Outer Space Combat

Reframing Art and Games as Historical Twins: art-bit's Curatorial Practices in Japan

"Reframing Art and Games as Historical Twins: art-bit's Curatorial Practices in Japan" examines the "art-bit" exhibition series in Kyoto, which challenges conventional distinctions between contemporary art and video games.

• The paper argues video games and contemporary art are "historical twins" that developed in parallel through the twentieth century along opposite trajectories: art moved from imitation toward principle, while games moved from abstract logical systems toward increasingly comprehensive imitation of the real world.
• Both fields are diagnosed as having exhausted their developmental paths and entering a "post-historical era," which the author uses as the rationale for the art-bit exhibitions at Hotel Anteroom Kyoto (2021–2024), pairing conventional contemporary artists with independent games under shared themes.
• The central comparative claim is that early video games, like classical painting, generate space through abstract computational procedures, contrasted with Western commitments to three-dimensional realism.