“This year I wanted to think about how games have influenced media and how they have influenced the art world,” says festival curator Mary Magsamen. Karolina Sobecka, Eddo Stern and Robert Thoth, all artists who use repurposed electronic media, each take a turn exploring the issue this week through site-specific performances and installations.

Friday, Houston artist Robert Thoth performs a set of classic hits in the guise of The Chip Tune Crooner. Chip tune (or 8-bit) music uses the technology from vintage computer game systems to compose new music. Projected onto the walls of The Menil Collection, pixel-art videos will accompany and illustrate the songs. Before and after Thoth’s set, the audience can play video games from a range of systems, including an Atari 7600, a Nintendo 64 and a Wii. They’ll be set up side-by-side and projected onto the Menil in enormous dimensions. Most of us knew these games in their living-room context, so playing them in billboard-size versions will be a new experience.

Karolina Sobecka’s Sniff, an interactive projection of an animated CG dog that responds to the gestures of viewers, is presented at 8 p.m. on Thursday at Chick and Chica, 3710 Main. And Eddo Stern’s Wizard Takes All, a live game featuring a battle between an all-powerful wizard and an army of avatars which are controlled by the audience, takes place at 8 p.m. on Saturday at the Orange Show for Visionary Art, 2402 Munger.

See Robert Thoth’s The Chip Tune Crooner at 8 p.m. on Friday. Menil Collection, 1515 Sul Ross. For information and a full schedule, call 713-868-2101 or visit www.aurorapictureshow.org. Free.
Sept. 15-17, 8 p.m., 2011