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> I object to this notion that, say, the average 80s CRT pixel representation is somehow the _canonical_ rendering of the ur-pixel You'd have to imagine it's c

> I object to this notion that, say, the average 80s CRT pixel representation is somehow the _canonical_ rendering of the ur-pixel You'd have to imagine it's closer to the original artist's end goals though. The guy who drew Mario probably didn't intend for us to see a blocky representation of an Italian plumber, they just wanted us to see a plumber. OTOH, Seurat was consciously making a point that you can represent a person with nothing but colored dots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointillism#/media/File:Seurat-La_Parade_detail.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointillism#/media/File:Seurat... > people referred to those little atomic picture cells rendered on the display as "_pixels_" 'These aren't the pixels you're looking for'. As the article points out, the pixels on a CRT do not have a 1-to-1 correspondence with the pixels in RAM. If you understand a pixel as a sample, then the mental picture becomes clearer: RAM pixels -> video card DAC converts to continuous signal -> CRT resamples again into monitor pixels -> your eye/brain reconverts into a continuous image

Udo 10y ago
I answered that in my comment above, but it was an edit so you probably didn't see it in time. Expanding on that answer, I think you're making a case for DRM here. Mario wasn't supposed to be not-blurry so we shouldn't be allowed to see him like that. If that's your opinion, I disagree, but fair enough. It's an entirely different thing though to assert that modern artists should not be making new pixel/block art, because it seems to me that their intent has value, too. So the question becomes whether you object to that art style, or just the commonly used name for that style. Personally, I think you're going to have a hard time with either one, especially given the fact that the common usage of the word "pixel" has always been blurry, and that you could simply avoid modern "pixel" games at no personal cost and still allow other people to make and enjoy them.
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  I think there's plenty of modern pixel/block art that's awesome, http://www.nuklearpower.com/2001/03/05/episode-002-why-is-he-in-the-lead-anyway/ http://www.nuklearpower.com/2001/03/05/episode-002-why-is-he... as an early example. But we should appreciate modern pixel artwork as a cool retro-themed anachronism, not an actual representation of what displays rendered in the past. The idea that a pixel is only a 2D square gets in the way of that -- ideally, people could understand that it refers to both a point sample as well as a box-filtered rendering of that sample, and those two senses imply different ways to view a set of pixels.
- drdeca 10y ago
  To me, that doesn't seem so much in support for DRM, so much as support for something like the negation of "death of the author". I think there is room to say both "this was the authorial/creatorial intent behind Mario's sprite, which should be acknowledged as being distinguished by being the intent" and to say "I aesthetically appreciate this deviation from the creator's intent, more so than the original intent." The deviation in interpretation from the original intent is, I think, a new (derivative) creation, in a sense. (Though it may be an accident, and might not have an intent to create behind it.)

Udo 10y ago

I answered that in my comment above, but it was an edit so you probably didn't see it in time. Expanding on that answer, I think you're making a case for DRM here. Mario wasn't supposed to be not-blurry so we shouldn't be allowed to see him like that. If that's your opinion, I disagree, but fair enough. It's an entirely different thing though to assert that modern artists should not be making new pixel/block art, because it seems to me that their intent has value, too. So the question becomes whether you object to that art style, or just the commonly used name for that style. Personally, I think you're going to have a hard time with either one, especially given the fact that the common usage of the word "pixel" has always been blurry, and that you could simply avoid modern "pixel" games at no personal cost and still allow other people to make and enjoy them.

smallnamespace 10y ago
I think there's plenty of modern pixel/block art that's awesome, http://www.nuklearpower.com/2001/03/05/episode-002-why-is-he-in-the-lead-anyway/ http://www.nuklearpower.com/2001/03/05/episode-002-why-is-he... as an early example. But we should appreciate modern pixel artwork as a cool retro-themed anachronism, not an actual representation of what displays rendered in the past. The idea that a pixel is only a 2D square gets in the way of that -- ideally, people could understand that it refers to both a point sample as well as a box-filtered rendering of that sample, and those two senses imply different ways to view a set of pixels.
drdeca 10y ago
To me, that doesn't seem so much in support for DRM, so much as support for something like the negation of "death of the author". I think there is room to say both "this was the authorial/creatorial intent behind Mario's sprite, which should be acknowledged as being distinguished by being the intent" and to say "I aesthetically appreciate this deviation from the creator's intent, more so than the original intent." The deviation in interpretation from the original intent is, I think, a new (derivative) creation, in a sense. (Though it may be an accident, and might not have an intent to create behind it.)