Duration: 31 January to 31 March 2024
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Arts and Design, GF De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde Design + Arts Campus, Dominga Street, Malate, Manila, 1004
The Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) Manila opens 30 Lives, a title derived from the extra thirty lives that video players get after entering the “Konami code” (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start) in a console’s controller. The exhibition presents the various ways in which we engage in the world of play and game, or gaming, as the contemporary world now calls it. Play is a space that we occupy temporarily, as are games, the latter governed by more formal rules. Both are diversions from the everyday, and this interim from reality—whether occupying a physical space (such as a basketball court) or a mental space (such as a board game or video game)—becomes a site where critique, and even subversion, can be constructed.
30 Lives is an exhibition that draws us into a space where we are invited to weave across these temporalities, from card games to artists’ deployment of video games into their work, and engage in activities long derided for their apparent triviality.
Running from 31 January to 31 March 2024, the exhibition features the works of Harun Farocki, Lu Yang, Heecheon Kim, Ikoy Ricio, and Miguel Inumerable. Featured in the exhibition are games developed by students of the Interactive Entertainment and Multimedia Computing program of the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde.
The exhibition encourages viewers to discover where they are within the spectrum of delight versus challenge, skill versus memory, strategy versus knowledge, simulation versus dystopia, and roleplay versus narrative indulgence.
MCAD Manila is at the G/F of the Design + Arts Campus of the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde. Free to the public, the museum is open Tuesdays–Saturdays, 10 AM–6 PM; and Sundays, 10 AM–2 PM, except holidays. Book your visit at https://www.mcadmanila.org.ph/visit.
For more information, call 82305100 loc 3897 or send an email to mcad@benilde.edu.ph.
