Interactive Timeline : Expressionism
How Video Games are inspired by art
In this essay, I'll be looking at how video games are inspired by art movements. The easiest video game for me, to compare to Futurism, is Deus Ex Human Revolution. This game shows the connection to Futurism very well, due to the mixture of organic parts and man made technology. The art movement, Futurism, is about the absurd and unrealistic, some parts showing what the modern world is coming to. Deus Ex must have taken a high amount of imaginative and knowledgeable people to make it as accurate as Futurism.
Deus Ex Human Revolution is set in the near future, 2027, 25 years before the first game in the series, at a time when multinationals corporations have grown in power beyond the control of national governments.
Players take the role of Adam Jensen, a security consultant employed by Sarif Industries to protect a research lab in Detroit.
At the start of the game, Adam Jensen is in Sarif Industries' Detroit headquarters taking care of security preparations for the company's forthcoming presence at a National Science Board hearing to discuss the need for augmentation technology regulation. Adam's ex-girlfriend Megan Reed will take the opportunity to announce a revolutionary discovery made by her and her team that will allow people to augment themselves freely without having to resort to anti-rejection drugs, though she seems nervous as to the source of said discovery.
During a meeting between Adam and Sarif Industries' CEO David Sarif, the company is suddenly attacked by a group of heavily armed soldiers apparently led bythree heavily augmented mercenaries, who use a security plan Jensen created himself. When Adam tries to rescue Megan, he is caught by the mercenary leader Jaron Namir, who brutally beats Adam and shoots him in the head, and the attackers also make sure to burn most of the victims in order to make them unrecognizable. Adam survives by undergoing extensive augmentation provided by Sarif. Jensen is unconscious until after the operation at which point, through interactions with other characters, the player decides Jensen's reaction.
Deus Ex Human Revolution - concept
Klaus Bürgle - Retro-Futursim
The Deus Ex Human Revolution game has the movement futurism in it because a lot of the streets are congested with bright billboards and signs which is shown in a few futuristic pictures and movies. Both of these pictures in comparison look industrial. The famous movement is helping the human race improve in technology and come up with new things to make. Technology is also a big part of our lives now, and it will be helping us until the end of the human race, it's also improving our own bodies, but Deus Ex Human Revolution shows the negative effects of technology within our bodies.
- The Futurist approaches reality with active analysis, dividing it into as many different factors as possible. Everything that decomposes and dematerializes reality, such as light and movement, is welcome. A galloping horse does not have four legs but twenty he cries enthusiastically.
This quote seems to be implying that the only limit to futurism is yourself. Any idea you come up with can be used and will be accepted in futurism. Futurism is based off of people's imaginations of what reality in the future could be like.
In my opinion, video games are not inspired by art fully. It may have bits of certain art movements in it, but video games have their own styles. It is also said by one of the art directors, Jonathan Jacques-Belletete, that Deus Ex was mainly inspired by previous games, Movies and TV.
When WarpZoned did an interview with the Game Director, Jean-Francois Dugas, they asked him what influenced Eidos Montreal to make Deus Ex the way it is. He answered back with,
"We look at everything around. Of course, we looked at Blade Runner, we went back even to RoboCop. We even watched Johnny Mnemonic again. [...] We also went into Japanese anime like Ghost in the Shell, but also things like Solty Rei. [...] We also went into books about transhumanism, real stuff that’s non-fiction. Watched a lot of documentaries about a lot of things. So our sources of inspiration weren’t necessarily sci-fi driven, they were about everything that relates to our game.
[Image Link: http://superfuture.com/supernews/tokyo-genga
While Deus Ex Human Revolution does have tenuous links to the futuristic art movement, the game has mainly been influenced by the Japanese art Cyberpunk including the Manga book and movie, Akira, along side architecture and other video games.
Deus Ex and Akira have the same tendency for technology to take over the human body. It is mostly used to improve human life. Technology is at the point where it can overshadow human life, and instead of it being an option, it is now a needed thing. It is usually abused instead of being used in the normal way.
Although both, Deus Ex and Futurism art movement, can be influenced by outside matters and topics, art and video games approach them from different viewpoints, with video games taking a more direct, straight forward approach.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I found creating the spider diagram to be useful, as well as easier in constructing my essay. The KWl method is also very and useful for coming up with ideas to make my own games.
No comments:
Post a Comment