Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt, V&A review - gaming for all

★★★★ VIDEOGAMES: DESIGN/PLAY/DISRUPT, V&A Broad look at gaming, present & future

A comprehensive look at gaming present and future has surprisingly broad appeal

Design/Play/Disrupt at the V&A covers a wide variety of games that are spearheading the gaming world at the moment. It takes a closer look at eight of the most innovative and different games that have changed the world of gaming in the last five years.

Far Cry 5 review – forget the story and just go with the flow

★★★ FAR CRY 5 Forget the story and just go with the flow

God, guns and the great outdoors

Civilisation is under threat from a bunch of religious rednecks, and it’s your job as the new Deputy Sheriff of fictional Hope County to right the wrongs of a year-long silent coup initiated by Eden’s Gate, a fanatical doomsday cult, intent on purging sinners and imposing their law on the land. There's a Brexit gag in there somewhere.

Ready Player One review - Spielberg goes back to the future

★★★★ READY PLAYER ONE Spielberg goes back to the future

Thrilling cyber-universe puts drab real world in the shade

Suddenly Steven Spielberg movies are plopping off the production line like Ford Fiestas or Cadburys Creme Eggs. It seems like only seconds ago that we were greeting The BFG and the breast-beating earnestness of The Post, and now the director comes steaming back with this huge and hectic tribute to the gamer-world and his own long-lost youth.

Andrew O'Hagan: The Secret Life review – troubling tales from the online underground

Shifting selves in the internet's twilight zone

Imagine that you come across a story by a journalist who, writing for the Daily Mail or The Sun, steals the identity of a real young man from a poor neighbourhood of south-east London. He had died of an overdose, aged 20, in 1984. Not knowing whether this kid’s immediate family still lived, the sleuth hi-jacks the name of an actual individual – just as, notoriously, undercover officers of the Metropolitan Police’s Special Demonstration Squad did when they infiltrated protest groups. 

CD: Gorillaz - Humanz

GORILLAZ - HUMANZ Damon Albarn's latest adventure is ripe with ear-wakening inventiveness

Damon Albarn's latest adventure is ripe with ear-wakening inventiveness

For some of us Blur were an irritant during the 1990s rather than one of the decade’s premier bands. However, once Gorillaz arrived it was impossible to ignore Damon Albarn’s outrageous talent any longer. His golden touch ensured his cartoon group with artist Jamie Hewlett straddled not only multi-million-selling global success, but awed critical kudos. 2010’s The Fall album did not fare so well, but seemed to be a different kind of project, more experimental, cobbled together by Albarn on tour in the States, then fired out without extra polish.

Artist Tyler Mallison: 'I don’t think about materials as being merely visible objects or things'

Technology as material, Madonna as muse: the artist talks about the themes shaping his current exhibition

Artist and curator Tyler Mallison has chosen the world’s most generic title for his current exhibition. It's called New Material, and the surprising thing one discovers is that the hackneyed "new" really can be quite fresh. Sculpture and painting comprise display units, work desks, gym equipment, packing tape and whitewash. Several films feature window dressing, cross-dressing and gallery furniture.

Warcraft

WARCRAFT Titanic struggle between orcs and humans teeters on the brink of farce

Titanic struggle between orcs and humans teeters on the brink of farce

The Warcraft series of "massively multiplayer online role-playing games" (or MMORPG if you must) has apparently amassed over 100 million users since it all began with Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994. Ergo, turning it into a 3D multiplex-buster is a no-brainer. Surely?

Digital demands: time for artists to speak up?

Intellectual property expert Francis Gurry seeks solutions for creatives in the internet age

Galloping technological change, collapsing incomes and a climate of violence facilitated by anonymity are just a few of the challenges facing creative artists in today's digitally driven world. What can be done to put all this right? The man to ask is Francis Gurry, director general of the World Intellectual Property Organisation.

CD: Orlando Voorn - In My World

CD: ORLANDO VOORN - IN MY WORLD Dutch techno veterans still conjuring sci-fi visions

Dutch techno veterans still conjuring sci-fi visions

Once upon a time, techno was the future, and Orlando Voorn was right at the heart of building that future. The Dutchman was in early on the late-1980s wave of Detroit electronic production – in which small groups of black Americans surrounded by decaying industry drew the natural link between Kraftwerk and funk, filled themselves with equal quantities of utopian and dystopian visions, and set a blueprint that would irrevocably alter the sound of music worldwide.

theartsdesk Q&A: Choreographer Wayne McGregor

British dance-maker shares his views on creative practice, cognitive neuroscience, and critics

How do you know Wayne McGregor? Dance-goers with long memories might remember Wayne McGregor as the wunderkind who founded his own company and became resident choreographer at The Place aged just 22. Lovers of contemporary dance will be familiar with his company Random Dance, which boasts some of the best dancers in the business and periodically brings sophisticated, hi-tech pieces to Sadler’s Wells.