Video-game designer goes to the next level with solo museum show

The Davis Museum at Wellesley College in Massachusetts is organising what it calls the first solo show of a video-game designer in an art museum. The presentation of work by the California-based designer Jason Rohrer (The Game Worlds of Jason Rohrer, 10 February-26 June) aims to deconstruct the distinction between video games and fine art. Rohrer’s games tackle the same ambitious themes “that draw us to art… such as love, melancholia, friendship, death”, says Mike Maizels, who has organised the exhibition. Rohrer’s game Passage (2007), which enables players to experience a character’s entire life in five minutes, was among the first video games acquired by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2012. The show includes sketches and ephemera, plus six laptop stations that enable visitors to experience 15 of Rohrer’s games, largely created using the early 8-bit format. Game on.