Inside the videogame version of the Marina Abramovic institute

Ironically enough, this echoes the way Barr’s preconceptions about Marina Abramovic were shattered by simply speaking with her. “[Upon meeting Marina,] I had, like most people I suppose, expected her to be kind of severe or detached or...something, but in fact she's very warm, excited, and funny. The humorous aspect of my games (particularly The Artist is Present) was a big part of what had attracted her to them in the first place, and she certainly sees room within performance art and the institute itself for humor.” It’s great that Pippin Barr’s games can act as gateways to accessing esoteric performance art, but they also function as artwork in their own right. Barr says Abramovic is gracious in this regard. “What I appreciate most about the collaboration is Marina's willingness to let it be as much about games and what they are and do as it is about performance art or art generally,” he says. “That's meant spending time thinking about the intersections of the two, and how performance art and Marina's take on it might ‘look’ in the world of a game.”