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Life as Video Game Art 170

Posted by Hemos from the pretty-crazy dept.
DoasFu writes "Screenshots is an odd art project depicting historical events in an isometric video game style, a la The Sims. Very strange."
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Life as Video Game Art More

Life as Video Game Art

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  • Re:Political (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I never would have noticed if you didn't point it out. Of course, the picnic scene from "the sound of music" was quite politically stimulating.

  • These would be a lot more interesting if they included the orginial included. And I'm not saying that cause I want to see porn. For all we know, they could have just taken pictures and claimed they edit out the porn.

    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 =]

  • I was checking all of those out. To be honest...I don't get the humor.

    What am I missing?

  • Did you skip the pictures of the Napalm and the Rodney King beating? Hooray for western democracy :-)
  • First off, artists have always been keen on the changes in technology. Look at Leonardo Da Vinci's drawings. At the time, paper was finally becoming affordable, and he was really one of the first to make a deluge of sketchbooks to hone down his style. Look at what photography did to painting. Up until the mid 1850's most of all the work that was being created was either naturalistic or iconic. After photography was introduced, it dramatically changed the ways painters looked at an image. from this came fauvism, impressionism, cubism and abstract expressionism, all different way to look at things, and to express their soul. look at michael rees's work. [michaelrees.com] He does all his models in lightwave, and sends those to a company that 'prints' them in 3 dimensions using a resing drip process. But through all these technolgies, one thing is hard and fast : The artist is always expressing him or herself.

    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 :-)
  • This proves that violence in real life and in television/movies causes violence in video games. Stop the violence! The pixels you save may be your own!

    Sorry. Just had to say it.
  • Perhaps making an actual game like this might learn todays kids a bit about these (and other) histpric events? At least make them aware of what happened, and a little bit about the circumstances around it. Not like much of todays (often boring) histpry books killing the interest with details. An interactive history book with lots of events in color and animation is easier to learn from than page after page of plain text.


    ---
  • As I first read this, I almost immediately brushed it off as another annoying gamer habit, but once i looked at it I was very impressed. He has done a good job of capturing some of the scenes! I am particularly impressed by the Saigon and Rodney King images. I would like to see what he would do with the Kent State photo.
  • Like a drunken Russian diplomat waving around his diplomatic passport at the scene of a car wreck, the artsy types immediately pull out the "if you restrict Art funding, you jeopardize the foundation upon which the free world was founded" argument whenever someone suggests that the people who like Art should be the ones paying for it.

    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.

  • This is what bridges the gap between monitorheads (as myself) and the analog worldish dig.-art.
    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.
  • Cheers for the correction. One of Emin's peers, though, yes?
    --
  • I found that the historical pictures have a weird and powerful emotional impact.

    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].

  • 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.

  • Your sword has begun to glow very brightly.
  • Apparently these were simply painted to look like a video game. Could have been better if he had actually made mods to "The Sims" or some other game and done real screenshots.

  • There is no spoon.
  • All these images already exist, as photos of the real events (in the case of the historic pictures). I'm concerned that people will start to think that these things didn't really happen if they see these images in the form of video game pictures without having seen the real thing. :(
  • That was either a potent and cogent statement on the way the post-TV generation views reality - that is, that they view it as being no different from a video game, or at least that they view it through the filters developed during media consumption - or it was utter foolishness. I'm still deciding.

    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.
  • Even if someone wrote software to create art without human intervention, which is the limit of computer "creativeness", what would be wrong with that? Would the world suddenly fly to pieces? I think we could somehow go on.

  • 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...

  • This WAS on memepool just yesterday, but that's not really a complaint, because at least people get to talk about it here.
  • He's saving it for the Quake level.

    --
  • I'm beginning to understand what God sees in this game. It looks like fun, from the player's perspective.

    --------

  • Good to see NTK [ntk.net] leads to /. .... it'll probably make this weeks digest....
    ____________________________
    One Piece short of Legoland

  • Well, since there's only cartoon violence, we'll see a dark shadowy figure with a large rubber mallet attacking a woman over and over in a dust cloud, quickly joined by another man, and then the dust will lift as we see them keel over and sprout flowers from their chests.

    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)

    by waldoj ( 8229 ) <<waldo> <at> <jaquith.org>> on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @02:26PM (#698139) Homepage Journal
    I can't really put my finger on it, but they really are quite interesting. I think that, in many ways, this style of art seems more "real" to me than the photographs. I've seen the images from when Dr. King was killed, but that's history. (By which I mean it's something inaccessible to me, just as distant to my 22-year-old-self as the Civil War.) Seeing an alternate rendition might be sufficient to make these scenes more real, but this offers more than that. This makes these distant concepts and events as real as the hours and hours that I've spent looking at Sierra and Maxis games.

    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
  • Is it possible to have a discussion of artistic merits on Slashdot? Let us see...

    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!

  • gaw, that's one of the saddest things I've heard. That you have no empathy and not enough imagination.

    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
  • It reminds me of a comment I heard (don't know who) that after the Jewish Holocaust and the Nuking of Hiroshima all Poetry is inexcusable. Converselly Witgensteins forced himself into the most horrifying war experiences simply to live life intensely to hone his philosiphy (I believe that he felt it was prerequisite to his philosophy at one point). One supposes that Art and Philosophy will always be either a denial or an expose of tragedy. It depends on ones view.
  • If you leave your mouse over any particular image, their alt tag would pop up and tell you exactly what that image is depicting
  • I dunno, the cabin might also be Ruby Ridge, the title is a little vague. Although Ted K. is my first choice as well, given the mention of early spring.

    itachi
  • You hear a strange noise coming from inside the house to your East as your sword glows even brighter!

    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.
  • I pay for you or your kids to go to school, the roads you drive your car on, etc., and you pay for the art I enjoy. And it all goes through the government.

    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.

  • I think in the format of mortal kombat is better, or maybe red alert...:)
  • Bodies of Anna Nicole Smith and Ronald Goldman (Brentwood, California, 1994)

    Actually, that would be Nicole Brown Simpson's [cnn.com] body. Anna Nicolle Smith was a playboy model.

  • Oh come on, the internet Sex Photos linked on that page is much more entertaining :)
  • Exis lie to the North and South.

    ....Should read, "Exits lie to the North and South." My mistake.
  • Ah, but surely the artist is commenting on "the most vivid secnes in history." The intense images that capture the horror/shock/imagination of the American (and world) public do so by reducing a complex situation to a single emotional picture. E.g. JFK sprawled in his limo as his agonized wife looks on; the classic Vietnam execution picture of killer, sidearm and the victim knowing he is about to die in a street execution; and the painmask of the women at Kent State standing over a slain student (picture later edited in reprint to remove the pole behind her for increased asthetics.)

    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?

  • On a mildly tangential side note, Quang Duc is something of a big figure for the Vietnamese Buddhist community in Saigon now, basically considered a martyr who used his own life to alert the world to the repression that was taking place in Vietnam at the time, which is probably why Rage used the photo for their cover. His heart, which refused to burn after multiple attempted cremations of his remains, is enshrined as a relic to this day in a temple in Vietnam.

    "Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
  • . I think that's what this art exhibit is trying to make us realise in ourselves. It worked for me

    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.


    .oO0Oo.
  • What I wouldn't give to become a 'lifeform' in a game.....that would fulfill my destiny; which is to be integrated 100% into a machine. Why do you think my name is what it is?
  • I dunno, dont watch TV.
    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? No mention of the Columbine image? I thought Katz could get at least 2000 words out of this. I'm disappointed.
  • The comments about this posting have been quite varied. Why not a classic interview? It might actually yield more interesting answers than the standard "explain why your CueCat doesn't suck" type interviews.

    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)

    by PHr0D ( 212586 )
    Now why didn't they go REALLY classic and do them in an old Atari 2600 style?

    Is that Abraham Lincoln or Rodney King.. Oh. Wait, I think thats Tienemen Square.. Yeah..


    --------------------------------------
  • I'd rather not pay for interstates, i never leave town and I don't have a car. it's something that i see as a waste of money. so i shouldn't have to pay for it.
  • heh, check out the internet sex photos [whitelead.com]. they digitally removed all the people from pornographic pictures.

    this one [whitelead.com] is my favorite. :)

    --
  • if someone made a simulation of real life. Like we could walk around and eat and sleep and all of that stuff using a computer. You could actually talk to other people and share ideas face to face instead of actually typing in rants about people getting a life.

  • 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.

  • I thought that the "Screenshots" page was pretty cool actually... It's sorta neat to try to go through them and try to relate them to pictures you seen, or video footage, verbal descriptions, etc. It'd be interesting to see like... WWI trench warfare as the soldiers go "over-the-top" of their trenches, or astronauts on the moon, and other memorable scenes.

  • An article at Salon about this (Score:4)

    by JimTheta ( 115513 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @02:32PM (#698164) Homepage

    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
    ---
  • Internet sex photos digitally edited to remove the figures [whitelead.com], also available from the site.

    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)

    by RareHeintz ( 244414 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @02:34PM (#698166) Homepage Journal
    How about the JFK assassination in the style of Zork?

    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

  • No one said it is supposed to be funny. What if it makes you think about the shallow depths photography can take. Or the *power* of digital editing. Of how clean and boring that photo is without the removed content.

  • 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
    ---
  • Bodies of Anna Nicole Smith and Ronald Goldman (Brentwood, California, 1994)

    ITYM: Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. HTH. HAND.

  • Because they're shown from a different perspective. Or rather, lack of perspective.
    -russ
  • Ruby Ridge was August.
    -russ
  • As per the already posted Jon Haddock, the artist is 38. So maybe when he graduated back in [salon.com]'86 [howardhouse.net] it might have been on a grant or just as easily he could have paid for it himself, but he'd definately not a kid. More on the project is available here [asu.edu].
  • And I suppose you don't buy anything either, such as fruits, vegetables, cereal, computers and equipment. You've never shipped or received a package by mail. You don't drink milk. Your house is not made out of wood that come from trees and does not contain metal nails from a mine. No, you grow your own food, raise your own cows, tan your own leather, build your shelter out of sod and manufacture your own holistic medications. You are completely self sufficient and have never in your life used a product that was SHIPPED INTO YOUR AREA BY TRUCK!!!.
  • That tears it. I'm going to have to go pick up the Sims expansion pack. That tank looks ultra cool!
  • and that has what to do with communism?
  • Phutureboy was at least funny. You're just stodgy and misunderstanding on purpose. Bah!
  • Did you bite that quote about Russian Diplomats and art funding straight off Rush, or did you take the time to doctor it up first?

    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

  • 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.

  • May as well give it a try ;-)

    (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
    (?)
    (?)
  • I know most of them (or I know the picture they are trying to protray) but "Outside Hernandez, Mississippi" (the guy who got dragged by the rednecks?), "Fredo & Neri" (another pic from a movie? I didn't look too closely), "Cabin - Early Spring" (the Unabomber?), and "Sherman Hills" (the gay guy who was beaten to death?) escape me.

    I think my favorite has to be the Disgrace Mr. Banks, from Mary Poppins.
  • 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.

    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
  • I wouldn't say he did anything revolutionary in the photo editing department. I've seen better novice work. It looks like he just used Paint Shop Pro's "clone brush" a lot.
  • That was Thich Quang Duc commiting suicide by self-immolation in a square in Saigon to protest the repression of Buddhists by the American-supported South Vietnamese government. The government in power was strongly Catholic, a holdover from French colonial days, and put a lot of time into angering the countries Buddhists, arresting their leaders, raiding temples, and banning the observance of holidays. The origonal photo was taken by a guy named Malcolm Brown for the AP newswire. Not, as the digital image seems to imply, by a monk with a camera. . .

    "Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
  • I would argue that one of the goals of post modernism was to disconnect the artist from the art.

    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 ;)
  • Well, maybe that's what the artist was going after: The effects of media saturation on our view of history. Maybe this is the confirmation of the idea that not just media violence, but media filtering in general engenders detachment from (or at least different associations with) things that happen in the real world. If one accepts the hypothesis that the developing brain (and all our brains are developing, I'm not restricting this to kids) develops its habits of subjective perception based on sensory input without regard to whether that input represents a real thing happening or a depiction of a thing happening, it becomes a bit clearer. And I'm not talking about some facile argument that kids who play violent games shoot people - I'm talking about deeper structures, things like image processing and semantic assignment.

    Anyone else have thoughts along these lines?

    OK,
    - B

  • I think the best photo-editing of the Jack Ruby assassination was one showing all the characters with instruments, and Lee Harvey Oswald on vocals. (anyone have a URL?)
  • If there comes a day when a machine, without human intervention beyond its initial programming, creates works which are accepted as art, then perhaps you'll have reason to worry.

    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)

    by Glowing Fish ( 155236 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @02:50PM (#698200) Homepage
    Many of them are political, but they don't strike me as propaganda, or of even having any political slant.

    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 /. ...

  • The Columbine picture absolutly shocked me. OJ and Di were forced into our skulls by the media. Most of us are familar with the rest (Assinations, children running from napalm, Birmingham) of the images, none the less they remain haunting.

    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.


    -----------
  • I know I shouldn't feed trolls, but I saw this at +3 and felt the urge to respond.

    Your post reads like addle-pated free-association.

    "It makes me uneasy to think that one day, the machines will not only replace us, but also our art. It's the defining quality of humanity -- we, creatures who make analogy and represent our analogies in external form."

    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

  • I don't know if I can agree with the "coldly" and "objectively" comment. Even the most bare of computer figures can show startling emotional clarity.

    Anyone who's ever seen the cutscenes in some of the better video games (such as Diablo II) would agree with me.

  • I think that another part of what makes these pictures so interesting is that, when you have a photo of a piece of history, its sometimes not the best quality in the world. Sure, some of the events shown have excellent quality real-life pictures. But some don't.

    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.
  • If you appreciate art, pay for it. Don't make me pay for it with my money.

    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)

    by l33t ( 225843 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @02:58PM (#698220)
    Here you go sir:
    Oswald sings the blues [tw-zone.com]

  • Re:What is what? (Score:5)

    by cpt kangarooski ( 3773 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @03:56PM (#698221) Homepage

    "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)

  • Anyone notice the near strictly political motivations of most of the pictures?

  • A thought that occured to me... (Score:4)

    by Glowing Fish ( 155236 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @02:02PM (#698228) Homepage
    http://www.whitelead.com/jrh/screenshots/wang_weil in.JPG

    "Hahaha! Little do they know that I am playing in God mode!"

  • yep...

    they also have rodney-king-beating police figurines [whitelead.com] as well as a los angeles rioter figurine [whitelead.com].

    --
  • I wouldn't say he did anything revolutionary in the photo editing department. I've seen better novice work. It looks like he just used Paint Shop Pro's "clone brush" a lot.

    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...
    --

  • Alternative Headline (Score:5)

    by rkent ( 73434 ) <rkent&post,harvard,edu> on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @02:03PM (#698232)
    ...for this article:

    ASU Art Student Seeks Credit For Playing Video Games

  • All these images already exist, as photos of the real events (in the case of the historic pictures). I'm concerned that people will start to think that these things didn't really happen if they see these images in the form of video game pictures without having seen the real thing. :(

    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.
    --

  • Another reason to vote democrat.... (Score:4)

    by Rahga ( 13479 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @02:06PM (#698238) Journal
    Because the arts will die without government funding! (After all, the arts never existed before government funding!) Superb projects like this will disappear! Imagine the loss the world will feel when no longer an artist will be able to recreate a scene from "The Sound Of Music" with a videogame feel! The pain! The horror! Such artists would have to find a _real_ job! Like farming! Or military work! We are killing our artists and turning their corpses into government endorsed mass murders! Sorry, just had to deliver a daily dose of sarcasim.
  • ...and some of us appreciate the role of art in society.

    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)

    by Alatar ( 227876 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @03:09PM (#698248) Homepage
    If you appreciate art, pay for it. Don't make me pay for it with my money.

  • Unfortunately not (Score:5)

    by rkent ( 73434 ) <rkent&post,harvard,edu> on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @02:10PM (#698259)
    Unfortunately, the culprit in this case is much more insidious: public universities (specifically ASU, but I won't go into that because of where I live [arizona.edu] :). More likely than an NEA grant, this kid got a pell grant or some other public support to get his art degree, which he's apparently put to quite a good use already.

    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!

  • So, when they have the screenshot of the JFK assassination, will the CIA be hidding next to the Mafia on the grassy knoll?

  • What about Fair U*ugh*... oops, forgot, we don't have that anymore.

    --Joe
    --
  • Bodies of Anna Nicole Smith and Ronald Goldman (Brentwood, California, 1994)

    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.

  • The photo of Oswald being shot by Ruby was in black and white, though the "screenshot" was in color.

    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?

  • First a note: the article at Salon.com [salon.com] gives far more information about the pieces. Created using Photoshop.

    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)

    by Erataikasu ( 164339 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @02:16PM (#698280) Homepage
    Unusually for me, these pictures seem to actually make sense. Most of the time it seems like anyone can put a dog turd in a fishbowl and call it art, but I found these pictures to be oddly thought provoking.

  • my life (Score:4)

    by gtx ( 204552 ) on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @02:16PM (#698282) Homepage
    if my life is ever depicted with video game screenshots, i hope to god it contains more Leisure Suit Larry than The Sims.



  • It is kind of cool. (Score:5)

    by Xzzy ( 111297 ) <sether@@@tru7h...org> on Tuesday October 17, 2000 @02:17PM (#698283) Homepage
    Pointing out the Martin Luther King one in specific, you can tell the "looks like a computer game" was just a gimmick to kind of tweak the emotions of the scene a little bit. In the same image, imperfections in the right angles help to keep it from being too "computery".

    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. :) 'Grats to the artist though.. pretty cool pieces he's done.

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