By Peter Swimm, on August 17th, 2009
Great Roundup of some of the notable Demo Productions over at 8bittoday:
August is only half way, but has already brought us some fine 8bit releases. A game, some demos for obscure platforms, glitch art and some pixel graphics are covered in this small list of 7 productions.
via 8bit today:
By Peter Swimm, on April 30th, 2009  8Bit today has a great interview with pixel pusher Helm. As with previous profiles, Sander gets deep into the philosophy and techniques of the artists he interviews.
An excerpt:
To make a more specific statement I’ll say that pixel art teaches the visual artist to respect the the foundational elements of their chosen genre of work. In pixel art you cannot go any smaller than a single pixel, and so anything you compose has to be made from this finite element, the atom of the digital display. Of course that’s all barring messing with cathode ray tubes in old televisions that displayed pixel art which could do half pixels and less (this inexact realm actually annoys me to think about and I’m very happy the high-tech digital displays of today show a single pixel in all its crisp and lucid beauty). This might seem like a limitation to the beginning artist, but I’ve found that too much freedom makes the artist fear their medium. If you can do anything, where do you start? Limitations breed innovations.
By Peter Swimm, on April 21st, 2009  8Bittoday has an interview with Minusbaby, l’efant belligerent of 8bitpeoples. They discuss his background, his reason for pixel pushing and some of the tools he uses to create his art.
An excerpt:
[8bit today] Instead of being restricted by limitations, you give the 8bit touch to it by mind. Could you tell more about your process of working?
[Minusbaby] “Because I come from a sort of mixed media background on a several fronts (dependent on what was around and what I could afford) – computer, spray paint, lead, carbon, oil pastels, fake gold leaf, smoke, fire, ink and anything else – I felt that there was no reason for me to stick to traditional pixel art techniques. While I do follow a set of rules based on grids, aspect ratios and aliasing, everything else is fair game. For example, a Commodore 64’s palette is limited to sixteen colors. A few months ago, I made a Pulsewave flier using its palette along with darker versions of the original sixteen colors. While some purists have a tough time giving me respect, my color choices and disregard of the screen resolutions of the original consoles and computers set a personal precedent allowing me to do whatever I want, therefore avoiding boredom and inspiring growth. I am done being bothered by conservative crews who can’t cope. Besides, it’s fun to be naughty and break rules.
Read More:
By Peter Swimm, on March 2nd, 2009 8BITTODAY inteviews the slightly enigmatic pixel pushing crew SUPERBROTHERS. A taste:
“[8bit today] You deal with highly modern subjects, using visual references to an old computer graphics. Is it a kind of revolt, against soulless progress, or what other ideas you embody with such aesthetics?
[SUPERBROTHERS] SUPERBROTHERS is intended as playable editorial illustration.
SUPERBROTHERS creates films and artwork depicting videogames that should have or may have existed (in the Soviet Union perhaps).
SUPERBROTHERS occasionally creates systems of meanings that intend to connect with the worlds of finance, information technology and culture.”
And perhaps a comment on the Crystal Castles debacle?
” [8bit today] Why do you spread some of your works only in printed form and not publish it in the web?
[SUPERBROTHERS]
SUPERBROTHERS supports antiquated technology such as print as a matter of course.
SUPERBROTHERS would prefer not to be vilified as a pirate and provocateur.”
By Peter Swimm, on February 23rd, 2009  Nice dissection of the entrants in a compo earlier this month. Great read, with plenty of videos. Excerpt:
What could you say in 256 characters? To get an idea; it’s a little more than one and a half text messages on your mobile phone. Now if you had to program something in 256 characters, what would, or maybe mostly could that be? It’s the same idea like our article on Artefacts by Plush, working with artificial limitations on limited hardware.
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