Slashdot Mirror
Life as Video Game Art
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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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 =]
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -- Homer Simpson
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. 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.
JoePyro "It's a joyless existence, being smushed" -Larry Wall
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.
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This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for higher security.
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.
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You can't fight in here! This is the war room!
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?
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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.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Your sword has begun to glow very brightly.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
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...
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
This WAS on memepool just yesterday, but that's not really a complaint, because at least people get to talk about it here.
Don't blame me, I voted for Durga.
He's saving it for the Quake level.
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I'm beginning to understand what God sees in this game. It looks like fun, from the player's perspective.
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Good to see NTK leads to /. .... it'll probably make this weeks digest....
____________________________
One Piece short of Legoland
----- 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?
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
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
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!
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.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
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.
"As I always say, why jack-off when you can jack-in!" - Plughead from "Circuitry Man" (1990)
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...:)
How Jaded Are You?
Actually, that would be Nicole Brown Simpson's 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.
"As I always say, why jack-off when you can jack-in!" - Plughead from "Circuitry Man" (1990)
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!"
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?
"As I always say, why jack-off when you can jack-in!" - Plughead from "Circuitry Man" (1990)
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..
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
What? No mention of the Columbine image? I thought Katz could get at least 2000 words out of this. I'm disappointed.
I don't mean this as flamebait, I honestly think it would be more enlightening to me and the average techo-nerd.
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..
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Vices - what I lack in originality, I make up for in volume.
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. they digitally removed all the people from pornographic pictures.
:)
this one is my favorite.
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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.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
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.
"Cut word lines. Cut music lines. Smash the control images. Smash the control machine." - William S. Burroughs
Check out.
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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My stupid web 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.
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
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
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 .
-JimTheta
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My stupid web site
ITYM: Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. HTH. HAND.
Teach your kids: "C++ made baby Jesus cry."
Ruby Ridge was August.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
As per the already posted Jon Haddock, the artist is 38. So maybe when he graduated back in '86 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.
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
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
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!
grib.
maybe
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.
Don't blame me, I voted for Durga.
Slashdot doesn't want to post my link right, darnit. Ah well. The link still works right for me, though.
-JimTheta
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My stupid web site
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
(Who's gonna beat me to it?)
The "Japan subway gassing" is actually supposed to be from that pic of the monk self-immolating himself as part of some demonstration. I just know the picture, I can't tell you what it's for.
Don't blame me, I voted for Durga.
I just don't understand the point of porn that doesn't have nekkid people getting it on. If I wanted to look at a photo of an empty bed, I'd go to sealy.com or some shit. Why couldn't he have kept the nekkid people and digitally removed the beds and carpets?
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One defining quality of humanity is that we are tool-users, and the computer is one of the best examples of a general-purpose tool, which can be used for art, among other things.
If you were alive in Gutenberg's time, would you have mourned the soul-less nature of the printing press, allowing the mass-production of written material, thus "replacing" the author?
Where's the soul in a paintbrush? Or in a clarinet? Or in Bobby McFerrin's larynx? Computers are tools. Period, stop, end of story. They are useful insofar as they further a goal. In this case, the user's goal was to draw provocative pictures in the milieu of a popular pop-culture style.
I think he was stunningly effective. I keep going back to look at these pictures...they are HAUNTING. VERY VERY evocative.
Then again, they might not have evoked anything in YOU. That's fine...I don't like Emily Dickinson or Picasso very much. Art needn't be universally appreciated in order to be good.
As for as your worry about computers replacing us, Terminator was a movie. It was not real. It'll be OK, I promise.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
12 angry men was originally a play. If I were home I could even tell you who wrote it ;) The original movie is a very close make of it, although the movie puts in the oversentemental court scnene in the beginning (complete with teary defendant) which was not on the play.
Believe with me, my saplings.
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
Hmmn...
As an art student, I have somewhat mixed feelings on this.
In the end, though, I don't really think that mixing art and computers is harmful. Computers are just another medium artists have the option of working with. I certainly don't expect to see them replace more traditional forms of art, such as painting, sculpture, printmaking, etc.
Many people brought up the same issues when artists started using photography as a meduim for art. "But the camera did all the work, all the artist had to do was snap the picture." Many people still feel this way, but for the most part, photography has been accepted as a valid artistic medium. I have taken photography classes, and I can tell you that there is much more to it than just snapping pictures.
Remember, the computer is not generating the art all by itself. A real human being has to tell it what to do, what colors to put where, etc. The computer can be used as a tool for creating art, but I don't forsee machines replacing us or our art.
I think variety and choice are both good things, in art and in life. Whatever ideas any particular artist wants to express, the more tools available to them, the more likely they can find the one they feel is right for the task.
When books burn, people are next.
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?)
Of course, with today's standards of high-end 3D, anything else looks way less detailed. The interesting part is that the low detail never affected the story. What about FF4? It didn't have near as good of graphics as FF6, yet it was just as immersive. And then the gameboy FF's? Our minds would interpolate the extras, much like we do when reading a book.
-Justin
So when is this expansion back coming out?!??!?! ;-)
Where's the submit button??
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?
-- Anne Marie
Isometric or Orthogonsl graphics are images with no perspective. Ex. if you look at a set of parrallel train tracks it appears that they will meet up eventually way off in the distance, when in fact they do not ever meet.
in contrast if you saw the same thing isometrically the tracks would look parralell always. and never appear to meet.
"I'm like an opening band for the sun" -Pearl Jam ; Yield ; Push Me , Pull Me
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 /. ...
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
It would be interesting to see some of these in the style of a first person shooter.
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enterfornone - logging in for a change
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.
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end communication
If I remember the story correctly, the man who did that, did live.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
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
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Anyone who's ever seen the cutscenes in some of the better video games (such as Diablo II) would agree with me.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Point taken. Just for the record, I don't oppose scholarships for art students. I'm even in favor if the NEA, in fact. I was only trying to point out that it likely had nothing to do with this project.
Be wary of such a thing occuring, although I hardly see it as being much of a disaster; if ever the majority of people accept such output as art, then you will be the one with the problem, not them.
But why does this particular story trouble you, when it bears little resemblance to that scenario other than the trivial aspect that it happens to involve a computer? There was still an artist controlling the computer, and deciding when the output matched his desires.
What the hell does this have to do with communism?
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.
I don't believe these were done with a computer.
"A series of drawings from an isometric perspective, in the style of a computer game"
that to me says hand drawn. though i could be wrong.
"I'm like an opening band for the sun" -Pearl Jam ; Yield ; Push Me , Pull Me
that student standing in front of the tank is one of the most vivid scenes in what i've seen of history. many of the other works have similar weight. however, the isometric computer-generated medium corrupts this. it's like the chinese government denying that there were any student deaths. it was just a computer simulation. interesting, but i hope the artist had more than purely political motives for creating these images.
p.s. if i was to pick background music for this exhibit it most definitely be Paul Simon's The Boxer.
in the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade and he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down or cut him til he cried out in his anger and his shame "i am leaving, i am leaving" but the fighter still remains.
[EOM]
Blar.
Shouldn't the 12 Angry Men screenshot have been in grayscale? It was a black and white movie...
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
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
"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)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Firstly- moderate MacHack's post up!
Secondly, one must realize that computer art does not equal traditional art (just ask anyone in D.U.M.B.O. (p.s.- if anyone went to the Open Studios this weekend- wasn't it dope?!!))
I'll give you an easy example- Electronic music, and specifically, keyboards. No matter how much they try to make it sound like a piano, it's usually crappy. However in a half-failed attempt to sound like a bass guitar, a musical instrument was created that defied all previous conceptions of how one can make music. And by pushing this machine to the edge with a human controlling it in real time, Art was born.
I am speaking of the Roland TB-303. Plenty can be found on the web, including sound samples so I won't rehash it here.
The beauty of machine art is that a machine is designed for a small subset of situations and purposes. But what happens when you throw it into a completely knew scenario that it isn't quite ready for? Under the control of deft hands, You Get Art. Really GOOD art.
Mekkab Out.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I think this guy must be trying to get a job at Sony.
His "art" Looks Like Barf.
Crap! Well... given that I'm preoccupied with work and all, one wrong name out of twenty items isn't bad. (watch a whole slew of errors creep up now ;)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Anyone notice the near strictly political motivations of most of the pictures?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
I can see the next upgrade to the SIMS now... not only can you have a genie in a lantern, a chemistry set that helps you make personality-altering potions, and a model rocket, but now you can shoot Martin Luther King, land on the moon, and overturn the OJ verdict!
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
"Hahaha! Little do they know that I am playing in God mode!"
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
This is Proof!!!
The cake is a pie
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...
--
ASU Art Student Seeks Credit For Playing Video Games
I wonder what sad deluded bsatard would digitize little SIM character anatomy to allow the bachelor guys to do what they'd REALLY be doing in the bathroom on a Friday night.... I'm currently unemployed...
There was something about those images that captured the events they protrayed better than a photo ever could.
Pax Digitalia
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.
now way m8
.oO0Oo.
i want the bit with the show-girl in all those feathers, Larry looked liked he enjoyed that
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Anyway, it looks pretty cool... there's an entire city done in the style of Simcity
Sparta beat Athens in war, but all Sparta gave us was the word Spartan.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
I didn't say we were the only tool-users, merely that it is one defining property of humanity. Furthermore, multiple innovations occur within the lifetimes of members of our species, rather than over the course of millenia.
Why is it soulless to use a computer to create art, yet not so to use a paintbrush? Surely, we humans are more than shepherds of pigment and hair which move according to the dictates of physics.
The art lies not in the specifics of the implementation, but in the expression by the artist, whatever the medium.
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.
I'll see what light I can shead on it. I can't get fourth first row. I'm looking at this in a different size browser window but when I make it your size...
First Row
Middle it says in the FAQ "James Meredith, civil rights activist, first African American student at the University of Mississippi. In 1966 he was shot by a sniper while marching in support of voter registration. AP photographer Jack Thornell won a Pulitzer in 1967 for his photo of Meredith after the shooting. "
Second Row
Middle scene from Godfather 3 when Fredo gets killed
Third Row
Middle is from Mary Poppins
Fourth Row
First is Diana getting killed
Fourth is Birmingham during civil rights movement
Fifth is civil war battle
Yeah, I guess the Tiennenman (sp?) Square picture doesn't count, right?
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
That was in Saigon in the late 60s in protest of something or other...
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
Another connection to the Sims and Supernatural Forces can be found here ; ; .....
(Aw, hell...I couldn't resist. It's just such a damn funny story.)
- - - - - - - - -
They can't do it because you can't see the CIA or the Mafia guy cause Fidel Castro and his bodyguards are in the way.
So viewing photos of an historic event or tragedy is worse or better different than a freeze frame of a video or an abstracted work in videogame style representing it? What does that make a movie or an fully interactive videogame representation of historic event or tragedy? If it was utter foolishness why would you be still be deciding?
Reminder, it would seem that many Moms Dads and 2.3 kids sat at the dinner table and watched the OJ trial. Atleast enough people watched it to keep it on the air. Where were your comments then, Xerithane?
And I used to think I was a hardcore videogame player... That's it; I give it up. All I'll ever be is a wanna-be. Time to remove my perfect Mame32 collection...
OK,
- B
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
would buy this?
They sell these
I can imagine the scene at the dinner table now...
Mom, Dad, 2.3 kids talking about recent events with a screenshot of OJ killing Nicole..
You know your countries economy is too extreme when they have this stuff for sale, or have an entire chain of stores dedicated to selling plastic storage devices.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
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?
--
fight global cooling
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 invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
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!
Ceci n'est pas un post
I'd always wondered who the guy on the front of the first RATM album was...
The conclusion of your syllogism, I said lightly, is fallacious, being based on licensed premises
While the game could have been better simulated, I think they seem to be going more in the style of oh, Jasper Johns flags. ( http://www.kirtland.cc.mi.us/honors/johns1.gif) Creating variations on a theme; using the games AND the images as signifyers of perhaps societal mixing up of fact and fiction or even how screwed up some of our priorities are. It also is a strategy for reallighning the viewer's relationship to the original image.
Computers are merely a tool, just like a brush or pencil; so I don't really understand what you mean.
The subconcious can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality, it all goes in the same way. Hence adverts which repeat the name of the product over and over again. Your consious mind knows that its not-reality, but your subconsious has just got however many repetitons of the product name in there, the theory being that when you're in the shop, your subconsious has more entrys for product X than product Y so you're more likely to buy it.
Therefore your hundreds of hours of screen violence will have affected you, I'm not saying you're going to go out killing people, but it will have had some effect.
This is a little like those strange dreams you get when you buy a new video game and play it from friday night until saturday morning. When you finally get to sleep at 9:00 am, your dreams are somewhat colored by the game...
Does anybody know all the events that those pictures are for? I know a few, but I don't know what all of them are.
I admit I'm a bit old fashioned when it comes to art. When I see or listen to a work of art, I want to feel the artist coming through. I want to catch a glimpse of his or her soul. Computers are great, sure; after all, I make my living working with them, and they're a great source of recreation. But for art? Where's the soul? So many of the greatest works of art are focused on depicting the soul-less nature of machines and our fears as humans of one day becoming like them. 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. It makes me uneasy.
-- Anne Marie
This seems to be american history, post 1960. Nothing more.
Not that I'm disappointed. I think those are pretty nifty pictures (especially the one of the LA riots and the rodney king were the best), but I expected there to be a little more, hrm, diversity in the choice of history.
but werd, anyone know how this guy did this? its quite intriguing!
-bongo
prosebeforehos.com
if my life is ever depicted with video game screenshots, i hope to god it contains more Leisure Suit Larry than The Sims.
"I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin." - Britney Spears
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".
:) 'Grats to the artist though.. pretty cool pieces he's done.
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.
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