Exhibition

A Boy is A Gun

3 May 2024 – 11 May 2024

Regular hours

Monday
Closed
Tuesday
Closed
Wednesday
Closed
Thursday
Closed
Friday
17:00 – 20:00
Saturday
13:00 – 17:00
Sunday
Closed

Special hours

03-May-2024
18:00 – 20:00
04-May-2024
12:00 – 17:00
09-May-2024
13:00 – 17:00
10-May-2024
13:00 – 17:00
11-May-2024
13:00 – 17:00

Free admission

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Vivid Projects

Birmingham
West Midlands, United Kingdom

Event map

Birmingham based artist, curator and performer Antonio Roberts will be sharing new work exploring stereotypical roles within gaming.

About

May 2024 marks the 10th birthday of Digbeth First Friday. To celebrate, we are delighted to share A Boy Is A Gun – new work from Antonio Roberts, who in 2014 featured in Vivid Projects inaugural First Friday event! 

Antonio Roberts works with technology in innovative ways, exploring authorship, gaming, digital and reproduction. 

A Boy is a Gun presents a new fictional narrative to reimagine stereotypical roles within gaming, with a focus on the character  Skate Hunter (from Streets of Rage). Streets of Rage 2 was the first game to feature the character Skate and in his artworks, Roberts draws from the original narrative and existing fan fiction to interrogate the ways in which Skate’s characterisation draws on stereotypes of Black masculinity. In the new game, Skate is rendered as the ‘child’ – or teen – that his interactions with family indicate, rather than the combative adult male familiar from the original game.

This reimagining of roles within gaming follows on from Roberts’ 2021 work Heavyweight Champ, which critiqued the stereotypical portrayal of Black men which was prevalent in early video games.

The Skate character is central to a playable version of the research, which is presented alongside videos further exploring the narrative and a recorded conversation between the artist and Dr Ian Sergeant.

Opening times:

3rd May 5-8pm (late opening for Digbeth First Friday birthday celebration)

4th May 1-5pm

Continues 9th-11th May, 1-5pm

What to expect? Toggle

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