I just got back from a fun-filled trip to LA for some pre-E3 festivities, including the opening of The Future of Gaming exhibit at iam8bit. Gallery owners Jon M. Gibson and Amanda White teamed up industry luminaries with renowned artist to conceptualize what the future of video games might look like. There’s a great write up about the show here.
I was teamed up with Oddworld creator Lorne Lanning, whose quote really aligned with my own musings on where this technology could be headed:
“You are the game of the future, where every bit of energy exerted thru your digital daily life will be captured toward more real world incentives,” Lanning predicted. “Each beat of our heart, calorie we eat, footstep we make, and mile gained thru our day will be captured, converted, and gamified into cost saving incentives that just ‘can’t be beat.’ Our decreasing privacies increasingly offered as the willing sacrifices made at the altar of savings, incentives, and reward points. Three billion years of progress will have finally evolved us into the hairless walking coupon.”
The Hairless Walking Coupon
I really just wanted to capture the overwhelming system shock of the world that Lorne anticipates, with every movement and action inside and outside of the game world being captured and quantified. Whether it’s defeating a Level 99 dragon or eating a Burger King Whopper, everything we do will be watched, recorded, and rewarded.
Other luminaries who lent their theories to the exhibit include Megaman creator Keiji Inafune, Tim Schafer who created the Secret of Monkey Island, and video game jack-of-all-trades-and-master-of-most-of-them Seamus Blackley.
The exhibit runs through June 22nd at iam8bit’s Echo Park headquarters at 2147 Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles, CA.
The three Jurassic President pieces I created back in April were selected to appear in the upcoming Society of Illustrator’s annual, Illustrators 55. I couldn’t be more thrilled; I’ve been entering my work in Society for several years but this is the first time I’ve had any selected!
Opening reception for the Exhibition of the Sequential/Series, Institutional, Uncommissioned and Moving Image Categories will be January 4, 2013 and will be exhibited until January 26. Hope to see some familiar faces there!
Awhile back I was commissioned to do some illustration work for a rather peculiar video game for the SONY Vita called Frobisher Says. The brainchild of Richard Hogg and indie developer Honeyslug, Frobisher Says involves playing through a fast-paced sequence of minigames at the command of the titular character. It’s hard to explain, so I suggest watching the appropriately bizarre commercial for the game here:
The first one involves running through Frobisher’s Mansion and finding friends from your Playstation network and leading them to Frobisher’s hot tub.
The second one is a slot machine game, with an unusual twist… I won’t spoil it for you!
The last one, my favorite, is called “Stir My Soups”, and involves rotating the thumb joysticks in the required (usually alternate) direction as Frobisher’s crazy eyes spin around and around.
The game was originally only available in Europe, but I just found out it will be available in the US as of October 23rd! And best of all, it’s free! So if you have a Vita, make sure to grab your free copy.
This illustration I did for 5280 magazine was selected to appear in Communication Arts Annual 53. Many thanks to Art Director Dana Pritts for a great assignment! The article I illustrated, Making an Impact, discussed restaurants in Denver leading the charge to more environmentally sustainable practices.
Right before the craziness of the Pixel Pushers opening, I had a chance to sit down and chat with Jeriaska from Indie Games about three of my favorite subjects: video games, politics, and meat. Read the interview here!
The Keyboard Cat video I created was turned into a t-shirt and worn by Roy on the latest episode (Season 4, Episode 3) of The IT Crowd! Full of geeky clean humor, The IT Crowd is one of my favorite tv shows, so I couldn’t have been happier to see Roy sporting the shirt with an illustration I created!
Thrillist has written up a nice little article about me. It’s always nice when people get all the little pop culture references in my work! And yes, there will be a second edition of Big Lebowski prints coming soon. I’ve given each their own color scheme so as to differentiate them from the first edition. Stay tuned.
The Manifest Equality exhibition gathers together a diverse array of visual artists to raise awareness for the cause of equal rights for all Americans. You can read about my piece, “Civil Disunion“, and my take on this very important issue in this interview.
Manifest Equality
March 3rd–7th, 2010
1341 Vine Street
Los Angeles, CA 90028 www.manifestequality.com
Jude Buffum 