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In the last few years, video games, and references to them, are appearing with increasing frequency in exhibitions for contemporary art signed by well-known curators at prestigious institutions. This flurry of major exhibitions testifies to the fact that video games are a cultural force that now needs to be reckoned with. A new generation of artists are using games and video games as a natural way to express themselves, as well as a way to articulate their relation to the past and to contemporary culture and society. 

Interestingly, these exhibitions almost exclusively feature creators trained in art schools who identify themselves as making art games or referencing video games. This leaves the impression that it is principally creators trained in art schools who are experimenting with games as an art form; that is to say, experimenting consciously with the formal qualities of the medium, its aesthetics and content. However, people from the game design community have been doing radical experiments with games since the mid 1980’s.

F(R)ICTION will bring together works by artists coming from art schools, and experimental works by artists trained in the game studies and design community. It will highlight the differences between the two communities as well as the overlap, along with the more recent emergence of creators trained in both fields.

F(R)ICTION will showcase works that will be completely new to most people in Montreal. It will feature high profile, internationally recognized artists and designers, major installations and a spectrum of examples of radical experimentation. The works will counter stereotypes about games as mere, often violent and sexist entertainment. On the contrary, these complex, critical works of art/games often explicitly push back against the characteristics of industry games. The exhibition will also demonstrate how fundamentally inclusive this area of contemporary creation now is; It will include works from all over the world and prominently feature women, BIPOC, Queer, trans, non-binary and indigenous creators.