The interminable question of whether or not video games may be considered as art may yet go unanswered. However, while the game software may not by some, their cartridges have proved themselves so. Enter Famicase, an exhibition of Famicom (that’s NES in the states) cartridges given new life with custom-made labels of fictional game titles. The group of artists behind the exhibit each designed very convincing labels, reminiscent of those found on video game cartridges of the 1980s.

Not that I like to promote artistic copycats, but that’s an idea that I’d like to see imitated with American hardware. I often see mock-ups made with Photoshop (or MSPaint, in some cases) in various message boards, etc, but none of them would I mistake for the real deal. What I think merits this as an artistic expression is that it exercises specific tones and themes that one would recognize from game packaging from that era. The above example being one of my favorite pieces, in that it certainly illustrates something to which those of us who have owned an aging NES can relate.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 8:23 pm and is filed under Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.