TxK Considered As A Work Of Abstract Art

Tweets from a little earlier:

I have this sudden urge to write a review that starts “With TxK, Jeff Minter has established himself as one of the preeminent abstract artists of this age.” I would then go on to establish a context firmly grounded in abstract art, thoroughly ignoring Minter’s strong identity as A Maker Of Games. Because I kinda feel like it DOES stand on its own as an art piece. It’d be totally at home next to one of Kandinsky’s abstractions – maybe as an eternal video loop playing itself, maybe as a framed screen with a set of controls mounted beneath it.

I mean it is also an abstract art piece that occasionally urges you to INGEST CLOCKWORK MALAISE but that’s part of its post-modern charm. It’s much less self-deconstructing than Minter’s previous take on this theme; Space Giraffe was a deliberate inversion of the Tube Shooter in a lot of ways. And SG occasionally became a little too self-aware – the dreamy atmosphere of its bonus rounds were constantly punctured by comedy burps. TxK is more interested in being a pure, polished instance of its theme, and thus keeps the deconstruction to the sides.

But I’m drifting into more normal game review territory. Hmm. Compare the shattering effects to the broken angles of the Vorticists. I mean TxK can definitely be placed into the Futurist/Vorticist space. Look at some of this stuff. In particular:

Minter’s work is clearly in a different medium (and better reproduced; the Futurist/Vorticist work is phone camera shots taken in the library from a book on that movement), but I feel like there’s a definite set of shared visual concerns that unites his abstract art with these earlier works. Futurists and Vorticists were fascinated by movement, and found ways to stutter and shatter images on the canvas to represent it in new ways; Minter continuously shatters and fragments his subjects to create shimmering fireworks on his tiny little glowing canvas.

Anyway. That’s it. I should get moving on my comic book but I really wanted to spend a few moments actively playing the “are games art?” game by considering something solidly and enthusiastically A Game as a piece of abstract art.

10/10, I bought a fucking Vita just to play this thing and it was totally worth it.