Art exhibit brings analog tech to digital games
by Kyle Orland 
{ Jan 3rd 2007 at 11:30AM }
We Make Money Not Art has an interesting interview with David Pfluger, one of the artists behind the "Game Arcade" art exhibit currently touring around Germany. The exhibit transforms digital video game concepts using analog components like slide projectors, super-8 film and mechanical buttons and switches. The examples sound more like Dadaist installations than games: Racer features a cardboard car that runs over a variable speed film of a road, and High Noon (pictured) uses a rotary dial phone to control film projections of old west duelists.
More than just interesting gameplay experiments, Pfluger says the exhibit is a statement on the game industry's myopic focus on the latest and "best" technology. "Each technology has its own characteristics which makes it artistically unique.... Painters still use oil painting even though there is Photoshop." It raises an interesting question: Is the game industry sop focused on new technology and graphical "realism" that it's forgetting the unique aesthetic influences of the past?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
bounchfx @ Jan 3rd 2007 12:01PM
man, max payne shoulda been an action noir movie.
that picture reminds me of max payne. you know, that one small level where hes answering the phone and it's like "LOOK MAX YOU ARE IN A GAME" and he goes all nuts talking about the icons
man that game was sweet
JS Beckerist @ Jan 3rd 2007 12:17PM
Is the game industry sop (sic) focused on new technology and graphical "realism" that it's forgetting the unique aesthetic influences of the past?
No: Nintendo Wii. QED.
GlitchCog @ Jan 3rd 2007 12:56PM
There's a unique difference in video games though. The analogy to oil paints and Photoshop doesn't quite work. For it to be accurate, oil paints would have to be limited in their ability to render life on canvas. It could even be argued that paint is a better tool than Photoshop, despite its being quite a bit older. But lots of the "style" of previous generations of video games came out of hardware limitations. That's probably a big reason for the push to always use the best new technology. Designers are stuck in a mode of running away from those limitations, even though we're probably approaching a point where lack of imagination is a bigger deterrent to pretty graphics.
Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door always reminded me of old sprite games. It's like if they took the style part of sprites without taking the technical limitation part of what made them sprites. That's an excellent way to look at using the styles of the past without being forced to use the technological limitations of the past to create it.
idiosynch @ Jan 6th 2007 8:57PM
Okay, but why don't people still make cave paintings? Why use oil paint at all, when you could just mash up some pigment from berries and use an animal tail to apply it to some naturally occurring surface?
While the painting world has mostly stuck with oil, virtually every other artistic medium has taken advantage of any new advances that have come their way: digital photography, word processors, advanced video rendering, technicolor, etc.
Clearly, the game (or the movie, or the book) is the most important thing... but more creative options are inherently good for a medium. While you certainly can make a great black and white silent film, it's nice that you don't HAVE to.
number40one @ Jan 3rd 2007 1:13PM
I'm so glad Paper Mario: TTYD sprung to someone else's mind as well. That game always takes me back.
horngreen @ Jan 3rd 2007 6:27PM
I'm not so sure video games are as much art as they are crappy storytelling. They need to sell and trying to pawn off a card board car against a projected road would have worked in the 50s/60s but not today. Christ just dig up an old 2600 and a copy of night driver and you'll set it down in under one minute I swear. An oil painting looks cooler on a wall that some photoshopped cluster fuck but games are not just for looks. They have to play well also. Not much art has to be entertaining from a playing with it standpoint.