The Science Museum is to play host to a new and updated run of Game On, the comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the history of videogames and videogaming culture. Opening on 21st October 2006, the exhibition will run until February 25th 2007 and includes videogame influenced art as well as a series of supporting activities running alongside the main exhibition.

Game On originally debuted at the Barbican in 2002, bringing together over three decades of videogames across a vast range of formats whilst including insights into videogaming culture and aspects of videogame development. Featuring vintage arcade machines, obscure consoles and the very latest hardware developments, Game On toured key exhibition spaces around the globe before returning to London for its new run, which is sponsored by Nintendo.

Special events will be held at the Science Museum, both in the exhibition space itself and the museum’s innovative Dana Centre. These will range from debates and speaker sessions to investigations into the science behind videogames and how players interact with them.

To add a cultural theme to Game On, Nottingham-based artist Jon Burgerman has been commissioned to provide several videogame themed pieces for the exhibition in his trademark street art style. Burgerman’s key contribution will be an immense visual timeline of videogaming history, with additional pieces visualising the hand-eye-brain relationship that forms the basis of videogame interaction.

Gaetan Lee, programmes developer at the Science Museum said: “Game On traces the science behind the dramatic developments in computer game production over the last thirty years and tackles some of the serious issues behind this huge multi billion pound industry. And we’re particularly excited that Science Museum visitors will have a chance to see the PDP-1, the computer that ran the world’s first video game, Space War, and the world’s first manufactured arcade game, Computer Space from 1971, as well as the chance to play classic arcade games like Space Invaders, Asteroids and Ms Pac-Man. Nowhere else will people be able to see the entire history of the games industry laid out, explained and ready to play.”

Tickets for the Science Museum’s run of Game On are available by phone on 0870 906 3890 and online at www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/gameon.