into-the-pixel posts

For the past several years the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has sponsored Into The Pixel, an art exhibition featuring video-PC game related artwork from professional game developers. The organization has now begun to start accepting submissions for the 2011 edition of Into The Pixel.

Artists in the game industry can now submit their entries at the official Into The Pixel web site from now until April 15. The submissions will be reviews and judged by a still unannounced number of panelists. The final picks will be shown off at the Los Angeles Convention Center during E3 2011 from June 15-17.

With E3 2010 now well underway, the game industry concentrates this week on the near future and the upcoming game releases for the next year or so. But what about beyond the usual sales year. The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has sponsored or co-sponsored a number of events and awards designed to broaden the scope of the industry.

This week the AIAS co-sponsored the Into The Pixel game art exhibit at E3. It is the primary organizer of the annual DICE Summit and its related Interactive Achievement Awards. It also is a co-sponsor of the Indie Games Challenge competition that gave $100,000 each to two development teams in its first year.. Overseeing all of this is the AIAS's president Joseph Olin. Big Download got a chance to ask Olin some questions about all the AIAS's efforts and other topics.

The 2008 edition of the Into The Pixel game art exhibition is scheduled for a preview showing at E3 2008 next week. However, the exhibit's official web site has already revealed an interesting piece that may be the first visual preview of Half-Life 2 Episode 3, the final chapter for Valve's episodic shooter series.

The artwork is labled "Half Life EP3" and is credited to Valve artists Ted Backman, Jeremy Bennett, and Tristan Redford and seems to be set in some kind of Citadel location. Valve has yet to officially reveal any actual screenshots for Episode 3 nor has the developer revealed a release date for the game. At the moment Valve's only official game project is the long-in-development zombie shooter Left 4 Dead.

People are always asking, "Are PC and video games true works of art?" The folks who create artwork for games would certainly say, "Yes!". The industry gets to prove that every year with the Into The Pixel game art exhibition where traditional art galleries meet the game world. The 2008 edition is now taking entries for this year's exhibition that's co-sponsored by the Entertainment Software Association and the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.

Artists that are employed by the game industry can submit their entries for the exhibition by May 21 where they will be judged by a panel that includes people like Oddworld Inhabitants' Lorne Lanning, NCsoft's art director Daniel Dociu and more. A preview of the final exhibit will be displayed during E3 this July in Los Angeles and the full exhibition will be shown during the 2008 E for All Expo on Oct. 3-5.