Video game art involves the use of patched or
modified
video games or the repurposing
of existing games or game structures. Often this modification is
through the use of
level editors,
though other techniques exist. Some artists make use of
machinima applications to produce non-interactive
animated artworks, though it is a mistake, however, to regard
artistic modification as being synonymous with machinima as these
form only a small proportion of artistic modifications.
Videogame art relies on a broader range of artistic techniques and
outcomes than artistic modification. These can include painting,
sculpture, appropriation, in-game intervention and performance,
sampling, etc. Video game art also includes creating art games from
scratch, rather than by modifying existing games. It is useful to
regard these as distinct from art mods as they rely on different
tools, though naturally there are many similarities with some art
mods.
Like games, artistic game modifications may be single-player or
multiplayer. Multiplayer works make use of networked environments
to develop new models of interactivity and collaborative
production.
Techniques
Machinima
Machinima is the use of pre-existing real-time
three-dimensional graphics rendering
engines, often from video games. Genres of work include narrative
works and non-narrative, abstract machinima.
In-game intervention and performance
Artistic interventions in online games, often designed to disrupt
in-game norms in order to expose the underlying conventions and
functions of game play. Well-known examples of this include
Velvet-Strike and
Dead in Iraq.
Site-specific installations and site-relative mods
Site-specific Installations and site-relative
gaming modifications, or mods,
replicate real-world places (often the gallery they are in) to
explore similarities and differences between real and virtual
worlds. An example is
What It Is Without the Hand That Wields It,
where blood from kills in Counterstrike manifests and spills into a
real life gallery.
Real-time performance instruments
Video games can be incorporated into live audio and visual
performance using a variety of instruments and computers such as
keyboards embedded with music chips. See also
chiptune and the
Fijuu project.
Generative art mods
Generative art mods exploit the real-time capabilities of game
technologies to produce ever-renewing autonomous artworks. Examples
include
Julian
Oliver's
ioq3apaint, a generative painting system that
uses the actions of software agents in combat to drive the painting
process,
Alison
Mealy's
UnrealArt which takes the movements of game entities
and uses them to control a drawing process in an external program
and
RetroYou's
R/C
Racer a modification of the graphic elements of a racing game
which results in rich fields of colour and shape.
See also
References
External links
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