Modern computer code is generally built out of the ASCII character set, which is based on English and uses the Latin alphabet – meaning that almost all programming is effectively in English. Almost all, that is, except قلب (“qalb”), a programming language created entirely in Arabic by computer scientist and games designer Ramsey Nassar.
Nassar built قلب as part of a project exploring code as a medium of self-expression, and aimed to shine a light on some of the cultural biases and assumptions inherent in game design and wider technological innovation. He used the language to create his own version of Pong, the great-grandfather of arcade games, called بون (“būn”).
Nassar’s work is one of many pieces of recent gaming history to be included in a new exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt opens on September 8 and aims to capture the last ten years of innovation in the medium. Lead curator Marie Foulston says we are in a “radical period of change within games,” with an upsurge of new voices, talent and perspectives changing the landscape in new and exciting ways. “Sometimes the misconception with video games is that there’s this one big homogenous sense of ‘everybody’s playing this game,’” she says. “But what we wanted to show in the exhibition is that, no, this is a field that’s as eclectic as any other art form.”
The exhibition includes major AAA games like World of Warcraft and The Last of Us, but also smaller, independent games that are pushing the envelope – such as Nina Freeman’s how do you Do It?, in which a young girl explores ideas about sex by making her Barbie dolls hump each other; and Molleindustria’s Phone Story, which gamifies the dark side of smartphone production, including dramatising the life-threatening conditions of coltan mining in the Congo. (Phone Story was made in response to a wave of suicides at Apple manufacturer Foxconn in China in 2010; Apple banned it from its app store four days after its release, citing violations of developer guidelines.)
Examples like these are testament to the wealth and diversity of talent piling into gaming as well as the subtlety with which games can explore political and social issues. Freeman, who comes to gaming from a background in poetry, says she takes a confessional approach to game design, and based how do you Do It? on her own childhood experiences. “It’s all about that personal story and wanting to show these ordinary life scenarios,” she says.
This is a common theme in gaming over the past decade, as new designers bring voice to experiences that are unlikely to feature in mainstream titles, often focusing on marginalised identities and unexceptional events. “Life doesn’t always happen through these big epic narratives,” says Foulston. “How do you tell stories through these very small spaces?”
Gareth Damian Martin, a games designer and founder of the gaming journal Heterotopias, says that this indie groundswell has been gaining steam over the past decade. His view is that a process of polarisation is taking place within gaming, with bigger studios making fewer games but on a larger scale, paving the way for “an upsurge of smaller, independent projects to fill the gap that those games are leaving.”
A main reason for this influx of talent is the lower barriers to entry as design tools become easier and cheaper to use. Whereas game-making technology was once incredibly expensive, says games lecturer David Farrell at Glasgow Caledonian University, “nowadays the stuff you can get for free is the same stuff that people used to make the big commercial games.”
From titles that have reached millions to those with a more niche focus, the V&A’s exhibition represents recognition of the medium as an art form. “Every work is groundbreaking in a different way,” says Foulston. “Games are definitely at a cultural tipping point.”
Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt opens at the V&A museum in London on September 8
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
