The whole exhibition showcased the real videogames, the history and terminology around them, people who are involved in the production process, all sorts of hardware, interface and others. For those who are not interested in videogames, it was really easy to understand how videogames have evolved.

On top of that, it became a rare exhibition where visitors could see exhibits and play with them. The scene of parent and child playing videogames together in a museum with sounds in the background made me feel strange but happy. Totally different from the usual contemporary art exhibition that visitors have to go forward to see the works, trying to understand the difficult context, this exhibition gave me the impression that the space has become familiar to us.

Since last year, there were lots of highly-motivated exhibitions with the theme ‘summary of the 20th Century’ or ‘views for the 21st Century’ because of the social expectation within ‘the end of a century’. From the end of 1999 to the beginning of 2000, an exhibition entitled ‘Tokyo the year Zero’ was held here at Art Tower Mito. The exhibition attempted to reset the context of the past contemporary art in order to enter the year 2000 (the year Zero). As an exhibition to meet the 21st Century, this ‘Bit Generation’ focused on the strong videogame culture in a different context from art, and tried to create a stir in the culture after it’s reset. The greater part of Shift readers must be in the ‘Bit Generation’.

I think this exhibition gave a hint for creation in the 21st Century to both our generation and the next generation by putting ‘videogames’ into a museum. Needless to say, the 21st Century is still a blank sheet of paper.

Bit Generation 2000 “TV GAMES”
Date: October 28th, 2000 – January 28th, 2001
Open: 9:30 – 18:30 (Closed on Monday)
Place: Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito
Address: 1-6-8 Gokencho, Mito, Ibaraki
Tel: +81 (0)29 227 8120
https://www.tvgame-museum.com