Video games are often overlooked as an art form, says John Borchert, Ph.D. The UNC Greensboro faculty member contests this idea. He says immersive worlds for players are art forms in their own right. They’re also powerful tools for expanding our understanding of more traditional arts.
“When many people think about video gaming and esports, they think only about the fun, the entertainment, the distraction,” he says. “But behind all of that is a suite of technologies and capabilities in real-time 3D simulation, interactive technologies that can be used for many different applications.”
Borchert will explore some of those applications this year as the Weatherspoon Art Museum’s Margaret and Bill Benjamin Faculty Fellow. With access to artworks and in partnership with Weatherspoon staff, he will explore ways in which 3D technology intersects with physical art and classroom pedagogy.
A whole new world of 3D
The digitization of art brings great potential. Curators can create 3D models of any of the thousands of paintings and sculptures in the Weatherspoon’s collections. Some of the tools work on smartphones and other hand-held devices.
Borchert will draw upon his collaborations with Epic Games, creators of the popular game “Fortnite” and the Unreal Engine gaming software suite. For this research, he’ll focus on RealityScan. This software in the Unreal suite of tools can photograph anything in the real world and build a 3D model. “The goal is to show the flexibility and the breadth of abilities in digital and game-based technologies,” he says.
As the world becomes more digital, Borchert says now is the time for everyone at UNCG to think about how they can get the most out of technology while remaining responsible citizens. “It allows for a new level of participation and interactivity with art, cultural artifacts, and historic figures,” he says.
A group can’t touch a fragile or damaged work, but they safely work with a 3D digital replica. They can view a model of an object physically fixed in place from all angles. A class of students on one side of the country can study artwork in a museum on the other side.
“The promises of that technology are big for a museum or an art archive,” says Borchert. “All your archived materials are now readily available in a digital space. If you want greater public access to art and greater art appreciation, those technologies make that possible.”
Partners with a shared vision
Borchert is the third UNCG faculty member to hold this fellowship—a research partnership that the museum offers annually to a professor who will explore its collections through a unique disciplinary lens. He says, “The Weatherspoon has been incredibly progressive and cutting edge in their thinking about what it means to be a museum, to have an archive, to be on a university campus interacting with faculty and students.”
The museum is excited to work with Borchert to build upon their present creative applications. Emily Stamey, Ph.D., curator of academic programming and head of exhibitions, says, “While we are eager for Dr. Borchert to help us think about the immediately practical applications of these digital technologies, we are especially excited to think with him about ways in which not just the computer software, but the larger discipline of gaming and its investment in world-building might help us think about new contexts and frameworks for understanding the artworks in our collection.”
UNCG, the tip of the spear
With these explorations come important questions: What becomes of copyright and intellectual property? Will digital recreation deplete a work’s artistic value or expand it?
Borchert has always been interested in how art and technology connect to culture and morality. That’s reflected in his background as a faculty affiliate of religious studies, director of the Network for the Cultural Study of Videogaming, and director of the videogaming and esports studies program. As the Weatherspoon’s Benjamin Fellow, he’ll convene working groups with interdisciplinary faculty and museum staff who bring a range of vantage points to consider these questions with museum staff.
Free and open to the public
Borchert will lay some groundwork for this research and give an overview of UNCG’s exciting esports initiatives during a free event at the Weatherspoon. Hear him talk about “The Art of Gaming,” his previous work in art and technology, and what is to come to Greensboro through UNCG and its partnerships in the art and media industry.
The event will be held Aug. 28, from 6 to 7 p.m. with a reception to follow until 7:30 p.m.
This collaborative work comes during an exciting time of expansion for UNCG. It is building the Jeanne Tannenbaum Center for Creative Practice, which will serve the University’s Millennial Campus Initiative to innovate art across all platforms.
“How do we take these best practices and activate them as resources?” he says. “For example, the Black Box Studio in the Tannenbaum Center will be a wholly immersive studio with full motion capture technology in the room and a 600-square-foot LED wall. If you wanted to interact with art from the Weatherspoon archive in such an unprecedented way, that will be the space to do that.”
UNCG, with the Weatherspoon, can help set the standard for this relatively new practice of regularly bringing museum collections, digital technologies, and classroom teaching into partnership. In the first year, with help from other faculty, he hopes to have drawn up a set of best practices.
“It puts us in a pretty unique space,” he says. “UNCG raises its profile in the gaming and digitization space. It creates an opportunity for the Greensboro community to be on the cutting edge, thinking about what a digital future might look like. And our students can ask the questions about how to be digital stewards.”
Story by Janet Imrick, University Communications
Photography by Sean Norona, University Communications
