Draft Proposal for R18+ Rating for Computer Games

The debate has been long and sometimes vehement, but it seems that in the face of large amounts of support during public consultation, there might finally be some movement on the introduction of a R18+ rating for computer games in Australia.

Details have been released at this website: http://www.classification.gov.au/www/cob/classification.nsf/Page/InformationCentre_ProposeddraftGuidelinesforR18+ComputerGames

A decision will be made based on these guidelines in July this year, so if you feel strongly enough about it to have a say, there's a survey on that site that you can fill out. Personally, I'm looking forward to the medium being legitimised as being entertainment suitable for adults.

L'art + Toi, Bethune 2011

About two months ago, I was in Bethune in northern France, setting up our AVIE for L'art + Toi, an arts festival that's going to be running up there for most of this year.

There was a lot of amazing installation art in a few different buildings around the town . . . in a lot of different and amazing formats. There was an installation where light globes moved up and down on small winches while fading in and out . . . mesmerising and soothing to watch. There was a small car like vehicle made entirely of transparent perspex and lit from inside with blue LEDs . . . and on closer inspection, was carved on the inside to show a skeleton and organs in the lighting. I've also attached a photo of one of the other pieces I appreciated:

It's always interesting being a part of these festivals . . . you get to see some really strange and wonderful pieces of art, while in the meantime you're off in Europe somewhere enjoying tasty food :)

A Urinal made out of Nintendo Cartridges

This was too funny to pass up . . . someone's made a fully working urinal out of old nintendo games . . .

A little more info here: http://hackaday.com/2011/05/22/we-know-marios-early-years-was-a-let-down-but-this-takes-it-a-bit-too-far/

In other news, I apologise for not having blogged for AGES . . . maybe over the next couple of days I'll recap what I've been up to . . .

Heading over to France again

I'm leaving on Saturday for Bethune, France for a week or so.

We're showing off some works in iCinema's AVIE as a part of an Art Festival in Bethune.

Apart from the cold (I checked a weather report that said it'd be hitting 0 degrees at night time), I'm looking forward to doing another international bump in and also getting to check out a bunch of the other artworks and performers who are going to be out there.

iFest

There's a new Independent Games Festival getting started up in Australia, called iFest, going up in April in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne.

For more information, check out http://www.ifest.com.au/.

IGDA Sydney's definitely going to be a part of it and a lot of the same people who've done amazing work on Game Jams and other events around here are helping put this on and I think this is a great idea to get people together and talking . . . there's no better way to get ideas and collaborations going.

Unfortunately my new team won't have anything to present yet by April, but we'll definitely be coming along to see how things are going nonetheless.