Buffalo, NY – On Saturday, June 27, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery hosted a launch event for its free, newly developed, interactive mobile gaming application, ArtGames 2.0, a product of the AK Innovation Lab. The launch event was held at the AK and included live music, giveaways, art activities, and games for all ages.

ArtGames 2.0 comprises fun and educational games that familiarize players with different art styles and movements, various artists and artistic concepts, and masterworks from the AK Collection. Users will first enter the home environment—a 3D interface updated in real-time—where they will have access to all ArtGames 2.0 portals. Each portal contains a different style of game that was designed around the artwork that inspired it.

ArtGames 2.0 has been developed in collaboration with the International Center for Excellence in Animation at Daemen College, Empire Visual Effects (Buffalo, NY), and All Things Media (Mahwah, NJ). Input has also been provided by some of the artists whose works were sources of inspiration for individual games, such as Do Ho Suh and Jason Middlebrook. 

“ArtGames 2.0, a brainchild of the Albright-Knox Innovation Lab, is a participatory and playful digital platform that connects the virtual world of youth-focused video and Internet games with revolutionary artworks,” Peggy Pierce Elfvin Director Janne Sirén said. “By harnessing the twenty-first century’s ubiquitous enthusiasm for video games and interactive experiences, ArtGames 2.0 invites young minds to engage with the drama of modern and contemporary art.”

AK Innovation Lab Project Manager Russell Davidson said, “ArtGames 2.0 allows users to share their progress with the world by capturing an image of their own art-inspired planet. These images can be shared through any social media channel with which the user engages and can even be distributed to friends and family through email from within the application. Players can also explore one another’s customized planets by navigating through a 3D galaxy. This application will allow museums to reach a broader audience as social media use continues to grow.”

“Every once in a while, a project comes along that is challenging, artistic, exciting, and fun. ArtGames 2.0 is one of the best applications we have ever had the opportunity to develop,” Rob Spierenburg, Managing Director at All Things Media said. “This project was a true collaboration between the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, All Things Media, Empire Visual Effects, and Daemen College. It has been a privilege to work with these partners to create such a groundbreaking game application; it is the kind of project that brings out the best in a company like ours.”

Artworks that inspired games in the application include Vincent van Gogh’s La Maison de la Crau (The Old Mill), Vassily Kandinsky’s Fragment for Composition VII, Robert Delaunay’s Soleil, Tour, Aéroplane (Sun, Tower, Airplane), Piet Mondrian’s Composition No. 11, 1940-42—LONDON, with Blue, Red, and Yellow, Jorge Pardo’s Untitled, Do Ho Suh’s Karma, Jason Middlebrook’s Underlife, and multiple works by Clyfford Still, starting with 1957-D No. 1, one of the masterpieces of the AK’s famous Abstract Expressionist collection.

The AK Innovation Lab engages a broad-based series of intellectual collaborations across an array of disciplines in the arts, sciences, and technology to explore new ideas and develop solutions to challenges confronting museums and societies locally, regionally, and globally. The Lab strives to define new models for museums in the twentieth century as productive and engaged creative hubs at the center of social and civic vitality. Developed over the course of eighteen months, ArtGames 2.0 is the first project undertaken by the AK Innovation Lab.

The AK Innovation Lab is made possible, in part, through the support of The Seymour H. Knox Foundation, in conjunction with The John R. Oishei Foundation, an anonymous family foundation, and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

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