The Sims: Canvas for Artistic Expression

The LATimes has an article on a trend setting art competition, “The Sims: In the Hands of Artists” at Otis College of Art and Design’s Ben Maltz Gallery. All entries were created using The Sims 2 video game as a “digital canvas”.

“Some people probably think of Sims as just a video game, but we wanted to show the general public that video games can transcend game play,” says Jack Lew, EA’s global university relations manager for art. “Some of the freshest ideas often come from college campuses, and we wanted to see how art students would celebrate the creative aspects of the game.”

Entries ranged from traditional paintings to a board game and ,of course, machinima. The grand prize winner is one of six machinima on display. “H2O=Life” took over 50 hours to produce, and depicts the importance and amount of water consumed by a family of three.

“Olivier’s submission was the pinnacle of professionalism and creativity,” says Otis Provost John S. Gordon, who was also one of the competition’s jurors, “and by using machinima, I think he’ll reach an audience that otherwise might not have paid attention to the clean-water issue.”