CUTE

CUTE As part of the CUTE exhibition at Somerset House, Nick Murray was commissioned to curate and produce an arcade celebrating cute games, and how cuteness can be used to explore deeper questions. Curating holistically, Nick designed the froggy cabinets and visual identity for the arcade, designed and installed the tech implementation and curated the […]

Virtual Textual

Virtual Textual For Playing Poetry’s second full scale exhibition, Nick Murray curated and produced Virtual Textual, a custom built arcade that combines traditional arcade aesthetics with a speculative future vision of tended gardens. While playing with a dark, cinematic feeling, the technologically-focused curation leans away from the cyberpunk tropes of the future. Instead the exbihition’s […]

Now Play This

Now Play This Now Play This is a festival of experimental game design at Somerset House, showcasing interactive and playful work as part of the London Games Festival. Initially three days, and expanding to nine in 2019, Now Play This runs every spring across Somerset House’s New Wing, River Terrace and Courtyard. Now Play This […]

Poetry Games

Poetry Games Poetry Games, at The National Poetry Library (Southbank Centre), ran from October 21st 2022 to January 15th 2023. Inviting eighteen poets, artists and game-makers from the UK and beyond to exhibit their innovative work, the exhibition presented a selection of interactive poem pieces from landscapes composed of shifting text, to poetry platformers, to […]

Playing Poetry

Playing Poetry In February 2023 Nick founded Playing Poetry, an organisation that champions playful and interactive literature, through exhibitions, workshops and tailored events. The goal is to present a platform for game-based writing and provide an inclusive network for writers and game-makers. Playing Poetry has emerged from many years in poetry publishing, producing live literature, […]

The Grannies

The Grannies “ the glitchy event horizon of Rockstar’s virtual-western epic” – The Guardian A documentary short film. A group of players venture beyond the boundaries of the videogame Red Dead Online (Rockstar Games, 2018). Peeking behind the curtain of the game’s virtual world they discover a captivating and ethereal space that reveals the humanity […]

Interview for the San Clemente podcast

For the launch of Poetry Games, I was invited to talk to Grace Shackleton about curating the exhibition and championing interactive writing for San Clemente Magazine’s podcast.  Listen to the episode below. Somehow the conversation led to discussing watching Hamlet in real time, making The Queue: The Show and petting the dog in games! Turns out […]

Low Carbon Chinatown

Low Carbon Chinatown Low Carbon Chinatown is an environmental initiative that combines food, data science and community participation to explore different ways that we can all help respond to the Climate Crisis. Led by artist Ling Tan, East and South East Asian community members were invited to develop a series of low carbon dishes developed […]

Crip Casino

Crip Casino Continuing their ongoing collaboration, Nick worked with Abi Palmer, producing the performance installation work Crip Casino. Initially inviting Abi to create a new commissioned poetry prescription fruit machine for Now Play This 2019 (Somerset House), the partnership continued with exhibitions at Wellcome Collection and Collective Edinburgh. Crip Casino is an interactive installation exploring […]

Limited (in)vulnerability

Limited (in)vulnerability Limited (In)vulnerability is a project to explore (in)vulnerability with young people through the medium of video games. Made by a young collective of 12 makers aged 16-21 in Greater Manchester and Lancaster/Morecambe, the games are a short anthology exploring the theme of (in)vulnerability.  Limited (in)vulnerability project explores why games so often reward players for […]