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Comment by exogeny | Hacker News Reader

The OCS Amigas were amazing, way-ahead-of-their-era machines. I can't tell you how many times, in need of inspiration or just to be amazed for five minutes, I'd load up a demo from Sanity or Phenomena and just let it all sink in - the code, the graphics, the music, all in Assembly and all from pure imagination.

I'm being nostalgic - and super preferential to the things that I enjoy - but nascent and emerging technology for me seems to have always generated the most exciting art. The demoscene from the early days of the PC, the ANSI/artzine scene from the early days of BBSes and telecommunication, the personal home pages from the early days of the web.

I'm going back and forth about whether or not I see the same art in today's emerging tech. I think I see where the tech is going and I'm excited by it, but I don't think I see the art as much. Happy to be convinced otherwise!

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I'm with you - and on the subject, having been exposed to a hell of a lot of iOS apps, I kind of think the walled-garden has, in many ways, both promoted the 'weird-art' aspect, as well as limited it.

Promoted: there are now more apps out there than ever before, and more app developers, and more app artists. And they're doing interesting and cool things - most of the top 10 games of the last few years have been artistically appealing pieces, which draw you in with a screenshot and keep you engaged with mechanics.

Hindered: I really, really don't want to see a certain color palette being used to burn itself into my retina and shock me into clicking the icon, among hundreds of others, that stands out the most. I can't see another candy-coating, or amber/cyan highlight, again. But, yet .. still they come. Endless streams of cutesy dreck.

That said, I still think the most interesting game/developer art is coming from the indie gaming/open-source world. There's something about, for example, the benign rag doll look and feel of a game like "Human, Fall Flat" that draws me and the kids back into it. It feels like the good ol' days of gaming, and its something I'm sure has an Amiga heritage, somehow. I don't know if there were really opportunities made for the average mobile App Store to entertain such titles ..

Ah, Phenomena - that reminded me of one of my favourite demos back then:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGpU3DicbLQ

I was a bit involved in the Norwegian Amiga scene then back in Norway. Nothing major, but very formative - and those were good times.

Enigma is one of the very best demos I've ever experienced on any platform. Pygmy Project's Extension is another Amiga favorite of mine. I've never lost my love for the demoscene, but I far prefer new demos on retro systems over, say, Windows 10-based 3D demos. Very much so.

The demoscene is the one true free art form of the digital age. Not beholden to corporate interests, not generally responsive to attempts to enact prior restraint, not riddled with people who feel it is their duty to police the content of others.

I think you might enjoy this: http://www.brutalistwebsites.com/

Here's a quotation you might like from Andy Hertzfeld, who helped write the original MacOS (official employee title: "Software Wizard.")

"The Mac team had a complicated set of motivations, but the most unique ingredient was a strong dose of artistic values. First and foremost, Steve Jobs thought of himself as an artist, and he encouraged the design team to think of ourselves that way, too. The goal was never to beat the competition, or to make a lot of money; it was to do the greatest thing possible, or even a little greater. Steve often reinforced the artistic theme; for example, he took the entire team on a field trip in the spring of 1982 to the Louis Comfort Tiffany museum, because Tiffany was an artist who learned how to mass produce his work."

Source: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...

I remember there being some demos burned onto a CD in the early 90's. They were really impressive. I didn't grasp at the time how much work went into them.

I think of the things that makes this stuff work is that they have constraints and hold themselves to be creative within those constraints. Contrast that to the processing power an average developer has today and it seems nearly unbounded. That's one of the things I am nostalgic about games and demos from yesteryear.

You might enjoy http://codetapper.com/amiga/sprite-tricks/, which talks through how some games use the Amiga's graphics hardware to achieve interesting effects - I found it really interesting!

re: Art in emerging tech. Though "VR" has arguably been emerging for many years, I do occasionally see glimmers of what we once saw in the past when I load up random apps for the HTC Vive. That community still feels like it produces some very artistic work from time to time.

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