Life as Video Game Art 170
DoasFu writes "Screenshots is an odd art project depicting historical events in an isometric video game style, a la The Sims. Very strange."
Force needed to accelerate 2.2lbs of cookies = 1 Fig-newton to 1 meter per second
Re:Political (Score:1)
Re:anti-porn (Score:2)
Seriously, they could do that with out being porn, that would be cool for any picture.
evem more interesting whould be if they could edit that out in real time. How'd that be for censorware =]
Re:anti-porn (Score:1)
What am I missing?
Re:A thought that occured to me... (Score:1)
The strength lies in the medium. (Score:1)
Don't let the medium fool you. The artist is always there. ( this can be said of code too
I think I can see what you mean by many of the great works of art "depicting the soul-less nature of machines" ( though, I'm not completely sure since you provide no examples ) I feel that this is humanistic, which is definitely admirable, but I also feel that it is some what of a soft approach to it. As humans, we are both functionally extended through our technology, and physically far removed from it. I argue that there are many great works of art that DO exalt our functional extension through technology. Particularly, Raymond Duchamp-Villon's Horse (At the Art Institue in Chicago) is a bronze abstraction of a horse rearing, but it is done with many suggestions of 'train-ness.' Struts connected to circular forms are really what lend to this idea in the the piece, with the black patina suggesting on peripheral of the cast iron of a train. Here the train is analogized to being an animal that was the traditional mode of transportation for a long time.
On to your point about us humans being 'creatures who make analogy and represent our analogies in external form' I do believe this is true, but I don't see how this piece would make you uneasy considering that. If it is because of the idea that we as humans are only digital simulations, then you're probably not alone. This is the fundamental fear that provided the backdrop for Rene Descartes cogito and the Warchowski Brothers' Matrix. However, I think you're looking at the piece more from a literature based perspective, rather than an art based perspective, where the medium has much more weight.
These images are not an active simulation, they use the medium of a computer simulation to portray historical events or film narratives. While this may be a bit jarring, it is not unlike watching film footage of a historical event, nor like reading a comic book documentary, which we have naturalized into our existence. We accept these illusions, film, tv, as signifiers for something else that is true. Here, however, the medium sends a strong message when portraying these events. I think it really says something by representing these events in a game in which you effectively play God, it begs the question, would you allow these events to happen as they did? Would you revert to your last save? or would you let that event stand, and define us as humans?
Also, as an art student, I think this is a great cop-out for a critique
Here's a cause to get behind (Score:1)
Sorry. Just had to say it.
Not a bad idea. . . (Score:1)
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Im Impressed (Score:1)
Re:Some of us worked our way through art school... (Score:1)
If you worked your way through Art school, congratulations to you. You could have gotten free money from the Government to pursue your "education". And whenever it was required of you to produce Art, just go pay some homeless bum $10 to urinate on a canvas, thus demonstrating for the 40 people who come to your exhibition the ugly sight and stench of the cruelty of white males.
I think this videogame Art that is the subject of this story is just a dodge, a scam. Some guy just made a bunch of still scenes that reinforced his political beliefs in order to justify further grants and funding. Still, an improvement from his earlier "work", which consisted of hours of downloading porn, then taking 10 minutes in Photoshop to blur out the naked ladies in each image. Yeah. Go Art.
These things really just make me sad more than anything else. Even though I pay for Art year in and year out, Art has no place in my daily life. None. I don't participate in Art or enjoy Art in any way. And it's exhibits like these that convince me that Artists are for the large part untalented, uncreative scam artists who only continue to receive public subsidies by using the same unscrupulous tactics in Congress as the Tobacco companies and the defense industries.
A+(rt) (Score:1)
I've seen many of the socalled digital artscene, like the photocopy art glued on a traditional painting window, which is really trendy right now here in Amsterdam, but irritating as hell. I've seen linuxboxes that control animal skeletons that move with lights and little engines in contemporary patterns.
But THIS is really original and interesting if you keep Platos shadowtheory in mind! I hope this will continue and more artists will follow.
I wonder how they made this.. Maybe they took some of the sprites (very vintage sounding "buzz"word isn't it?) from existing videogames and used them for templates?
My question is:
How are artists going to make money on this? I know real art isn't about money, but artists need to pay their rent too. This form of art is not something you can sell in an auction or gallery, people will just download and print it, if they want it.
Re:It's Sarah Lucas, not Tracey Emin (Score:1)
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It's powerful art. (Score:2)
I think it's because the subject matter of many of them makes me do a double take. One is accustomed to looking at the primitive, cartoony graphics of computer games in a very casual, or at least emotionally shallow way. You may be plugged in at a tactical level, but not on a metaphysical level. I found myself looking at the pictures that way, then having a shock of recognition as the subject matter penetrated my brain.
My test of visual art is whether it makes me want to take a second look, to see something I didn't see before. By that standard these pictures are very powerful.
By the way, folks may be interested in the curator's essay [asu.edu].
Re:Who in the world.. (Score:2)
Yeah...the same people who watch Oprah, Jerry Springer, and the other crap that's passed off as entertainment these days. Big deal. Turn off the boob tube and go do something productive.
Re:An even better idea (Score:1)
Why not use a game engine? (Score:1)
Re:It would be really cool... (Score:1)
But why? (Score:1)
Re:Still thinking about his one... (Score:1)
Could it be both? At first glance, it seems almost silly, but when you look at it, it is somewhat insightful.
I prefer art that makes me think, like this one. Also, the way that it takes pop culture and uses it to actually provoke thought reminds me of Takashi Murakami's "Hiropon." (I'd link it, but I don't know where it is. You can find pictures if you do some searches.) It's much deeper than it seems at first.
Re:Many animals use tools (Score:1)
Re:Cool... (Score:1)
From the slashdot explaination, I was somewhat expecting something like your examples, not the 'pop-history with a political bent' scenes. I guess that all depends on what one classifies as historical events. I did like a couple of them, though...
Yep. (Score:1)
Re:What? (Score:1)
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You know... (Score:1)
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Need To Know (Score:1)
Good to see NTK [ntk.net] leads to /. .... it'll probably make this weeks digest....
____________________________
One Piece short of Legoland
Livin' Large, the OJ version (Score:1)
The good part is, their ghosts could come back to haunt OJ.
Has anyone managed to tie one of the gerbils to the rocket yet?
These Are Fascinating (Score:3)
Yes, I know those games are fiction, and the attack on the Birmingham protesters was real. But not to me they're not. The Sims is real. The attack on the Birmingham protesters is something that was in my history books in middle school.
I think this exhibit has had the desired effect (what I assume to be the desired effect) on me. I'm not sure that I like that effect, or what it says about me and my worldview. But it is fascinating.
-Waldo
I rather like it (Score:2)
The thing that struck me most about it was how it made me feel like these incredibly dramatic events were just moments in some supreme-being's game. The idea is not new, but never before had I experienced such a precise sense of being a truly objective observer of society - where the goings-on may interest me but have to real effect.
Good stuff. Thanks for this refreshing article!
Re:These Are Fascinating (Score:1)
I agree that it's sad, but I'm not sure that I'm any different in this respect than most other American (western?) youths. It helps to visit the battlegrounds around me in Virginia and Pennsylvania, as I've done. But our Civil War remains a product of history to me, not something with a connection to my life beyond the legal precedents and the domino effect that all such occurances have on latter-day events.
Am I lacking in all empathy, unable to realize my own context in the world? Maybe, but I suspect not. What I think is more likely is that my perspective represents a common western perspective. It's just that most people don't want to admit that they hold this perspective. I think that's what this art exhibit is trying to make us realise in ourselves. It worked for me.
-Waldo
Re:tianamen square (Score:1)
Re:What is what? (Score:1)
Re:What is what? (Score:1)
itachi
Re:An even better idea (Score:1)
Exis lie to the North and South. There is also a boarded up window, on the side of the White House, to the East. It looks old and frail.
Re:Some of us worked our way through art school... (Score:1)
Sounds terribly inefficient? Not everybody is getting a fair deal? True, all true.
But eliminating the government from the equation and transferring it all to the free market is worse. If you don't believe me, there are lots of countries that work that way that you can visit at your leisure. I predict you'll be back soon.
hmmm... (Score:1)
Re:What is what? (Score:1)
Actually, that would be Nicole Brown Simpson's [cnn.com] body. Anna Nicolle Smith was a playboy model.
Internet Sex Photographs (Score:1)
Re:An even better idea (Score:1)
....Should read, "Exits lie to the North and South." My mistake.
Re:tianamen square (Score:1)
The media looks for simple, intense images because they sell. The public defines complex issues in terms of these simple images (white cops beating a black man, a black man defending a helpless white man, an asian staring down a tank, etc.)
By portraying these images as screenshots from the Sims, the emotional aspect is largely removed. The viewer must ask himself if this is just a quirky (yet interesting) interaction in the bigger ongoing game, or if it is actually an important element of the game?
Can you just keep on playing after the minor setback of your preacher getting killed? Does the happy Sound of Music scene make up for it? Do you want to continue playing, or do you want to complain that the game is stupid and unfair?
Re:What is what? (Score:2)
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
Re:These Are Fascinating (Score:1)
well I'm glad to hear it.
I do think it might be your age though. It's certainly a downer as one appraoches the time to stand on one's own two feet and make one's own way in life that you look around you and see the carnage that unfolded for you to be where you are.
Hope tells us that whatever happens we will be here tomorrow. We rely on the unbridled enthusiasm of youth to spark things for those of us with jaded vision.
A dream come true! (Score:1)
Re:Who in the world.. (Score:2)
If I did I would probably not care because I would be yet another mindless idiot with drool hanging out of my mouth living a voyueristic life instead of doing something with my life so I can afford screenshots of Martin Luther King's assassination and perpetuate this society of stupidity by funding it with my damn tax dollars.
It wouldn't surprise me if this guy is collecting unemployement..
What? (Score:1)
Let's have the artist do a Slashdot Interview (Score:1)
I don't mean this as flamebait, I honestly think it would be more enlightening to me and the average techo-nerd.
2600? (Score:1)
Is that Abraham Lincoln or Rodney King.. Oh. Wait, I think thats Tienemen Square.. Yeah..
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Re:Some of us worked our way through art school... (Score:1)
anti-porn (Score:2)
this one [whitelead.com] is my favorite.
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It would be really cool... (Score:1)
Interesting if you THINK about it. (Score:1)
These really are interesting from a few points of view if you stop and think about it before immediately criticizing it at face value.
First, from a person who loves video games and enjoys adventures with involved stories and not-very-exceptional graphics (take Final Fantasy 6 or many snes games), it's interesting from an almost nostalgic point of view. I don't know how to explain it exactly, other than to say that it's the sense being aware of more happening than is literally presented visually. Take the coin flip in FF6... simple, low-detail, low-framecount graphics, but the awareness of something emotionally moving taking place.
From another point of view, seemingly an opposing one (I haven't quite decided yet), you have something to show the violence-in-video-games people, I suppose.
I think they're pretty interesting. I guess it appeals to me more as a gamer, though it's not something I'd hang on my wall, it's still intriguing.
Cool... (Score:1)
An article at Salon about this (Score:4)
Check out. [salon.com]
It's an article about this. It's very helpful for those of us who don't know what many of these events are - for instance, the Mercedes is the Princess Diana crash, and the cabin is the Unabomber's cabin.
-JimTheta
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And for further confusion: (Score:1)
They appear to be pictures of empty rooms, with old filenames preserved to tell us what we're missing. Check out 446_080c.jpg for some huge.. tracts of land.
An even better idea (Score:4)
You are in a convertible in Dallas.
You see a man in a pinstriped suit on the Grassy Knoll.
Your car slows down for no apparent reason.
OK,
- B
Re:anti-porn (Score:1)
That wasn't what the preview showed me! (Score:1)
I previewed my damn post and it was good, but now it's messed up! What the heck?
That link still works for me, though. If it doesn't for you, try . [salon.com]
-JimTheta
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Re:What is what? (Score:1)
ITYM: Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. HTH. HAND.
Re:But why? (Score:2)
-russ
Re:What is what? (Score:2)
-russ
Unfortunately not (Score:1)
Re:Some of us worked our way through art school... (Score:1)
Did I miss something? (Score:1)
Re:A thought that occured to me... (Score:1)
Re:The world needs more nekkid people, not less (Score:1)
I pity you. (Score:2)
It must suck to be that bitter, to never find beauty in art. You've never enjoyed a book, or a movie, or a song, or a painting, or a sculpture, or a drawing, or (yes) a computer game?
Anyhow, you want to talk wasteful spending, there are a whole hell of a lot of programs you and I pay for year-in and year-out that I consider more wasteful than pell grants. Guaranteed the war on drugs, to take an example, has cost us a hell of a lot more of your money and freedom than we'll ever pay in taxes to support the arts.
There are better whipping boys than the arts for your anti-tax vitriol. But then, I think you've just never bothered to really consider art - you seem to find it threatening, waving your hands about some "white male"-bashing bogeyman. Yes, 90% of art is crap - 90% of everything is crap, and you know it. It's the 10% (or less) that's valuable, and that lasts.
Personally, I found the "Screenshots" project thought provoking, and think it did require quite a bit of intuition and talent to execute.
Damn, I waste too much time on
-Isaac
Doesn't do iso games justice (Score:1)
Yeah it's a reasonably neat idea... but as a keen gamer I am disappointed that the game look isn't more authentically recreated. They don't look like game screenshots at all.
Most isometric games run in lower resolutions and use a limited colour palette (e.g. 256 colours). Most are tile based, which yields "perfect" angles and a certain repetitive look.
This art is obviously a tip of a hat to that style, but hasn't captured it at all. I think it's probably because the production process was entirely different (I don't think the artist actually made a "JFK assassination" tile set then built an isometric game-style map out of it).
Don't know why, but that shits me. I think the work would have been better/more powerful if the shots _really_ looked like games. Like, made you do a double take.
In any case no matter how jarring s/he got it, it wouldn't touch Custer's Revenge [bit.net.au]!
grib.
Re:What is what? (Score:1)
(Left to right, top to bottom)
First row:
Sound of Music
Martin Luther King Asassination
(?)
(?)
Elian Gonzales being taken by troops
Second Row:
Children fleeing napalm attack in Viet Nam
OJ Crime Scene (?)
(?)
Lee Harvey Oswald gets shot
12 Angry Men (Movie)
Third Row:
LA Riots
Rodney King Beating
(?)
Japan Subway gassing (?)
Unabomber arrest (?)
Fourth Row:
(?)
Columbine Massacre
Tienenmen Square
(?)
(?)
Re:What is what? (Score:1)
I think my favorite has to be the Disgrace Mr. Banks, from Mary Poppins.
Re:It is kind of cool. (Score:2)
Good point, but given the reaction I had to the Quang Duc screenshot, I also see a third view: Computer violence is only horrifying if the depicted violence relates to *real* occurences. I have been playing FPS games since the Wolfenschtein days and have hundreds of game play hours... I have never been affected on an emotional level by the violence; I must subconsciously realize it is depictions of fiction. However, I felt a strong emotional reaction to the Quang Duc screenshot. I think this is an important data point in the discussion of the effect of violence in video games. For or against, I don't know yet... I still don't know how to call it, but this opens my eyes a bit more.
Very interesting, and worthwhile.
Todd
Re:anti-porn (Score:2)
Re:What is what? (Score:2)
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
Re:I'm wary of combining art and computers (Score:2)
There are plenty of excellent examples of art throughout history that were criticised (by contemporary critics) as souless, yet later lauded as great works (usually long after the artists death
Re:These Are Fascinating (Score:2)
Anyone else have thoughts along these lines?
OK,
- B
Jack Ruby shooting (Score:2)
Re:Many animals use tools (Score:2)
That's why I'm wary today. Should we wait until biogenetics and genetic engineering already allow us to commit the horrors of science-fiction fame before we think to form ethics panels? Shouldn't we make use of prudent fore-sight?
Re:Political (Score:3)
If anything, they are anti-propaganda, since they tend to view the events coldy and unobjectivly instead of trying to manipulate emotions.
Something about the directness and lack of perspective actually made it more affective for me...stripped of all the adrenalin, it seems much sadder, if that makes any sense.
I've never talked about art before on /. ...
Re:It is kind of cool. (Score:2)
But that Columbine pic.. You disconnect yourself from the suffering of other people, but once something (even art) transfers you to that place and time. *shudder*
I'm actually a bit nausious.
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Insightful? This doesn't even make sense! (Score:2)
Your post reads like addle-pated free-association.
Say what? These drawings (for that's what they are) are purely representational (in an external form goes without saying - the only possible "internal form" is thought/memory)
The art linked in this story isn't "Computer Generated" - a real human created it. There's no replacement for the human in this process - can't see how you'd seriously think otherwise.
But then, I think you're just trolling. Congratulations on your positive moderation and plentiful responses, I guess.
But I still wish you'd get your jollies in a way that didn't decrease the Signal/Noise ratio of this forum.
-Isaac
Re:Political (Score:2)
Anyone who's ever seen the cutscenes in some of the better video games (such as Diablo II) would agree with me.
Re:It is kind of cool. (Score:2)
Take for instance the Martin Luther King picture. I have never seen a very high quality photograph of that event, because at the time cameras and video wasn't as advanced as it is today.
What gives these games a unique aspect is that the quality is quite synthetic, yet quite realistic.
The lighting is excellent of all of them, they are simple, the graphics are clean and high quality.
It all adds up to more of a eye-pleasing picture. Not that any of the events shown were meant to please the eye, speaking from a strictly graphic/photograph position.
Re:Some of us worked our way through art school... (Score:2)
Whoa, I worked my way through school - watch where you point that thing, someone might take offense.
But if we want to go determining eligability for financial aid on the basis of what someone's studying, we're well on our way to banishing a lot more than art. Do you want Congress choosing your major?
-Isaac
Re:Jack Ruby shooting (Score:3)
Oswald sings the blues [tw-zone.com]
Re:What is what? (Score:5)
"The Sound of Music"
Assassination of Martin Luther King (Memphis, Tennessee, 1968)
James Meredith shot by a sniper on US Highway 51 (Hernando, Mississippi, 1966)
General Nguyen Ngoc Loan shoots a Viet Cong prisioner during the Tet Offensive (Saigon, 1968)
Federal agents sieze Elian Gonzales (Miami, 2000)
Kim Phuc and other Vietnamese flee napalm (Trang Bang, Vietnam, 1972)
Bodies of Anna Nicole Smith and Ronald Goldman (Brentwood, California, 1994)
"The Godfather, Part II"
Jack Ruby murders Lee Harvey Oswald (Dallas, 1963)
"Twelve Angry Men"
Reginald Denny and Damian Williams (Los Angeles, 1992)
Rodney King beaten by LAPD officers (Los Angeles, 1991)
"Mary Poppins"
Quang Duc commits suicide to protest Vietnamese War (Saigon, 1963)
Theodore Kaczynski's cabin (Lincoln, Montana)
Car crash killing Diana Spencer and Dodi Fayed (Paris, 1997)
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold at Columbine High School Cafeteria (Littleton, Colorado, 1999)
Anonymous man faces down tanks at Tiananmen Square (Beijing, 1989)
Civil Rights protesters attacked with fire hoses (Birmingham, Alabama, 1963)
Fence to which Matthew Shephard was left to die (Laramie, Wyoming, 1998)
Political (Score:2)
A thought that occured to me... (Score:4)
"Hahaha! Little do they know that I am playing in God mode!"
Re:Political (Score:2)
they also have rodney-king-beating police figurines [whitelead.com] as well as a los angeles rioter figurine [whitelead.com].
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Art is not about technique (Score:2)
That's not the point. Good art (to me. Art is by it's nature subjective) is about ideas.
Take something like the Tracey Emin (? or at least one of her peers) piece which consists of a solid wooden table, upon which every day the museum staff place two fried eggs (breasts) and a congealed donner kebab in pitta, bought the night before (vagina). Clearly, the artist has not brought her technique into this piece. Anyone can recreate the piece in their kitchen (assuming they have access to a donner kebab shop!) - but this piece makes points about gender issues, or rather it causes the viewer to think up their own points, which is why it's art and not an essay.
Similarly, but removing the subject from these presumably genuine (but does it matter? another thing to mull over) internet porn pictures, our attention is drawn to the backgrounds. Some are squalid, all are poorly lit; yet we block out these backgrounds when there's a naked woman in the foreground.
This is really great stuff. The Sims pictures are excellent too, although many of them seem to relate to events in American history which didn't factor into my education. That said, Beca's Daughters (renowned cross-dressing Welsh tax protesting farmers of history) might not fit into the concept too well...
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Alternative Headline (Score:5)
ASU Art Student Seeks Credit For Playing Video Games
Re:But why? (Score:2)
So these pictures have created an emotional response in you, and led you to think about the nature of history, documentary photography, journalism, and art itself. I think therefore the artist has done a pretty good job.
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Another reason to vote democrat.... (Score:4)
Some of us worked our way through art school... (Score:2)
Sparta beat Athens in war, but all Sparta gave us was the word Spartan.
-Isaac
Re:Some of us worked our way through art school... (Score:4)
Unfortunately not (Score:5)
Then again, if you vote republican, maybe you can get rid of those pesky public schools, too, what with the voucher plan and all :) Go W!
omniscience (Score:2)
Re:anti-porn (Score:2)
What about Fair U*ugh*... oops, forgot, we don't have that anymore.
--Joe--
Re:What is what? (Score:2)
The body of Anna Nicole Smith in 1994? If so, then how did she manage to inherit nearly half a billion dollars last month? Methinks you mean Nicole Brown-Simpson.
Re:12 Angry Men (Score:2)
Real life happens in Brilliant Technicolor!(tm)
(While there was a newer version of 12 Angry Men, the screenshot depicts the original.)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Quite interesting (Score:2)
The first comment to make is that the piece is not necessarily making a commentary, political or otherwise. And the actual content of each image seems to be less relevant than the overall piece as a series.
The several strong and defining moments in this persons life all look about the same from one point of view; the point of view of a video game? It makes one think about several things, including how we relate with real life events and how we relate with fictional events in pretty much the same way. The use of color is again consistent with a video game type of palette, yet the actual images are blurred and smooth, not pixelated.
I bet the artist is glad for his work to get exposure, but the tone of the piece as a whole is pretty humble and unassuming-as if to simply say "here I am."
I really quite like it!
Re:Political (Score:3)
my life (Score:4)
It is kind of cool. (Score:5)
I do like the idea. Kind of a way to link bad stuff that happens in the world to computers. I wonder if the artist had some kind of underlying motivation to point out the (supposed) links between video games and violence in the world (physical or otherwise).
Can look at it two ways.. either these images point out that bad scenes aren't nearly so horrifying when done on a computer (and thus people need not worry about video game violence), or computers trivialize the reality of violence to the extent that it is unable to effect us like it should.
No further comments.