If you think the Mayans and their wacky prophesies are a “Gas, Gas, Gas”, then you’ll also be undoubtedly impressed by my recent conclusion… I hereby decree that we’ve come to the point in our evolutionary slog from amoeba to bigger, sloppier amoebas – that human beings must universally hate each other.
What else could rationally explain the malaise and disinterest that slips over us, whether we’re on the subway, in our vehicles, sitting in our offices or in our living rooms? We don’t communicate face-to-face anymore. And the lessening of any primordial desire to do so can only indicate that we despise each other so much, that we’d rather become lost in our small selves than actually be part of society at large.
Thanks to powerful little smartphones that entertain us significantly more than another human ever could, we tragically meander through life shackled to tiny devices that really don’t love us (no matter how many times Siri tells me she does). With our newfound ability to fully check out of society, we no longer have to even acknowledge the poor buffoon sitting next to us on the subway who simply wants to use his vocal chords to connect with a fellow human by uttering some reverberating jibber-jabber through the twin infoldings of mucous membrane stretched horizontally across his larynx.
Where neanderthals used to enjoy each others’ company by carelessly uttering nonsense about their meaningless lives and pursuits, now thanks to some noise-cancelling Beats and Vimeo, our private entertainment bliss is endless. Put your head down, tune out and bury yourself in bright, sparkly pixels. Enjoy the blissful ignorance of your surroundings.
I am the magnificent Emperor of the Sidewalk. Don’t mind me, I’ll be that asshole typing a text message while walking headfirst into a monstrous, deadly bear…
Dave Fletcher is the Executive Director at The Mechanism. No humans were ignored or harmed during the creation of this piece, despite the fact it was written on an iPhone during a subway ride. Dave has never texted while walking, running, driving, walking into bears or thinking about Mayans.
Patterns are the fuel of the human mind. Our pattern recognition ability is a large part of what us makes such smart creatures and remains our most defining trait in the battle for/against artificial intelligence. As such it is only sensible that pattern be one of the core aspects of art, and therefore inspiration, to us all.
David Stephenson relies on the power of patterns to create truly marvelous photography in his projects Vaults and Domes. Classical architecture is obsessed with symmetry, pattern, and texture all of which the eye finds very pleasing. Stephenson manages to create loving odes of our forbears’ passion with a straight-on modern twist. Meanwhile, his other works find beauty in the chaos of nature and organization of modern man.
Of course such intricacy has recently fallen out of fashion in favor of minimalism and simplicity, spearheaded by modern art movements. This aesthetic has now seeped into the commercial sector as well with the design ethos of companies such as Apple. The visual communication agency VOID uses this elegant block and color approach quite wonderfully. The site’s stunning color palette is emphasized by the use of square, grid and linear patterns as well as a nicely animated scroll from section to section which grids out the site even further: patterns within patterns.
Lastly, the inspiration for this inspirational post was the following video. Though short, it absolutely mesmerizes the viewer. An intro video for the TEDxSummit, the dancers from the Icouldneverbeadancer studio performed captivating choreography on colored mats shot through a giant kaleidoscope. The music of Yasmine Hamdan helps create an end result that is truly stunning. Enjoy and stay inspired.
The Sketching Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Mondays, containing the artistic musings of Mobile Designer/Developer Ben Chirlin during our Monday morning meeting at the NY Creative Bunker as well as his inspiring artistic finds of the week.
Over the years, I’ve come to believe the operative element is subliminal; not subliminal advertising the way Vance Packard complained about in his conspiracy book The Hidden Persuaders. No, the operative element we’re talking about here is subliminal quality. The very word sublime helps explain my point. “Limen” is Latin for threshold. Below the threshold of awareness. We’re talking about baking quality so far into a thing that people who look at it perceive this quality subconsciously. They know they’re looking at something of quality before they’re even conscious of it because when a thing is made way better than it has to be its quality comes off of it in waves.
What a fantastic concept: subliminal quality.
This extra effort is how all of life’s pursuits are turned into art; yes, even advertising. An old man from Bali once patiently explained to an anthropologist studying his culture: “We have no ‘art.’ We do everything as well as possible.”
The Thinking Mechanism is a series of weekly posts written by Antonio Ortiz and published on Fridays, covering the ideas The Mechanism is thinking and talking about with our peers and clients. This edition of The Thinking Mechanism is cross-posted from the blog SmarterCreativity.com.
Vindication. At least that’s what I was thinking while visiting the new Art of Video Games exhibit at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. this weekend. It was a small exhibit true; just a handful of interviews with video game legends, some concept art, five playable games and a room with around two dozen video stations each devoted to a different platform over the past three decades. Yet it’s mere existence will stir the heart of any gamer. For while some classics like Myst and Monkey Island sat desolate restricted to trackball and three minute playtime, the crowd thrived around Flower and throughout the exhibit in general. It was inspiring.
The question of course is are video games art? Besides perhaps a handful of indie titles, games exist as products first and foremost. And while company’s like Tim Schaffer’s Double Fine or thatgamecompany continue to push the artistic merits of games, its still a challenge to find an example of something that is both game and art while not being some strange interactive experiment. The crowd at the exhibit further had me questioning if games were art. After all, it’s not often you see such a large and diverse crowd at the Portrait Gallery. And on top of that, the personal reactions we have make them like no other form of “art” out there. When I saw the Mona Lisa, my first thought wasn’t “Oh! I remember looking at this painting every day after school as a kid!” yet I heard such sentiments throughout my time at the exhibit.
What is unquestionable however is the number of artists now involved in the games industry. Yoji Shinkawa’s art has been an inspiration to me since I first played Metal Gear Solid on my cousin’s PC at a young age. His art combines the beauty of Japanese prints and ink wash with an undeniably modern, near electric, flavor.
Sadly Shinkawa seems to have next to no web presence so I have no comprehensive portfolio to send you to. However from the gallery above, extracted from the series’ art books, you can see his outstanding talent. Part of what makes his works so attractive to the eye is how personal an experience they appear to be. Their smoky nature creates an illusion of impermanence; if we look away for even a second, the image may no longer be there, like a mirage in the mist.
There exists an extremely strong relationship between video game and web design being the two most important and interactive mediums of our age, possibly our history. The only difference being that the former is a vector for entertainment while the latter is one for information. However both together helped establish the interactive metaphors we now all take for granted: menus, buttons, navigation, etc. The two mediums continue to inform one another’s evolution even as they begin to merge via the gamification of everything web (see “badges”) and the networking of everything game (see “massively multiplayer online games”).
I love the sites simple long form layout and bright colors. The fun animations that play out as you scroll as well as the news banner give the otherwise static page a sense of life and connectedness.
Of course the medium most affected by video games is video itself. And while there are plenty of amazingcinematics done for every major video game release, these are really just animations set in their respective game’s universe and have little to do with games itself beyond said shared setting. However 8BITS is a short animation that succeeds in celebrating the complete history of gaming while putting a twist on the classic damsel-in-distress scenario so many games rely on. 1UP.
The Sketching Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Mondays, containing the artistic musings of Mobile Designer/Developer Ben Chirlin during our Monday morning meeting at the NY Creative Bunker as well as his inspiring artistic finds of the week.
