The MICA Game Lab is happy to present Hunt and Peck: Alternative Expressions of the Keyboard, curated by VGA Gallery. VGA Gallery is a not-for-profit art organization in Chicago that supports artists who make video games and related new media art.
(www.vgagallery.com)

Opening Reception: November 15th, 6pm
Curator Lecture: November 15th, 6:30pm
Show Dates: November 15th - 25th
Location: Dolphin Gallery
Open to the public
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The QWERTY keyboard is a ubiquitous object in public and private spaces, usually regarded as a means to engage with something other than itself. The history of its design stretches to the end of the 19th Century, and over the course of time its use has become naturalized for many. Despite proposals for new interfaces (touch screens, depth sensors, VR etc.) it remains a deeply familiar object, possibly the most humble and banal of peripherals.

This exhibition functions as an intervention on the everydayness of keyboards by presenting them as the site of artistic innovation. Each artist featured investigates and prods the capabilities of the key- board to transform it from a quotidian object into a expressive interactive and visual experience; a practice that video game scholar Brian Schrank refers to as “affordance mining”. These experiments challenge our expectations of what pedestrian technologies are capable of, and in doing so also challenge the rhetorics and values embedded in technology, consumer electronics, and video game development.

This guest curated show features work from those in the game industry: Bennett Foddy, Daniel Linssen, Luke Palmer, Karina Popp, Jeremy Rodgers and Brian Schrank, Adam Saltsman and Keita Takahashi, Devon Scott-Tunkin, Joan Stark, and Triband.