From the artwork to the museum: Gamification as an instrument of Art

The term ‘gamification’ can be defined as a phenomenon that uses a game as both a vehicle for information and a means of enhancing the museum’s attractive functions. The very nature of a work of contemporary art lends itself to welcoming gamification as an area of artistic expression. With the explosion of new technologies, a real artistic current has been born, which is recognised as ‘Game Art’. This development has led to the creation of works of art that arise from both a comparison with video games and with video games themselves being conceived as possessing artistic purposes. The entrance of video games into museums is parallel to the diffusion of games in museum didactics. This phenomenon, which can be defined by the term ‘Edutainment’, is based on the principle that games can be an excellent tool to convey content. The promotion of learning by playing games is the imperative of many contemporary museums who see this both as an educational tool, precisely, and as a marketing tool, since the promotion of new methodologies that favour a happy visiting experience inevitably has the consequence not only of fostering a better understanding of the contents of the museum itself, but also, inevitably, of increasing the number of users of these institutions. Through exemplary cases of application of such devices, particularly in the Italian context, the chapter aims to show the different types with which the game is applied in museum didactics.