The Evolution of 8-Bit Art | Off Book | PBS

Beginning with early Atari and Nintendo video games, the 8-bit aesthetic has been a part of our culture for over 30 years. As it moved through the generations, 8-bit earned its independence from its video game roots. The idea of 8-bit now stands for a refreshing level of simplicity and minimalism, is capable of sonic and visual beauty, and points to the layer of technology that suffuses our modern lives. No longer just nostalgia art, contemporary 8-bit artists and chiptunes musicians have elevated the form to new levels of creativity and cultural reflection.

Featuring:

Jesper Juul
Dr. Octoroc
Minusbaby
Anamanaguchi
Anthony Sneed

Additional Art by:

Jude Buffum - http://www.judebuffum.com/
JamesBit - http://www.etsy.com/shop/JamesBit
Snake - http://www.pixeljoint.com/p/7755.htm
Pei-San Ng - http://peisanng.com/
Sevens Heaven - http://www.sevensheaven.nl/imagedetai...
R Grillotti - http://anything.org/2006/pixelModelsG...
Jamon - http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/20...
Paul Robertson - http://probertson.livejournal.com/
Thretris: www.youtube.com/user/Thretris

Music by:

Sycamore Drive - http://sycamoredrive.bandcamp.com/
Netlabelism - http://soundcloud.com/netlabelism
Eric Skiff - http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Eri...
Minusbaby - http://soundcloud.com/minusbaby
Anamanaguchi - http://soundcloud.com/anamanaguchi
Kupa - http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kupa/
Lunchbox tha Narcoleptic - http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/3549...

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Twitter: @pbsoffbook
Tumblr: http://pbsarts.tumblr.com/

Produced by Kornhaber Brown: http://www.kornhaberbrown.com

• Category

  Education

[impurekind]

8bit was cool but 16bit was really where it was at.

[kummelkase]

oh no, a dislike from viznut, we are screwed

[Mistor Moniteur]

Well people who do Adlib (opl2, opl3) muic would qualify as 16 bit right?

plus anyone using digital trackers from the ms-dos era would also be making 16bit music (16bit sound samples).

I guess there is alot of 16 bit music being made but it has less of a "specific" sound signature such as 8bit?

[Kalle72]

How is this "the evolution" of 8-Bit art?! I have to dislike because of a misleading title.

[greenaum]

Great! You've ruined it like Instagram ruined Lomo cameras!

[greenaum]

No. Well yes. But no. This is supposed to be "art in the style of the graphics of the 8-bit home computers", which had 8-bit processors. The processors themselves didn't limit the colour range directly, though in practice not being able to move much data around quickly, meant graphics had to be lo-res and lo-colour, or else animation would be very slow and jerky.

In actuality this whole stupid fad is inspired by graphics from 16-bit machines. The ST and Megadrive etc. But hipsters are idiots.

[QuinCOBOL]

If you're working with a computer, you're already drawing in pixels. Creating artwork like this is really just "Low-resolution" as in you're working with 640x480 canvas with usually 32x32 characters on the screen.

I use it because it's efficient for editing the images when it comes to making games; I also like its rough texture. Currently I'm building games using the console program with C++.

All I have for graphics is characters ('/', 'A', '%', etc) and I use ASCII art.

Limitations teach.

[Gaven Rendell]

The song is in "reprisal"

[Harrison Crutcher]

I Hate How People Hardly Ever Make 16-bit Music because Mario Paint (a 16 bit music program) was and still is underrated I wish More People Made 16 Bit Music