Jane McGonigal

"Games may provide new ways for museums to have a profound impact on society if they are designed, as alternate-reality games are, to change people's real-world behavior." -Dr. Jane McGonigal

WoW: Emergent Media Phenomenon explores various forms of cultural production based on World of Warcraft^® in particular and on gaming in general. While surveying Warcraft's Fifteen-year history, the exhibition looks at artistic practices that have been influenced by game culture. The actual works by the producer of World of Warcraft^®, Blizzard Entertainment^® (headquartered in Irvine, California), provide a starting point and reference.

Fourteen international artists were selected to consider this movement with the following themes in mind: elements of desire, the collapse of fantasy, medievalism, creative critiques, and public intervention.  Artists in this exhibition take on the visual marker of World of Warcraft^® to consider, implications of gaming, and their greater impact on our culture.  In addition to the works of these artists, fan art and the growing culture of machinima (computer animation that uses the graphic engines from video games) will be explored in this exhibition. 

Gaming is a movement that encompasses a large population and holds the potential to greatly impact society. Jane McGonigal, a game designer and researcher, states, "This is a new generation of hard-core gamers, and what they're doing is generating unprecedented participation bandwidth. They are donating more cognitive cycles, more heart share to game worlds and virtual worlds than we've seen dedicated to any project before." The artists in this exhibition have extended these concerns. 

The exhibition is curated by Grace Kook-Anderson and is accompanied by a booklet published by Laguna Art Museum. As part of the exhibition, you'll receive a booklet featuring essays by the curator; participating artist, Eddo Stern; and the curator at Blizzard Entertainment^®, Tim Campbell. This booklet is published by Laguna Art Museum.

Participating artists: selected artists from Blizzard Entertainment^®, including Chris Metzen, Sam Didier (a.k.a., Samwise), Chris Robinson, Justin Thavirat, and Roman Kenney (all from Irvine); Aram Bartholl (Berlin); Jorg Dubin (Laguna Beach); Alexander Galloway (New York); Jacqueline Goss (New York); Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn, Tale of Tales (Ghent, Belgium); John Klima (Lisbon, Portugal); Cyril Kuhn (Los Angeles); Antoinette LaFarge (Irvine); Mashallah Design and Linda Kostowski (Berlin); Robert Nideffer and Alex Szeto (Irvine); Airyka Rockefeller (San Francisco); Anne-Marie Schleiner (Singapore); Eddo Stern (Los Angeles); The Third Faction (Azeroth); and Zeng Han (Guangzhou)

 This exhibition is generously supported by Blizzard Entertainment^®,
the Samia Family and Tierzero.

PROGRAMMING TO DATE
All programmed events are FREE with purchase of a commemorative Lvl 60, Lvl 70, or Lvl 80 WoW Pass!

Saturday, July 11 at 1:00 PM
Aram Bartholl's WoW workshop will be held the day before his lecture. Bartholl will extend the project shown in the exhibition out onto the streets of Laguna Beach. Everyone is welcome to participate and enjoy an afternoon of art making and have the opportunity to be involved in a collaborative performance. The workshop and performance will be documented on video, and the edited version will be shown in the exhibition.

Space for this workshop is limited! Contact Jackie at jbunge@lagunaartmuseum.com or 949.494.8971 x 207 to reserve your spot in the workshop!

Sunday, July 12 at 1:00 PM
Aram Bartholl, based in Berlin, is interested in the way network data manifests into the everyday world. Bartholl investigates this in the physical space through performance, installation, and video. With World of Warcraft, Bartholl investigates this manifestation through the one of the most popular online role-playing games.

Sunday, July 26 at 1:00 PM
Jacqueline Goss, based in New York, creates film and video in order to explore the ways we think about ourselves through systemic machines, like politics, culture, and science. Goss will talk about her work in game space, animation, and the documentary form.

Sunday, August 16 at 1:00 PM
Robert Nideffer, "Playing with Bosch"
Robert Nideffer, based in Irvine, will compare the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch that illustrate fantasy with religious narratives with the images in World of Warcraft.

Sunday, September 13 at 1:00 PM
Antoinette LaFarge, based in Long Beach, questions the mode of fiction through performance, digital media, games, and writing. In this way, LaFarge looks at World of Warcraft and other role-playing games as one way of constructing a fictional narrative.

Thursday, October 1, UC Irvine, TBA
This forum will include artists Antoinette LaFarge, Robert Nideffer, Eddo Stern, and Jeff Chamberlain, the cinematics project lead at Blizzard Entertainment. The forum will be moderated by the associate director at UCI's Beall Center for Art and Technology, David Familian.

 

WoW SILENT AUCTION
Featuring works from renowned Blizzard^® artists.
On display now through Sunday, October 4 (5:00pm)
Laguna Art Museum Shop 

In 1910, with a population of about 300, Laguna Beach's inhabitants consisted mostly of writers, artists and musicians. A few structures marked the landscape: Joseph Yoch's Laguna Beach Hotel, Nick Isch's general store and post office, and several board-and-batten cottages. Tourists, especially from the warmer inland areas, would come down in the summer for a little relaxation and to escape the heat. Considered quaint and sleepy, it would not be long before the town would witness the same changes occurring throughout small-town America.

Using photographs, paintings, and ephemera, this exhibition chronicles the history of Laguna Beach during its earliest days, from just around the turn of the century, through the 1920s and 1930s, a period of rapid change. Changes are evident in these works as we see automobiles replacing the horse-drawn carriages, dirt roads becoming paved, and electricity poles sprouting up alongside eucalyptus trees. Postcards and letters from residents spread the word of the town to others, and the population surged accompanied by the emergence of dance halls, movie theaters, drug stores, and restaurants.

Among the artists in the exhibition are Frank Cuprien, William Swift Daniell,  Anna Hills, Edgar Payne, and William Wendt, all of whom participated in the first exhibition of the artist colony in Laguna Beach. That exhibition took place from July 27 to August 27, 1918, and its success prompted the artists to organize the Laguna Beach Art Association, electing Edgar Payne as the first president. Those early artists painted in a style that is a variant of American Impressionism.

Laguna Art Museum is proud to continue the tradition of these early artists who left their mark on the community for generations to come. The model of their first, one room gallery is on display. The core of today's Laguna Art Museum was built by the Laguna Beach Art Association as their first permanent, "fireproof" gallery in 1929. The large gallery with the skylight on the main level is original to that construction. In the gallery adjacent to this one you can see the exposed original basement floor, which dates from 1934. The floor was scored into squares, and within each square are inscribed names. These are names of the early founders and patrons of the art association, who each contributed $1.50 toward the completion of the basement.

 

Young Artists Society Gallery

Stretch of the Imagination features works by seven high school junior and senior students. The concept for this exhibition is based around the idea of fantasy and dreamlike states that exist in our day to day realities and routines. The students were asked to render their version of fantasy or surrealism without a list of objects or themes that needed to be addressed within their final works. The exercise was intended to be an outlet for creatively and the immergence of imagery that exists in ones own imagination. The artworks range from mixed media to more traditional forms of painting and drawing and reveal a journey through fantastical worlds, elements, creatures and bizarre beings. The stories illustrated by these students deal with many different themes, including coming-of-age quests and personal narratives.

These imaginative images were created by Ms. Cherri's junior and senior high school art classes at Pacifica High School, Garden Grove, CA.