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From writing for the Wall Street Journal to advising MoMA’s permanent collection to launching one of the first game-based arts spaces in the world, Jamin Warren talks through contemporary issues in bringing games to the arts-world public
Transcript: Jamin Warren interviews Kristian Volsing
[00:00] Jamin Warren:
Um, well, thanks so much for joining me. I appreciate making time to talk about some of the work, uh, I’ve been following of yours over, you know, the last, uh, many, many, many years. Just like watching all the cool stuff that the V&A has been doing, um, you know, in the games department. And, uh, in general, just like what the UK is doing with like games and games in culture, which is I think like generally, like at a broad level, pretty exciting. I can ask you some about that. Um, but, uh, I think maybe to start, do you want to tell me about your path to like the V&A? How did you make your way into, um, like being a curator and, uh, yeah, how did you find your way to games as being, uh, being something you wanted to focus on?
[00:36] Kristian Volsing:
Uh, sure. Yeah. It’s actually quite interesting. I, um, it was kind of like I, I did a degree in like film studies and, uh, English literature. I wasn’t really sure what I was doing with it towards the end, which is kind of, you know, the way that those things go with that kind of like general subject matter.
And, uh, I was like... I was in Scotland in Edinburgh, and I went to the National Museum there and they had an exhibition called Game On, which was originally created by the Barbican like 20 years ago or something like that now. I think it’s still going in a different, like, iteration, but like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, and, uh, yeah, I saw the Game On exhibition and I was amazed that there was this space where people were creating this opportunity to engage with like games culture and like kind of popular culture generally. And that, like... it was like ticking over in my head about there's somebody behind this project doing this. Having this opportunity to do research into this space, spend some time doing it, and pull together this amazing, like, you know, exhibition where people could learn about the history of games, but also take part in playing them. And also really put it on that kind of pedestal. Like one of the first, you know, institutional exhibitions that did that really—games as a kind of art form, as a thing that we should be, um, engaging with, that we should be critiquing.
And, um, I was so excited about this. It kind of like set off this idea in my head that I wanted to work in museums. And obviously the reality of that is like... that’s a very specialist area in museums. Very specific... like, uh, thing to pinpoint. But I was really interested in the... in like from my childhood in museums and in like... in collecting, in thinking about how we, um, uh, kind of critique and share ideas with other people. Um, and particularly about pop culture and really kind of trying to, yeah, think about how people might... how we kind of consider that in general society.
So throughout, like so, I did an MA and then I got like some entry-level job in a museum. Uh, then started working at the V&A and, um, kind of worked my way through lots of different roles. But all the time thinking how, you know, my interest was really in... in how we engage and question everyday things, everyday life, the way we kind of live together. And, and, you know, pop culture is part of that.
And eventually, yeah, and then I found myself in this new department that had been created when there was a change of director at the V&A that was really about thinking about contemporary design and architecture and the digital world as well. Because that digital element hadn’t been a major part of the V&A’s strategy at that point. So I was working at that department. And, uh, yeah, when I joined there was already the seeds of thinking about doing something with video games in that department and I was just like amazed and overjoyed that this thing that like had inspired me was within my grasp, as it were.
[04:26] Jamin Warren:
Oh wait, I can’t hear you. Just now, now.
[04:36] Kristian Volsing:
(Indistinguishable audio / Technical difficulty)
[04:47] Jamin Warren:
There you go. There is actually a mute button. Yeah, yeah. Cool.
[04:53] Jamin Warren:
Um, what were, uh... what were some of the, the changes that were happening at the V&A that, uh, opened the door for you to be able to do, um, games work?
[05:04] Kristian Volsing:
Yeah, I mean, I think it was really... uh, there was a new director coming to the V&A around, uh, around 2011, um, who was very aware that, you know, this... this whole, um, element of design... being like digital design becoming so prevalent in people’s lives, you know, over the last 20 years. And that this institution that was created to kind of teach people about the, you know, the importance of good design, uh, like 150 years ago, wasn’t, um, kind of engaging with this very contemporary practice. And, uh, yeah. And so he, um—Martin Roth who was the director—started to look at the structure of the departments and kind of carved out this space for this new department that was going to focus particularly on, uh, contemporary design and within that, like the digital... um, digital design within that.
[06:12] Jamin Warren:
(Interruption) Oh, one second. I have an alarm. (Pause). Great. Can you see me? Come on, come on, come on. There we go. Cool. I use my phone as my camera which is, uh, which is nice in some ways, but it’s, uh, sometimes there’s like an alarm or something that goes off.
[06:58] Jamin Warren:
Um, in terms of, um, you know, you worked across a lot of different departments. Um, how did you find these like lateral... lateral moves at the V&A were helpful before you decided to, you know, do games work?
[07:12] Kristian Volsing:
Uh, well, it’s really... it’s really interesting because, you know, I have a really broad, um, understanding of the kind of history of the museum and the kind of... and what’s in the collections, which is so huge. You know, it covers everything in design. There’s sections on like... I worked in the furniture, textiles and fashion section. I worked in the theater and performance section. Theater and performance was particularly interesting to me. There’s lots of pop culture stuff in there. There’s lots of work with, um, filming, performance. I mean, it’s since become, uh, a film department as well. So they started collecting, um, yeah, all sorts of stuff that used to be, um, in different museums.
Um, I guess like, yeah, but I guess it just gave me real like grounding in how the V&A works, which I think... and, and how to kind of think about how you present ideas to the public, um, around objects themselves. Like how you make an object, um, like how you bring it to life for visitors to the museum. You know, what is the context you need to put this stuff in? Um, what do you... what are the things... what are the elements that will draw somebody’s attention, um, in the way that you write about it or, um, you know, even how to be like pithy about what you say about it. You know, very like just... just bringing out ideas I guess through objects. So.
[08:40] Jamin Warren:
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like in some ways like, uh, it does sound like in some ways that like, um, games are one of these things that it sort of requires maybe this process. Like you couldn’t have started there even if you wanted to, um, because there’s so much like, you know, cross-functional, interdisciplinary work that games are as a... as a media, which we’ll talk about in a second in terms of how to present them. But it does sound like institutionally, um, it requires having someone who can kind of navigate different departments as well. It’s not maybe as quote-unquote simple or maybe it’s, you know, in some ways it’s a much more complex undertaking. Um, but yeah, that’s my sense.
[09:21] Kristian Volsing:
Sure, yeah, yeah. I mean, I totally agree. I mean, I definitely think, you know, the fact that it’s this... the... this kind of like, um, uh... it brings all these different kinds of, uh, like art and design disciplines together in one thing. I mean, having a bit of a, a sense of how we explore that in the rest of the museum is a... is a really good starting point. But it’s also a jumping off point and trying to do something different as well, I guess.
[09:50] Jamin Warren:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, well, let’s talk about, um... let’s talk about Design/Play/Disrupt. Um, I guess maybe first with the... with the title. Um, what was the process of choosing like, uh... did that come later in the process or you kind of picked these like themes, these pillars like from the... from the jump? To orientate what you were trying to do.
[10:08] Kristian Volsing:
Oh yeah, yeah. It’s interesting. It... it’s like, um, you know, it’s... it’s... I guess like it came quite late in the day. I think like, uh, not... like, it’s such a horrible thing to have to do, think of titles. I mean, I’m amazed when people can do it like really like easily. So it was just like putting it off, putting it off for ages and ages.
So it really came out as a kind of like, uh, response to the way that we’d structured the exhibition itself. So, yeah, I mean, myself and Marie Foulston, who was the... who was the video games curator there, I was kind of the working alongside her on this project. Um, uh, yeah, we spent years kind of honing the different sections of the, um, exhibition. Uh, and then, yeah, I guess it just kind of... there was a crunch point where we had to come up with a name.
And, uh, there’s a... there’s a tradition of, um, of giving like, uh, taking the very like fundamental element as the main title and then giving it a subtitle in the V&A. That if you look through past exhibitions, you see that happens so often. It’s very funny. But it’s like, um, yeah. I mean, it was... it was kind of making a statement in a way for the V&A to say: Okay, now we’re doing video games. And then within that, we are pulling out these elements that kind of, you know, talking about the design, talking about, uh, play, but also talking about using this term "disrupt," which at the time was a very much a, like, a kind of tech... techie, uh, term that was being used to talk about how things were changing through the kind of work that these big companies were doing. And kind of really bringing that through to talk about the kind of political aspects that we wanted to broach as well in the exhibition.
[12:23] Jamin Warren:
Yeah. Um, you know, it’s interesting. One of the, you know, it seems like one of the big choices that you made was not to do the "50 games on a wall" kind of thing. I know you’ve talked about that in the past. Um, you know, that’s something that has, uh, uh, irked me through the years with like, you know, um, kind of like the independent arcades where you have like, you know, 60, 70 games. This kind of like cattle call. Like just bringing a bunch of work in and then people kind of shuttle through it.
You took a... took a... took an opposite... an opposite approach in terms of trying to, um, do something that went deeper on like a smaller body of work. Can you walk me through that decision to, you know, kind of like focus on the design documentation and, you know, the concepts behind a smaller set of games versus this really wide ranging like survey of, you know, you know, lots and lots and lots of games that you could never actually finish if you... you just couldn't even get through if you just put them all on screens in a room.
[13:17] Kristian Volsing:
Yeah. I mean, it was... it was... it was, uh, definitely, um, you know, it was... it was influenced by the fact that we wanted to really talk about what was happening right now. So that was one... that was one starting point. People had done the history of video games before or looked at like retro and arcade gaming and stuff like that. Um, that had already been done.
This was, you know, we identified this as a really important, fundamental moment in the way that games are changing in terms of the kind of technology that would mean that people could, uh, experience like worlds on a greater scale than you could ever have imagined back in like the 1980s. But also, um, providing opportunities for people to make their own independent, um, like projects that really reflect their, uh, their own thoughts, their own, um, experiences. And being able to share those in a way as well through, um, different like online platforms. That really meant, you know, that is... we wanted to focus on this moment right now. So that’s the starting point.
And then I think it was, you know, there were iterations that it’d gone through. We worked through lots of different ideas. We talked about like exploring the kind of technology behind the... like consoles and stuff like that. You know, lots of kind of very boring, prosaic ideas. But you know, you have to go through all of this and kind of figure it out. Before we were like, you know, what's really fundamentally fascinating is that there are just so many different elements that these projects bring together in like one artwork. But it’s, you know, all these different aspects of, you know, um, coding, of character design, of art... of like art design, of music, of, um, the way that you kind of, uh, navigate spaces, the, uh, the architecture. All of these practices that are kind of represented in different ways like in the museum’s collection, in the V&A’s collection. But actually this brings it all together in one kind of world. And so we wanted to break that down for people, split it up and be able to showcase that process so that people could understand why these were so important in a way.
[15:44] Jamin Warren:
Yeah, yeah. Um, the other thing is, um, I’m curious like, uh, like some of the juxtapositions that you did with the work as well. You have this bigger collection inside the V&A and you tried to position some of the things. Tell me about like what that process was like of deciding to, you know, put a Magritte next to... something in the collection next to a video game? I know for some people that sounds very, um, sounds very natural to maybe like me or you, but I suspect that maybe that might have been a... I don't know, was that challenging at all internally in terms of convincing the right people that that was what needed to happen for the show?
[16:11] Kristian Volsing:
Since the Magritte is actually in an American museum, it’s actually in the National Gallery of Art, so we had to loan it from the National Gallery of Art. No, that’s okay. No, no, that’s okay. I mean that’s also interesting as well. I had to write a letter to the director of the National Gallery of Art saying, "We’re doing an exhibition about video games, can we borrow your Magritte painting?" So it’s like a really interesting thing for me to do. Uh, like to kind of, like, to... there was no like, no pushback at all. So straight away, um, it was... it was very interesting actually. Like there wasn’t any kind of question in a sense of... of what we’re doing, why we should be doing it.
It was more... um, I think, I think you know, we... we, uh... we like... we laid the groundwork everywhere to say, you know, video games are this huge industry. It’s making all this money. This is... this complex... involves all these different kinds of design and art processes. And people take, uh, inspiration from all sorts of different places as well. Uh, be that like an artwork they’ve seen in a gallery. And I just think, um, yeah, it’s like... that wasn’t the kind of... we... we didn’t get pushback in that sense. We got more feedback on like: "Are we going to address the issues that video game playing raises, like addiction or video game violence?" That was the kind of feedback that we had to, um, work through.
[18:32] Jamin Warren:
Right, right. Yeah, I mean that’s a little... a little strange that there’s like... you have to deal with some of these like cultural issues as opposed to like aesthetic ones as part of the... like as part of the... part of that process. Um, I’m sure that’s like unexpected. And doing... having to do it and you know, just very different in terms of, you know, other art forms. You don’t have to necessarily deal with like the lineage of like violence in film or, you know... I like just... you don't have to deal with any of it.
[19:29] Kristian Volsing:
Or in ceramics, you know, I don’t know. Like I'm sure there probably is some... I mean we have... we have weapons in the museum’s collection. It’s like there’s swords and guns. So I don’t know. I mean, if we put one of those on display and we talk about the aesthetics of it, nobody’s asking us, "Has it shot somebody?" Right, right, right. Yeah, no, 100%. Yeah.
[20:13] Jamin Warren:
Um, let’s see. Uh, you know, one of the things that I thought was also really interesting was, um, you know, one of the things that... the things that I hear, you know, from folks I work with is like getting in touch with game companies is... is... can be very difficult. There is varying degrees of like interest and, um, maybe some of the, um, the cultural currency that an institution like the V&A has, doesn’t always like translate like into gaming like context. Like it matters that people know what it is. Um, they know the reference of the institution and they also like advise a few guys that there’s value in participating in what the museum is doing. And, um, my experience has been that your mileage may vary with... with game companies, with game makers in terms of how much they value or don’t value, um, like part of something like this.
Um, how did you go through that process of like building these like relationships with, you know, with, you know, with Nintendo, FromSoftware, some of the companies that you worked with in the past? And, um, yeah, what models might you... or what would you recommend for other people who are looking to maybe build similar kinds of relationships?
[22:22] Kristian Volsing:
Sure. Yeah. I mean, definitely with difficulty is the answer. It’s definitely... you know, I definitely found that. It was... I think a lot of that is to do with secrecy and NDAs in the games industry, which isn’t something that museums are used to dealing with. You know, normally we can go and speak to a designer or an architect and go into their studio and see what they’re working on. And that is part of the process of being a curator: is having that access to go and do research, uh, in studios. And, um, you know, there were lots of game studios where we just couldn’t get past the front door because of the NDAs. So that was a difficulty.
But then, you know, there were... I mean, some companies were really open to it. They really understand what they're doing. You know, if you... if you... too... we didn't... we... because... because of the... the nature of the show and the size of the show, we spoke to a lot more companies who were... many of whom were very enthusiastic about working with us, but we then didn’t end up showing their work.
For instance, Ubisoft, whose work is so much about the kind of historical context, you know, through Assassin’s Creed... really referencing everything. There was so... you know, they have a history professor as part of their, um, development team. And you know, they were really keen to speak to us, talk about their process.
Then on the other hand, you know, other studios are more, um, aware of like their... their intellectual property and a bit concerned about revealing their processes behind the scenes. I mean, certainly like Nintendo are renowned for not revealing their development process in much detail. Yeah. Um, my... so we had a lot of negotiation with them and Marie went out to Japan to visit a few studios. Went to Nintendo, um, and she was allowed in the reception and then they took her into like a meeting room and that is all she saw of Nintendo. So she went all the way to Kyoto and she just saw a meeting room. So I don’t know.
But in the end, through a lot of negotiation, they, you know... we... we... we... and particularly because I think we were talking about some of their contemporary work, uh, we were working with a newer, like younger, um, design team like that creates Splatoon and talking about the process of developing that. Um, they were understanding of it and, you know, their enthusiasm to share their work was, um, you know, I think part of the... of the reason for Nintendo agreeing to do this.
But then again, still, you know, we're... we're in... like working with like Naughty Dog, uh, we, um... we met the entire... like we had a tour of the entire studio and like met all the different designers in different departments. We... when we featured their work, we were able to identify the artist names or the designers' names by their work. But from Nintendo, all of their property is just identified as being from Nintendo. So they, uh... yeah. There... it... there are different like balances. And of course like working with independent designers, they of course are the most, uh, open and the most understanding of like... because they... they work across all these different processes.
But of course, then there’s another thing which is that people... is taking people’s time as well. So it’s difficult to kind of figure out a balance of like how much we can, uh, get... get from people I guess, like behind the scenes. You know, we... we, um... you know, we worked with such a range of people from like com... like single, like... like Jenny Jiao Hsia whose work was just, you know, at the time was really just her, um, her like, uh, like college projects through to, um, Consume Me which is now out, has just come out recently. Um, and then, you know, um, FromSoftware, uh, and Marie managed to visit their studio, but then they shared some like illustrations with us in a notebook and then would ask us to on the display cover one half of the notebook because it would reveal one illustration. They were just very particular about what they would and wouldn’t reveal. Um, yeah. It was just a... such a range of different responses. It’s... it’s really interesting.
[30:17] Jamin Warren:
Yeah, I mean, it strikes me as interesting. Like institutions are, um... they... they’re sort of at these like cross purposes sometimes because like I don’t feel like, um... the burden of notoriety normally does not fall on the artists themselves. I mean obviously there's like a huge pull if you do, you know, a Van Gogh show or like, you know, a well-known artist that pulls people into an institution, right? Um, at the same time, that is not the sole requirement, right, for like putting on a show. That you have this expectation that there’s a sense... there’s a sense that people visiting the museum are... there is a sense of discovery there. And there’s a sense that they’re coming to an institution to see new things.
And I think sometimes with games it can be hard sometimes because like the things that people know are not necessarily the things that are going to be, um, not necessarily the most interesting, but maybe not necessarily maybe the most, uh... not always the most important. And that like you as curator kind of put these things on... basically on equal... equal playing field. And saying like, "Oh, the Nintendos are just as important as like a Kentucky Route Zero with a, you know, much smaller design team." So is it interesting, uh, like tension that I'm sure that you have as a... as a curator where both dealing with the known and also trying to create a sense of discovery as well.
[31:54] Kristian Volsing:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that was... that was incredibly important. It was definitely about bringing that range, um, across the... the... the kind of reach of these titles. We... we... I mean we spoke to, um, people at, uh, Activision about Call of Duty as well. You know, we... we... we tried to like cover all bases. And I think we hopefully got a reasonable mix within that.
[32:27] Jamin Warren:
Um, let’s see. Um. Um, can you tell me a little bit about the, um... oh, yeah. I mean, I guess I saw that like, um, Robert Yang, the game designer, had said that the, you know, the exhibition, um, was a time that a big museum was taking advantage of its like... its... its privilege, right? That's one of the things that you... the benefits that you have that you can kind of like bestow an imprimatur on like... on a medium. I think that that’s part of the... I think that is part of the... the process for games like continuing to be taken seriously. Creatively they’re in a place where that’s true, but it, you know, it’s a little bit different, um... it’s a little bit different to have the V&A actually, um, like kind of offer, you know, say like, "Hey, we want you inside of the institution."
Um, yeah, I was curious like how... can you tell me about the maybe the intentionality that you had as a curator to kind of like offer that fig leaf to games? Um, because there haven’t been, you know... there’s been more since then, but you know, at the end of the day, it’s still very early days in terms of games inside of museum contexts. Really in the last... I mean, really just in the last, you know, 10 or so years really. It’s been... or the last 10, 15 years. It’s a pretty... pretty new process.
[34:16] Kristian Volsing:
Yeah, I think, um, definitely it’s like... it was... it was for us, it was really about just being able to... to bring to a wider public the... the notion that games are really... they’re not just frivolous. They’re really important. And there’s... there’s... they reflect ideas in society. They are played by billions of people every day. Um, and from all, um, aspects of gaming, game design—from huge blockbusters, huge, um, you know, uh, online multiplayer worlds through to, um, really personal, creative, um... um, you know, uh, little kind of like poetry in a sense. Or, um... the... the... the... they’re a... they’re a medium that is really just at the beginning of its, um, of people discovering what they can do with it really. Because the technology is only now, you know, well, when we were doing it, only then becoming really massively accessible to people to, um, to create their own, uh, to... to easily create their own, uh, games and share them, uh, with platforms, you know, like Itch.io and, um, through, uh, critique on, uh, on YouTube or, uh, you know, in... in other spaces.
And kind of really trying to understand why it is so, um, why... why games are so important in the world and why it has this massive like audience. Uh, but still, um, from an institutional point of view is like... and, and... and our audiences... from the institution's audiences, is a completely, uh, alien world to our... our general visitors as well. And trying to convince them that it... it’s not a frivolous toy, you know. It’s like... it’s a way... like these are actually a way of kind of exploring serious issues, important ideas, or even just ways of presenting, um, uh, the world as you might want to see it in some ways. Or, uh, yeah. I... I think there’s... there... there is a lot to, um... to... to bringing these into this like... into this historical institution and... and giving them a... a platform in the same way as, you know, all the kind of paintings and ceramics and everything else that the V&A is so famous for. The, you know, the fashion and textiles collection. All of this kind of stuff.
[37:25] Jamin Warren:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, well just switching gears a little bit to the collection side of things. I mean, um, uh, Flappy Bird, I believe that was one of the, you know, one of the early games, uh, acquisitions that you made. Uh, and you’ve talked a lot about some of the preservation concerns, um, that I think are pretty common to like taking games into a collection. One, it’s, you know, typically outside of the, uh, you know, outside of the, uh, is it just a different type of like preservation and there are different preservation concerns there.
Um, could you tell me, you know, six years... you know, since that, or I'm sorry, it’s been, uh, gosh, almost been more than a decade since then. Um, can you tell me about how you’re thinking about like some of those challenges and, um, yeah, how the process of building like a sustainable process for preserving digital work has... has grown at the museum?
[38:22] Kristian Volsing:
Oh my god. Okay. Yeah. I mean... I have like... see that hasn’t really fallen to me. That’s the thing. So it’s interesting because there is a department that looks after that. And... and I’ve kind of moved onto different projects. So I am the person that is like... my experience is: let’s put this thing on display, let’s talk about it, let’s think about how we might be able to get people to engage with it in a... in a kind of live space.
But of course, there are colleagues of mine who are slowly developing structures to be able to, um, uh, collect digital, uh, material. Um, so far I think the focus... there’s a strong focus in the museum on digital art as opposed to gaming, despite our like... despite our huge, you know, um, impact that this... this exhibition had. The, um, the... the... the limited resources, um, have kind of, uh... have kind of limited what we can... what is being worked on. And... and because it’s all of these research like projects to kind of figure out how we do this, it’s very slow at the moment.
There have been, you know, over the... over the last decade, they... we... the museum started collecting digital artwork from people like, uh, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, um, and that have gaming elements as part of them as well. I’m... I’m also working on a... on a... on a commission for V&A East for one of our part... like for the one of the new institutions that’s just opening in London as well, um, with Lawrence Lek. So there is definitely a strong, uh, interest in thinking about how we work with, uh, games that are kind of in the art sphere or artists working with games. But the kind of commercial side of things, uh, I think my colleagues are thinking about how they might broach that at this point. Because, um, because you know, the... the commercial aspects of them make this really complicated. And... and, um, you know, vested interests in... in the intellectual property make these things complicated as well. So breaking them down into their source parts is like... is, uh... I know that’s... it’s... it’s an ongoing conversation how we might, um, manifest that in the collection.
[41:33] Jamin Warren:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I can... I can, uh, I can certainly imagine that there is a... there is a real set of con... set of concerns there. Um, I know just some of the work that I did, you know, advising, uh, MoMA on some of their early collections that was like a major... obviously like a major... major consideration was like what stuff they could actually take into the collection. Because for them it was like both display, but it was... the... the centerpiece was like really taking games into the collection. They wanted... really wanted to plant their flag and say that this is what they were doing. And, um, yeah, that was, uh, that was a, uh, like a primary... a primary concern for them. Was like, well what can we actually... what can we actually keep?
And it’s... you know, I think it’s hard. I was talking to someone about this the other day, another artist, and, um, I live in Los Angeles and we have, uh, the Academy Museum, um, here, which is, uh, you know, a great museum that’s dedicated to obviously motion pictures. And, um, you know, I was thinking, I was like, you know, in some ways like if you were trying to do that, um, maybe at the like the absolute height of, uh, you know, Hollywood’s like dominance over like the public imagination... you know, now Hollywood has to share... you know, there’s a lot of questions about, you know, what does it look like? It’s competing with so many different forms of media. But you know, there was a point in time where Hollywood was like that was the absolute centerpiece.
And if you tried to open that museum at that time, I wonder if the response would have been similar to video games. Like, you know, these are commercial works. They’re not thinking about back catalogs. Like, you know, it’s much easier for the Academy Museum to do like a restoration from some film that was, you know, done in, you know, the 40s or 50s or whatever. You know, everyone who worked on it is probably dead. Like... like in some ways like it’s probably easier and it feels analogous to like the work that you’re doing in that you’re dealing with a living medium that is, uh... well, it’s not just living, but is also very much ascendant. And that creates like a different set of, you know, different set of considerations that are different than if it was, you know, a hundred years from now. So, um...
[43:35] Kristian Volsing:
Yeah, I mean, I think... I think with the Academy Museum as well, I... I was... I went a couple of years ago. I was really happy to get an opportunity to see it. Um, and what’s so interesting for me is like that... that struggle between, you know, they... they show props and costumes and they’re very appealing. And then they try and explore the work of a... like a... an... Almodóvar, for instance, and it’s a... it’s lots of clips on screens everywhere and it doesn’t quite have the same tangible effect. And again, it’s like how do you interpret these, um, this medium that people encounter in a... in a... in a long form, um, in an experience where people are kind of walking around all over the place and kind of how they think about these things. It's so... super interesting place.
[44:33] Jamin Warren:
Yeah, I mean, yeah, the Almodóvar ex... I mean that little... that... that... that sequence that they... that they showed. I mean that is a great example where it’s like, you know, you have some people who are coming... who are coming to see that exhibition, but then you know, they’re also doing Jaws right now for like nine months. Like you have a really varied group of... you know, Almodóvar is not... he is a obviously a great... a great director, very well known, very well respected. But you know, unless you are like a film person—and that’s not every person who goes to the Academy Museum has to be a complete cinephile—so it’s been interesting to see how they’ve kind of like tried to balance those two things versus, um, you know... show... I think they had, uh, Dorothy’s red shoes on display. Like that kind of stuff. Like you want to find that balance between like getting people to do that versus like, "Oh, we’re going to spend, you know, a whole sequence looking at like, you know, the evolution of Shirley cards and, you know, structural racism in... in Hollywood film stock."
Yeah, so it’s like try... it’s... it’s a really tough balance, I’m sure, like as a curator finding, uh, trying to do both... both things. Um, yeah.
[45:54] Jamin Warren:
Um, do you... do you think, uh, you know, as far as I know, there are no... you can tell me. Um, I have not seen like a dedica... you wear a couple hats and so like digital is a huge category under which games fall. Um, I do wonder, do you... do you think that, you know, the V&A or, you know, when... when will we have a dedicated games curator? And that’s the only thing that they really focus on is like just on curating... curating games. Is that a... is that a pipe dream or is that something that you think happens at some point in the future?
[46:27] Kristian Volsing:
Oh my god. I mean, I think you know, we... we... we... like, I mean that was Marie’s role for the duration of the... the exhibition. And when the exhibition finished, they... there wasn’t the impetus from above in the museum to kind of keep it on the program in a... in a... in a way. Which is... which is a great shame. And you know, I’ve tried... you know, what... like I’ve kind of hung on in different... in different ways.
So I, uh, after the video game show went and worked on, uh... like the V&A has this sister museum, a much smaller museum called, uh, Young V&A. At the time it was Museum of Childhood. Um, and that is like... we... I... I joined a team kind of redeveloping that for... and it was kind of, you know, for up to... ages up to 14. Trying to engage them with the museum collections and... and I created a... you know, curated a whole permanent gallery on game design for like... you know, for 14-year-olds. Um, but like it’s like... uh... and... and they... but then, you know, the audience doesn’t actually come after... after the institution opened... after, you know, we worked on it for five years... are very much much younger. So it’s like a kind of nostalgia trip for their parents and like these three-year-olds like running around doing stuff. So there’s some... there is some like permanent games content in one of our institutions.
Then the other side of it is like, as I mentioned, there is a digital design, uh, collecting team still, uh, working there, but their focus has been in terms of what they can get funding [for] has been about digital art. And so in some ways there’s some digital game intersection with that.
Um, I’m... so my... my role now, I run the Contemporary Programme, which means that we, uh, have... we run this thing called Friday Lates where we bring in different artists, a lot of them, um, on a particular theme to kind of... and... and use the museum as a platform. The last Friday of every month to present new work by emerging artists. Um, and we have like a DJ and we have, uh, workshops and we have, um, uh, yeah, installations and stuff like that. But it only all happens on one night.
But as in this role, um, I am now kind of implementing that we do an annual, um, experimental games, um, event. So that will be happening in March that’s kind of connected to what we have as a wider thing across London called London Games Festival. So I’m going to be working alongside, um, uh, some independent curators as well who are really immersed in the experimental game space so that we’re really doing this properly. And provi... using the museum as a space to bring in these audiences that, um, don’t feel they connect with the museum’s collections but actually, you know, they... they’re like wanting to... to play games and... and think about game design. And use this as an opportunity to kind of explore the kind of things that are best done live rather than a kind of static thing. So.
[50:18] Jamin Warren:
Yeah.
[50:19] Kristian Volsing:
That should be... so this... this hopefully is going to be an ongoing thing that we do. And... and will be the beginnings of thinking about how we can, uh, really, um, structure something more permanent in the main kind of, uh... in the kind of V&A collecting departments, I guess.
[50:39] Jamin Warren:
Yeah. Yeah, I mean it is, um... yeah, again, it’s like institutions sort of sit... these two mandates. Like, uh, on the one hand there’s a a very widespread and uncontroversial, uh, point of view that, you know, games are a love language for, you know, for Gen Alpha, for Gen Z and for many, many, many, many millennials. At the same time, uh, you know, that sometimes there is a... there’s... there’s controller anxiety. There’s anxiety sometimes with people who didn’t grow up with games. And so it’s hard because you both want to attract the youngest... the youngest people. You know, lots of research about, you know, young people not finding their... their voice at museums. It doesn't reflect their interests. Um, but at the same time, you know, there’s a concern that you lose, um... yeah, that you lose like, uh, you know, older folks who maybe are... are less games... games literate. Even though they’re curious about art, maybe games are just kind of... it’s like a bridge... a bridge too far for them.
Um, so it is a... it is a... it is a real... a very real... a very real... real challenge on top of, you know, what, you know, funding mandates you might have from foundations or, um, or you know... because the other big challenge I think is that, you know, games companies typically don’t spend money on the arts. And so it can be very hard I think for institutions to say like, "Oh, okay, let me get this straight. We’re going to focus our time, effort and resources, uh, on a cultural form that like does not contribute, um... does not contribute financially in a way that, um, you know, in a way that, um, you know, other... other industries have in the past." And games just don't, for one reason or another. They just... they really... they really don’t. I don’t... I don’t understand why. I mean I do, but uh... but I think that sometimes makes the... the path a lot harder sometimes for curators like yourself. Um, uh, yeah.
[52:21] Kristian Volsing:
Sure.
[52:22] Jamin Warren:
Um, I guess the last things, um, in terms of like closing advice for, you know, for other people. You know, if you’re talking to someone else working inside a museum or cultural institution right now, um, but they don’t have like the budget or the authority to make something, you know, like, uh, like the work that you’ve done possible. You know, what advice do you have for them in terms of like building... starting to build that, um, to build that capacity internally? Like what are the small things that someone can do, um, that mattered maybe for... for your... your journey that they could... they could replicate?
[52:49] Kristian Volsing:
Yeah, I mean, I... yeah. It... it... I was... yeah, I like was... it’s... it’s... it’s tricky. It’s like it’s... uh... I think like I was saying like, I mean one of the things we do is... is... well I’m hoping that we will be successful at is... is... is making the museum a... a platform for like new and emerging designers to kind of present work. And I think live events are a really nice way of doing that. And you can, um, uh, facilitate, um, these, uh, uh, kinds of things in... in the galleries a lot more easily on a... on a kind of event like basis rather than necessarily, um, uh, like trying to invest in the infrastructure needed to collect digital, um, design processes.
But, um, yeah, I... I... I... I think it’s something that like, uh... it... it’s... it... it’s kind of missing for a lot of experimental game designers and stuff as well. And... and you know, these spaces to present their... their work. And... and... and I think it’s, uh... yeah. I mean, that... that would be... that would be like my direction to start with, um, like kind of looking into who’s making games locally as well.
I mean, that’s the other thing as well. It’s... it’s very, um... I know... I know that uh smaller institutions have done stuff like with... with... so for instance, I think, um, I think it’s, uh, Coventry which is a small city, um, in the Midlands in the UK. Um, like Rare are based near, uh, Coventry and they have collaborated with their museum to showcase some of their historical material from their collection. So it’s also like collaborating with, um, local partners because it’s not all... it... it... it doesn’t all have to be about like the... the... the massive blockbusters. It can also be about, um, you know, the... the smaller local context I guess.
[55:01] Jamin Warren:
Yeah, yeah, no that’s such a... that’s such a great point about, um, not saying that like you have to look outside. I mean, yeah, and at this point there are so many local game communities. Um, you know, whether they are like informal groups of, um, like hobby designers, uh, or, you know, schools are often graduating more students now. There are a lot more... way more local resources on top of like these kind of like independent collectives that you see popping up in so many different cities. From, you know, Distraction, uh, dot fun in Paris or, you know, Trust in Berlin or, uh, you know, there’s just like there’s so much of that work that’s... that’s happening. Um, and I think you don’t necessarily have to go, you know... or in your case, you don’t necessarily have to fly to... fly to Kyoto to sit in a conference... sit in the conference room to find, uh, to find games that are... gonna fit your... fit what it is that you’re... that you’re trying to do.
[55:54] Jamin Warren:
Um, last question I have for you is, um, what do you wish that like, uh, that more organizations, institutions understand about like what games actually need? You know, um, you know it’s... it’s a two-way street, right? It’s, um... it’s a two-way street and... um, but what do... what do you find that creators and artists and like the broader games community... what are the things that they’re asking for from an institution like... like yours?
[56:17] Kristian Volsing:
Yeah, I mean, again, like... uh, just to... to like really hammer it home, I think one of the things is that like the experimental game community... the people that kind of are doing things that are really changing the way that we play games that like, um, you know, trying new things out, being able to like prototype different ideas and stuff like that. Um, they need... they need space to be able to present their work. They need somewhere where they have an audience coming who, um, might want to try something out that they wouldn’t necessarily be able to share at home. Or... or be able to... you know, the... the point of these... these games that people are creating in experimental spaces are that they’re played in public as well.
So I think for me that is like fundamentally, um, the main thing that I, uh, want to like... uh, like... like propo... like, suggest that like what’s... that... that the V&A does is... you know, is... is being able to bring audiences to, um, uh, lesser-known, uh, artworks and... and... and... and projects and stuff like that. So, you know, I... I think that’s my, um... yeah. That’s... that... that is my role as... as somebody who works in an institution like working with games. I... you know, I really want to be able to introduce more people to the kind of work that they don’t necessarily... uh... know about.
[57:46] Jamin Warren:
Yeah, that’s great. Well, Kristian, thank you so much for... for making time. I really appreciate it.
[57:51] Kristian Volsing:
Great to speak to you.
[57:54] Jamin Warren:
Um, cool. Let me stop the recording here. All right.