You remember "Pac-Man," the wildly popular arcade video game from the 1980s, right? I dropped countless quarters into the machine on summer afternoons at the amusement park or arcade. (Do they still have "amusement parks?) I played this harmless game in which no one was smashed, burned, or killed, though they could be eaten. Now thirty years later I am reviving the Pac-Man concept for a project I am working on involving my "Geometrika" and their colorforms. This will be an art book, not a video game.
Back in the '90s - the 1890s that is - Anglo and American esotericists and magical ritualists developed a system which used colors and shapes as markers for the four ancient elements, earth air fire and water. They borrowed some of the shapes from Tibetan or Indian symbolism which was then being documented by colonialist scholars. As an esotericist artist I am re-making this for a modern age in which information is almost all visual. These four shapes are elements: Yellow square = Earth, Blue Circle = Air, Red Triangle = Fire, Green Leaf = Water.
They have "eyes" which is the simplest way of giving them life. These little figures will wander around my geometric world, if all goes well, and find themselves in many unexpected situations, and meet new ones. Friend or enemy? Food, fuel, or flight? Stay tuned....
Photoshop, 5" x 5", January 15, 2019.
1 comment:
Interesting. I'm trying to think of what simple shapes I would use. I guess a half-circle is too complicated? Blue for water. Green leaf for earth. Air a yellow circle, fire just like it is. I'm too literal-minded. The idea isn't to portray them as they are.
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