Black people are rarely portrayed in video games as anything other than stereotypes or ciphers. The few African-American characters who inhabit virtual worlds—whether Grand Theft Auto or Street Fighter—are typically gangsters, athletes, or sassy comic-relief types like Augustus “Cole Train” Cole, the thinly drawn professional sports star turned soldier from the Gears of War series—he’s primarily defined by his imposing physicality and profane one-liners. More recently people of color in video games seem like props or extras, their personalities so stripped that their inclusion appears to be simply for the sake of diversity.
Contemporary first-person video games usually take thousands of hours of manpower to produce. It’s impossible for one artist—especially one without game-developing experience—to capture the soul and complexity of an entire neighborhood during a specific time period. Dateline: Bronzeville is incomplete, and won’t be released until at least 2017, which means this particular exhibit isn’t a sample of a game so much as a skeleton of one. The show includes vivid prints of screenshots, a virtual tour of Walker’s office, a slide show of additional scenes, and a display of Jones’s vintage family photos and historical material, much of which has been scanned and digitized into the game for authenticity. The black-and-white snapshot of a three-year-old boy perched on Walker’s desk? That’s actually a picture of Jones’s father.
Through 12/18 Dorchester Art and Housing Center 1450 E. 70th 773-324-2270dorchesterarthousing.com Free
