Game Art: "Tate Worlds: Art Reimagined for Minecraft" (2014-ongoing)
Remember the Second Life art craze of the mid-Zeroes? A decade later, we're experiencing the same phenomenon, but after the demise of Linden Lab's virtual world, Minecraft has become the new playground of choice for artistic re-enactments. This time, The Tate Museum has teamed up with the formerly independent company Mojang to create Tate Worlds, a series of virtual environments based on specific artworks. The game, which allows players to create their own three dimensional spaces, will use the paintings and sculptures, called "maps", as the main inspiration to generate a series of activities that relate to the main themes of the artwork. The first two maps, available to download free at Tate's website, are based on André Derain’s 1906 The Pool of London, and Christopher Nevinson’s 1920 The Soul of the Soulless City. Both maps focus on the theme of urban life.
Six additional "maps" will be released in 2015 based on works by John Singer Sargent (Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, 1885-6), Peter Blake (The Toy Shop, 1962), John Martin (The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum, 1822) and Cornelia Parker (Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View, 1991).
How does Tate Worlds differ from filmic "adaptations" of famous paintings, .e.g The Mill and the Cross (Lech Majewski, 2011)? Is the idea of "animating" paintings through digital games an abomination or an "exciting opportunity" for "enlightenment and endless discovery"?
Here are my suggestions for the next Minecraft "maps". Let's re-imagine...
Salvador Dali's The Enigma of William Tell
Gustave Courbet's L'origine du Monde
Otto Dix' The Trench Warfare
Balthasar Klossowski de Rola aka Balthus's The Guitar Lesson
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes's The Disasters of War
LINKSubmited by Matteo Bittanti (via The New York Times)