Goodbye, 2020: An End-Of-Year Note from VGA Staff
❄🧣🧤🧥 Plus some of our favorite cozy moments in video games. 🧦♨☃❄
Well hello, fellow supporters of the interactive arts.
Here we are, at the end of a year so absolutely unpredictable, we could have never expected the drastic changes which have affected our organization, our art form, our community, and on a far greater scale, our society as a whole.
Craig Adams' enduringly cozy pixel tableau from Sword & Sworcery EP is a special image for us. It has been in VGA collection since the day we launched our first public exhibition in 2014. It continues to state: all you need for a warm yule gathering is a group of rabbit friends.
To speak of us as an organization at a time like this feels so insignificant; it’s been a continuous challenge to rediscover the value of art in a time where so many people, including those within our community, have had to experience astounding hardships of pain, loss, trauma, depression, and helplessness.
In this scene Turnfollow remind us that coziness isn't just for winter time and also can be still achieved while navigating the intricacies of vacationing with family and significant others.
Personally, it’s been difficult on all of us. While experiencing our own individual struggles, we have had to come together to handle how these events are affecting this community we’ve been building since VGA began over 6 years ago. Our physical exhibitions had to be curtailed and cancelled as we moved out of our physical home and adapted to a new digital environment. Programs and shows had to be suddenly transitioned to new mediums and spaces, and we had to come up with completely different concepts which could further our mission and help support those we’ve worked to highlight and represent.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. No game has ever done a better job replicating the feeling of coming in from the cold
Part of that is what you’re reading right now. VGA Zine was an idea of what our gallery could offer at a moment where we lacked the ability to highlight art within traditional spaces. As you’ve hopefully seen within our past work, our goal is to highlight games and new media within a fine art lens, to introduce interactive arts to both art communities and culture as a whole, and further the mission of increasing the appreciation of this medium via engendering underrepresented voices and unique interpretations. These past few months of VGA Zine have been our first steps towards representing that goal within a slightly more casual lens, growing on the brilliant outlet that Tiffany Funk and Michael Reed have developed within VGA Reader, to make a monthly publication that is available for sudden musings, experiments, and bursts of imagination from artists, academics, and appreciators of the interactive arts.
None of this could have been done without the support of the absolute greatest assembly of individuals an organization could ever hope to engage:
Tiffany Funk, aforementioned Editor-in-Chief of VGA Reader, is also our Director of Publications, offering invaluable insight into our academic goals and creative approaches in bringing new media to traditional spaces.
Michael Reed, VGA Reader’s Managing Editor, has also taken on the role of Treasurer, ensuring our non-profit can stay afloat and managing the new financial necessities VGA has required in the past year.
Jen Rhodes, our Director of Development, has been absolutely essential in exploring new ways to help support our ideas and introduce valuable resources and programs to help our organizational and logistical needs as a non-profit.
Amy Chen, our social media and store manager, has taken to embracing new mediums and responsibilities this year with such dedication and understanding, she’s helped ensure we continue to grow both as an online community, and as a resource to provide beautiful traditional print artwork of new media.
Chaz Evans, our Director of Exhibitions has not only worked to find outlets in which VGA can assist and support other organization’s and movement’s missions, he managed to make a physical space which our gallery could responsibly present new media artwork in a year where it seemed all but impossible to do so.
Brice Puls, our Director of Operations was instrumental in overseeing the safe transport of our equipment resources from the physical space (ensuring a smooth transition into our current online phase), overseeing the launch of the fundraising action that took place over the summer, and acting as an invaluable collaborator in seeing exhibitions and communications through.
Eleanor Schichtel, one of the most essential individuals in keeping our little community afloat. She is not only our Director of Communications, the powerhouse behind VGA’s regular email updates, graphic design, and web development, but also is the force behind VGA Zine, which has been one of the most satisfying and personally fulfilling projects to come out of our digital transition.
And of course, we want to thank Jonathan Kinkley, the co-founder of VGA Gallery who grew this entire enterprise from an idea to an established organization which, since 2013, has been creating art, publications, exhibitions, and celebrations of new media and interactive art in a context where it’s recognition is desperately required.
A scene from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s Yule Festival, in all its pinterest-level hygge coziness. Wherever you are in space and time, Happy Holidays and God Jul.
But we’re not done. The zine is just the first step of new ideas, changes, and collaborations that VGA is seeking as we embrace our new environment. Soon, you’ll see the launch of our new online speaker series, VGA Fireside, in which interactive artists can present their philosophy and ideas on new media. We’re continuing our creation of VGA Reader, an academic resource for recording the history, theory, and criticism of video games. We’re working on growing our print collection to highlight how new media art can be adapted and appreciated in traditional mediums. And of course, we’re planning exciting new collaborations and partnerships so we can be ready to present interactive art in physical spaces when it’s responsible to do so again.
Ultimately, we want to thank you. Whether you’re a long-time supporter of VGA, or whether you’re coming up on this little publication for the first time. Our goal is to create a place where we can discuss, appreciate, and grow new media in a way beyond traditional outlets. We’re so excited to be right in the middle of a dramatic shift in arts culture, and want to ensure that the work of the unique, the off-beat, the underrepresented, the fine artists, the outsiders, the mainstream, the practitioners, and even the audiences can be discussed, observed, and appreciated in brand new ways. And those who contribute, by volunteering, by purchasing a print or a book, by becoming a member, by being a funder of our organization, by creating content for VGA Zine, or by simply spreading the word, those individuals provide the necessary motivation which keeps us going.
From Lucidity, a 2011 game by LucasArts. A short, sentimental platformer about remembering those you love in tumultuous times
The people who support our missions and believe in our work will always be the absolute most important facet of VGA Gallery, and it’s been such an absolute pleasure getting to know you all within these past years. Sincerely, thank you all for sticking with us through such an incredibly difficult time. Though it’s incredibly fulfilling to help present this work to you it can be equally exhausting, and it’s so motivating to remember that there are people on the other side of the screen, whom we can hopefully provide a bit of entertainment.
Well, that’s it. Perhaps this letter swayed a bit more sentimental than we were expecting, but if there’s any lesson to learn from this year, it’s to tell people how you feel about them as sincerely and often as possible. Please stick around and take a look at this month’s issue. We’ve got a whole roundup of delightful work to share with you, and we’re gonna keep working to bring more art, conversation, and community to you for as long as you’ll let us. Have a wonderful holiday, stay safe, and we hope to see ya real soon.
Sincerely,
The VGA Staff
mushm gardn by Jerry Belich (part of an installation called Nature Machn in collaboration with Victor Thompson we had at Bit Bash https://jerrytron.com/projects/nature-machn/) A game that creates it's own cozy art, and reminds me of a time when we could be close with friends.