‘The Artist Is Present’ Online: One Inventive Artist Is Recreating Famous Works in Nintendo’s Wildly Popular ‘Animal Crossing’ Game

Nintendo’s new game Animal Crossing: New
Horizons has become a sensation in the social-distancing
era. The latest installment of the long-running series, which casts
the player as the lone human character on an island filled with
anthropomorphic animals, dropped March 20—and has exploded in
popularity since then. (Think of it like the Sims, except with
lower stakes and cuter animals.)

But in addition to serving as a much-needed distraction, the
game has also become an unlikely venue for an innovative art
project. Installation artist Shing Yin Khor has
drawn droves of admirers by replicating famous artworks inside the
game.

The best part? You can visit this virtual museum of knock-offs
yourself, logging on to see the artist’s versions of Robert
Smithson’s famed Land Art masterpiece Spiral Jetty,
Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Umbrellas, and
other works of art. (The gaming site Polygon first
reported on Khor’s project.)

Before the era of self-isolation began, Khor had never played
Animal Crossing. But it has offered a momentary escape
from the stresses of real life. “I don’t think it could have come
at a better time,” the artist told Artnet News in an email.

The inspiration for the tongue-in-cheek digital art project was
simple. Animal Crossing already had a natural
history museum (it’s run by a sleepy owl named Blathers). Feeling
competitive, the artist tweeted on March 28, “Imma gonna build
MoMA.”

The execution required some creative thinking. “Animal
Crossing only has very limited customization and
interaction options, so there are significant restrictions on which
art pieces can actually be replicated within the game,” Khor said.
“It is more of a conceptual exercise than a technical design
one.”

The artworks “on view” include a text piece inspired by Barbara
Kruger’s Untitled, which, instead of
“your body is a battleground,” reads, “your turnips are a
battleground.” Khor is also slowly building a version of Chris
Burden’s famous Urban Light —a process that will take
a while because streetlights are expensive to collect in the
game.

But the hit of the show was undoubtedly Khor’s recreation of
Marina Abramoviç’s seminal performance piece The Artist Is
Present. After the artist tweeted out an invitation for
followers to enter their private world, the artist’s avatar sat for
an hour at a table across from an empty chair, welcoming the public
to perhaps the most unique art experience of all the new virtual
offerings launched in the last few weeks.

The experimental performance, as it were, had its
challenges—”Animal Crossing’s travel system does not make
it easy for large volumes of people trying to visit,” Khor
cautioned—but the artist still had an overwhelmingly positive
response. “People love it,” Khor said. “Animal Crossing is
an inherently fun and social game, so… joy happens, as
designed.”

“I think The Artist is Present in Animal
Crossing especially resonated with people in this particular
time where we are so isolated from other people,” Khor said.
Indeed, most museums are closed, including MoMA, the piece’s
original setting. But, like at MoMA, the one-to-one experience
(albeit through avatars) stirred real emotion. “Lots of people said
that the experience was surprisingly emotional.… The simple act of
sitting in a chair and staring at another person without speaking
is still a moving experience, even if mediated by the internet and
a video game.”

“But also, it’s funny,” Knor added. “I’m glad I got to put a
silly goof out into the world and made people laugh.”

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Artist Is Recreating Famous Works in Nintendo’s Wildly Popular
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