Chaos in Play

When MOMA added video games to its permanent collection, critics came calling. But if art is an interpretation of our reality, it’s hard to argue that these visual and interactive works aren’t the period pieces of our times. The next speaker in our Airbnb Design—Talks series, David OReilly, created the first video game to be eligible for an Oscar. An artist whose mediums also include animation, film, and writing, he creates works that grapple with how we interact with and understand the chaotic world around us.

OReilly is widely known for directing the video game interfaces used in Spike Jonze’s “Her.” In the gaming world, he won acclaim with his debut game “Mountain,” which both captivated and confounded players. There’s no grand mission and minimal interactivity, leading OReilly to describe it as “the most-downloaded installation ever made.”

His next title, “Everything,” was equally subversive and infinitely more complex, giving players the option to be everything in the universe, from pollen to a polar bear to the galaxy. It was crowned Game of the Year and won accolades from the Vienna Shorts Festival, Wired, and the Guardian, among others.

For OReilly, chaos is visual. The tension between order and disarray are a driving creative force in all of his works. Join us for an evening centered around the chaos found in the systems of play, and a preview of OReilly’s latest project, “Eye of the Dream.”