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Cubism, in today's games and social culture.

Experiences and expressions have always been part of human culture. From cave paintings and oral tales to the novel and the emergence of painting and later the creation of film and digital games. From the beginning, man has sought to retell and imaging experience as realistic as possible. It was not until the early 1900s when artists questioned naturalism and distanced from it. Even in the gaming industry has been striving for realism has taken hold as game developers are constantly pushing the boundaries of what is possible to simulate as players constantly rising expectations. By creating a greater understanding of how Cubism emerged and what it was based on it should be possible for game developers to create new game experiences with cubism's ideological thoughts that basis. From the 1900s art world, parallels can be drawn to the development of our youngest media, digital games. The constant aim has been photorealism and now that the goal is almost reached, the issue was the game developers will turn. With the huge advances in technology have game developers not only achieved realism, but also given the opportunity to make an active choice. There are those who, like the Cubists, choosing to go against the current. According to Luke Plunkett's Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2012), a modern example where the creator Shigeru Miyamoto has allowed itself to be influenced visually by cubism and partly impressionism. A clear example of how even large game developers chooses surrealism front of realism.

One of the more blatant classics in gaming history, that really goes hand-in-hand with the cubism ideology and cubistic art is Alexey Pazhitnov's Tetris. A 2-dimensional rubic's-cube-arcade game - where the goal is for you to fit the falling geometric figures on top of each other and avoiding creating as little void as possible in the buttom of the foundation. A timeless classic.

Another approach, like Tetris share with many other games, is that it uses a lot of public art in the form of graffiti, mosaics, and other embellishments on the facades, underground entrances, etc. In Sydney, some artists in 2008 created an installation in an alley They lifted out the characteristic elements of Tetris and placed giant illuminated Tetris Blocks in the alley. It looked exactly as if the blocks had fallen from the sky, but the alley had been too narrow so the blocks were stuck halfway down.

Tetris, the two-dimensional variant of Title cube, seems to create a lot of space for artistic experiments. It needed only a simple change, or twist of perspective, to new and interesting interpretations of the game will arise and our experience will be different.

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Second Renaissance? The Revival of Vinyl Culture

Are we experiencing the second Renaissance right now in modern culture, pop culture? The revival of music on vinyl format as for one example of many. With vinyl record sales at a 28-year high - the people of the present time are currently experiencing a "nostalgia-wave". An attempt and desire to "de-digitize" themselves from the rise of internet, as it has saturated many people's stomachs after years of huge flow of information exchange. Looking back at the 60-90's century as the golden years - and longing for... physical substance. Being able to feel the format we are buying - being able to listen, touch and see.

The "first" renaissance from 14th to the 17th century took Europe over a cultural bridge from the Middle Ages times to Modern history. Now, one was enlightened after centuries of the Middle Age's stranglehold. The clear lines of the feudal system is getting blurred out. The church is losing its authority and grip of the art scene. We're stepping into a new-born era, a rebirth of something that makes a clear nod to the ancient times, greek culture and art.  Renaissance worshiped ancient greek culture and society - and it was about time for the Church's power to step down and let go. Old authorities over Europe began to be questioned when the new scientists of the time came up with their own observations. During the Renaissance it became very social, economic and technological changes, you had a large population increase in Europe, lots of new discoveries of new foreign parts of the world, and the very important book printing emerged.

If we start with looking what the first renaissance possibly could have in common in today's situation - I do believe we can see some clear similarities here. If we compare the greek culture heritage revival for example, that got highly worshiped then, to the vinyl and tape-format heritage that is getting highly sought-after now. The power of the church back then, could be compared to the extreme information-flow and exchange of the internet now. Though, the internet does and will always have a big power (as the church also always will have some power to some extent) - a lot of people are turning their heads away from the digital-world.

Today's revival of going to a physical store to buy the art product, to get professional help and guidance from the clerk, to feel and touch before buying - could be compared to the renaissance revival - that looked back with enlightenment. The revival of the past, the heritage - the real craftsmanship. The internet and information age gave us access to an eternal library, where everything (almost) ever recorded and thought about, is accessible for everyone. But after a while - the more you eat, the more you want. This makes me think about a quote from the Matrix film - where Agent Smith tells Morpheus about the first prototype of Matrix - the perfect world, the perfect "matrix". I think it could be very much applied to this.

"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world where none suffered, where everyone would be happy? It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed that we lacked the programming language to describe your "perfect world". But I believe that, as a species human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. So the perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from."