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General Musings
I have been thinking about pixelart in a somewhat academic context, in the way that it is really not a thing anyone has ever written about in academics.
Which makes sense, its a art form that has been closely linked to videogames which in themselves have only basically just gained reccognition as an art form.
Yet I cant help but find that pixel art and a artform that has found at least some accademic reccognition, embroidery.
Especially counted-thread embroideries like cross stitch, were you are limited to the wrpas and wefts of the piece of cloth you are embroidering, giving very similar conditions to the raster grid of pixel art.
The artistic period of Biedermeier is well know for its cross-stitch "paintings" and pillows with floral images.
Especially with the inclusiuon of crossstitch embroidery into the educational curriculum of girls after the unification of germany under prussia, the grid bound construction of art, found its way into the everyday life, even though the art form is much older than that.
And besides the gird bound limitations of the artform we also have the limitsimpose by color.
Pixealart has been historically bound to limited colors, which was at first because of hardware limitations, but as become part of the style.
Imitation of different ardware limits are still popular today. In modern times, palettes like the Pico8 palette stemming from the pice of software supposedly emulation one of these old retro consoles, or the palettes curated on sites like Lospec, reach mass popularity with pixel-artists.
But similar limitations can also be found in embroiery, while you theoretically could have used infinite colors by dyeing the yarn one would embroider with in the desired color, it was much more economical to stick to a few colors.
Thus basically preemting the use of similar techniques as in pixel art, in regards to the choice of color interactions.
But in the end the physical differences between the two are obvious, being that one is derived from a completely digital medium.
Explaining the term "retro"
A thing that I have seen some people talk about online recently, is the meaning of "retro" mainly in the sphere of videogames, but it also somewhat applies to fashion and interior design.
But first games. "Retro Games" roughly means the ones from the 1980s to the late 1990s, the year 2000 is a convenient cutoff point but nothing rigid. "Retro Games" are generally considered to be the low fidelity predecessors of "Modern Games" with polished graphics and high polygon counts.
This contrast means that "Retro" is not only an epocial term but also a style descriptor, though the latter has to do with some bias that saw "realistic" games as better, as is arguable the games at the height of pixelart (something like Super Metroid) were extremely polished, both gameplay and art wise.
Maybe the dip in polish we saw with early 3D games (Kingsfield, Mario 64 for exmaple) lead to te retroactive perception of that era as inferior. Either way.
"Retro" is often used as a style descriptor a "Retro-inspired Game" usually means specific artisic elements like that its 2D and Pixel art, and then some gameplay elements, usually harder difficulty emulating the arcade penny-snatching roots of the early home console games.
But generally the term can not be applied to a singular style, "Castle Vania Symphony of the Night" might not differ gameplay wise from the first Castelvania much, but does so greatly artistically, which is mainly because of the lifted hardware limitations.
So at most you could argue a style progression in the face of technological progress.
Meaning "Retro" means something else, specifically like I already wrote, a period descriptor, mainly from the 1980s to the year 2000. A period of games that stands in contrast with everything before and everything after.
Before: Physical games and proto-videogames; After: gritty brown shooters, smooth models and "realistic" enviornments.
Modern Pixelart vs "Retro" Pixelart
I was about to write something on tis too but the youtuber Noodle made a great video about it so I will just link that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC-8y2R6IxI
RUUUUUUUPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!!!!!
I have started reading the Lupin III manga, its good, rough and scandalous. It's more mature than the anime for sure and I dont know if I like the short format its in, at lest with how far I got.
Each weekly chapter is its own story spanning just a few pages and in the parts I am in, Monkey Punches drawings and paneling is really hard to follow sometimes. But the base of what I love is there.
Also started reading Sherlock Holmes. Hasn't hooked me yet but I also just started and they are rather small stories so its fine.
Other toughts.
I have been thinking about the "general strike" in minesota that was the other week. First of all let me say the people of that state are crazy brave, standing in the way of brownshirts.
Though I cant help but notice that the USAmerican understanding of a general strike is kinda flawed to a degree where it feels like a psy-op. A general strike is usally supposed to disrupt daily life and procedure to such a degree where it breaks down and you force the opposite side to concede.
You can not do that with a basic walkout, that is to show solidarity. To that end, when I hear USAmerican pundants talk about how "successful the general strike in minesota" was I cant help but think they are, intentionally or unintentionally, playing in the hands of the powers that be.
Because what really did this achive? Not a lot, sure Bovino is gone buut just replaced with Homan, and the dems look like they wont shut the government down to defund ICE. And i cant help but think the semantics used around this are intentionally picked to lower morale.
A walkout becomes a general strike, and then people will lose the spirit because "the most successful general strike in the history of the US" didnt do anything.
I see numbers compared to the 1919 nd 1922 strikes and those went on for MONTHS and YEARS, sure they had the same numbers, mainly because back then there were fewer people, but they disrupted logistics and industry for a long time.
And thatis what a strike is. This is petty pedantry on my part and I understand why people in the US dont want/cant go on strike for that long, hire and fire, weak unions, etc., at the same time it comes out that the whole right project is a concious effort by a pedophile ring.
Not suprising becaus thats just what capital and power do to consolidate but man... what will it take.
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