If you’re my friend on facebook you’ve probably already seen my most recent Photoshop project that I posted, but since it involved video games I thought it would be good to share it on here as well.  Our only guideline for the project was the word “Surrealism” and the class was encouraged to research the Surrealist movement for inspiration.  I came across the Surrealist Manifesto which was a paper written in 1924 that basically outlined what would become Surrealism.  For those of you that don’t know, Surrealism was an artistic movement in the late 20’s that was concerned with the rejection of reality and an acceptance of a different state of consciousness, hence “sur”-realism. This and this are some good famous examples.  As I was reading the Manifesto I was continually reminded of the word “Escapism.”  Now escapism is usually a word that is thrown at gamers rather half-hazardly and mostly in a condescending way.  Opponents will use it as a case against video games, saying that getting lost in a game isn’t good for your mental health.  We as gamers know that this isn’t always the case, different games invoke different emotional investments from different people, and for the most part gamers can easily remove themselves from a gaming experience at any time.  But I think most of us are also willing to admit that getting lost in a good game is half the fun.  Sometimes I would rather run around in Renaissance Italy, climbing buildings, and assassinating Templars, because heck, life can be pretty boring at times.  As I kept thinking about these things I wondered, if these artists that founded Surrealism were around today…they would freaking love video games.  Video games are the closest things that we have to the complete realizations of other worlds.  You can argue that books and movies come close, but they do not have the same level of interactivity that video games have, rather they don’t place “you” in the experience.  Just think, wouldn’t it be awesome if Salvador Dali, arguably one of the most insane/weird artists ever, were around today and decided to make a video game?  That would easily be the strangest game ever made.  We’ll I’ll leave you with that thought and my final picture below.