Machinima hitting the big time- R Kelly's closet.

by David Touve { Aug 25th 2005 at 11:30AM }

R Kelly trapped in closet Unless you have been living under a rock, studying frantically, or generally unattached to popular culture, you have probably heard of Machinima - the emergent genre where virtual game worlds provide the settings and substance of animated digital films. Red versus Blue (in a hint of Spy vs Spy from days gone by) is perhaps one of the most talked about constructions in this genre. Music videos provide the inspiration for a great deal of machinima good times however, and appropriately, MTV is catching on to this phenom. Recently the not-so-many-music-videos-at-all channel highlighted the work of Kendra Flemons and her repeated recreations of R Kelly's "Trapped in the closet" series. You can check out her videos here. Mais bien sur (but of course), the music industry is a bit beside itself on the subject, whining about the use of music without the consent of the artist/label.

As far as Machinima is concerned, I think the genre is not only a hat-tip to the ingenuity behind many of the top game designs, as well as those making the films, but also clear evidence of the level to which video games are becoming part of our cultural experience - like movies and music of generations past. Remix culture is continually being redefined.