The Euphrat Museum’s Learn to Play exhibit came to life, as artists, students, faculty and community members rolled dice, mashed buttons and played pingpong all in the name of art.

Many attendees noted that some of the art was already released on websites like newgrounds.com, but it was nice to see all of the games in one place in a true arcade setting.   

It was the artists’ and patron’s opportunity to realize the potential of artistic expression in videogames, trains and pingpong, as well as absorb complex messages about society and western culture.

The diversity of the crowd was healthy. Baby boomers gazed perplexed, yet intrigued with the pixilated monitors flashing before them. Students and faculty from University of California Santa Cruz, De Anza College and Merit College conversed with one another on interpretations and constructive criticism. The rest of the crowd was comprised of friends and family of the artists, as well as community members.   

Rob Guisti, 20-year-old, UCSC computer science/game design major, said the gallery struck a deep chord in his interest of all things playable. Guisti was most impressed by the unveiling of Brenda Brathwaite’s game “Train,” a game played by adding toy passengers into train models. Due to the initially innocent premise, players are caught off guard when the game makes a dark reference to the Holocaust and players realize that they have been deceived into playing as Nazis.

Photographer April Banks simultaneously portrays what it is like to be a living game piece in the world of professional sports. She symbolically addressed the institutionalized racism and disproportionate representation of ethnicity in her photograph “Milk Bath.” The photo’s subject, former New York Jets wide receiver DeQawn Mobley was at the event speaking to visitors about his experiences in football.

Soft-spoken La Mar Williams, 25, produced the documentary “You meet the nicest people making video games,” that greeted the crowd.

“A lot of people make games for different reasons, so I went around talking to people who found some quirk in programming or did it just for the fun of it,” he said.

Williams explained that many programmers prefer creating two-dimensional games because it is easier to illustrate a point with two dimensions. It allows the audience or participant to see everything at a glance. Side scrolling games take gamers directly to the artist’s message; three dimensions allow the exploration of the art piece.

Visitors were allowed to play with history in a pingpong game as either communist China or the United States. The pingpong table symbolized the attempt to open relations between the two nations. The message intended by artist Yunan Cao is that tension kills foreign relations and if there is no trust, there is no true communication.  

De Anza College Board of Trustees student member Thomasina Russaw talks with former New York Jets wide receiver DeQawn Mobley about the meaning of the photo he was the subject of at De Anza’s Euphrat Museum on Nov 9. (Keith Hubbard)