How Video Games Are Invading Our 4D Life

Image by Zul Arafin.

Like the entertainment modes that preceded them, video games are principally about providing a tailored out-of-body experience. One minute you’re a docile plumber minding your own business and the next you’re in a decrepit castle rescuing a hapless princess.

But what would happen if video games themselves were treated to an out-of-body experience?

As part of a new show put on by Espace [IM] Média, artist Aram Bartholl created an installation titled Dust Excerpt 1 in order to explore the inverse possibilities. At an onsite location in Quebec, Bartholl, along with his dedicated team, installed 20 pixelated but no-less-real crates native to video game Counter-Strike’s dust map.

But Bartholl isn’t alone in transposing video game environments and culture onto real world settings. Below is a spectrum of the most vividly distinctive examples of video games invading our four-dimensional existence.

Other Examples Of Real World Gone Gamified

Riding a Freebord is essentially like snowboarding on pavement. Not content with the thrill of this new sport, a riding phalanx of Freeboarders did one better by turning themselves into “free falling” geometric blocks a la Tetris.

Robert Overweg is a virtual photographer. He himself isn’t made out of bits of computer data but the photos he takes of video game landscapes are. A house there can seemingly be only a pixel wide which looks to be the case with his ambitious replica of a Left 4 Dead 2 structure.

The video game craze that is Minecraft has invaded the attention spans of gamers everywhere. With the help of Cody McCabe and Jeffrey Kam it has also invaded the art world as an installation titled Meatcraft. As per the game, the gallery space is filled with 1500 cubes which can be arranged into cube-based landscapes.The cubes were made at 1:16 scale, or at 6.25cm each.

Through some digital trickery of existing locales, Marc Da Cunha Lopes unveils the hidden workplaces responsible for the creation of video games’ most iconic props. In this case, the collectable rings from Sonic the Hedgehog.

It doesn’t matter how many which ways you rub your eyes, the image you see above is not a video game still. Photographer Zul Arifin manipulates his photography in a manner that suggests it was pulled from the latest graphical console.