Game Art: Julian Opie's "Imagine you are walking" (1998)
As John Carmack dreams of virtual reality in 2012, it is clear that we are perpetually stuck in the 1990s.
Aesthetically, ludically, ideologically.
Like or not, DOOM and Julian Opie are the "New Aesthetic".
"In summary: Carmack has always been interested in VR, but dismayed by the poor quality of the options available. Recently he felt that technology was finally catching up to the VR dream, but improvements still needed to be made. So he set to work, concentrating in particular on reducing latency in the motion tracking, improving frame rates, and increasing the field of view - all essential, he believes, to creating a real feeling of immersion in a virtual world." (Oli Welsh, Eurogamer)
Videogames used to be cutting edge. Now they are DEAD MEDIA. The are MODERN FOSSILS.
As Krift Graft put it:
"Go to E3 and try to identify trends, you'll soon realize that you're looking into the past. E3 2012 could've been E3 2006. It is a museum without the informative placards. It's an archaeologist's dream. It's a reality show starring a washed-up rockstar. It's old gameplay. Old themes. A parade of old business models meant to pacify retailers, patting them on the head to assure them that they will be as relevant five years from now as they are today." (Kris Graft, Gamasutra)
Compare: "E3 2012 could've been E3 2006. " (Kris Graft)
To: Simon Reynolds' retromaniac claim that it is impossible to tell the difference between a music track made in 2008 from one made in 2002:
"Even someone like me, who grew up with a very strong historical sense from my own life and also from my job, I can feel it weakening. I can feel a sense of it weakening a bit, just through the lived, everyday experience of using the Internet. It does have that weird effect where the sequence of things gets jumbled. I can remember periods of time when there was a very strong sense of each year being different from the next year. But I don’t have that sense with the last decade. I’m sure if somebody played me a record, I wouldn’t be able to assign it to 2008 or 2002. It would be quite hard to do. " (Simon Reynolds, A.V. Club)
We are stuck in Opie's world.
The textures are finer, but our reality looks, sounds and plays like 1998.
Imagine that.
LINK:Submitted by Matteo BIttanti