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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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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
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
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!
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 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.
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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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
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
Because they're shown from a different perspective. Or rather, lack of perspective.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Ruby Ridge was August.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
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.
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
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
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?
-- Anne Marie
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
"Hahaha! Little do they know that I am playing in God mode!"
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
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...
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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.
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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.
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.
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?
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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
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?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
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
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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