Art and video games. Reflections on the game, art and technology in Asturias

The opening of LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial and the launching of the first experimental electronic music festival and visual arts, LEV festival, in the year 2007, places Gijon and the Principado de Asturias in the top of the rankings in exhibition and reflexion about techno-creativity. This huge display of institutional efforts, begins with a bang and innovative proposals; among them, the programming of a couple of big exhibitions on the relationship between video games and culture in just a short two-year period. What could be considered a pertinent but risky debate, turned into historical exhibitions, important discussions and the presence of not only important artists, programmers, videogame designers, but key theorist specialized in the field, placing this way, Asturias and LABoral in the top of the world rankings on the debates about artgame. This article aims to explore the complexity of the videogame as an artistic manifestation and the ways in which it got linked to artistic events in Asturias.