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The Geek Art Movement 89

Posted by Soulskill from the 8-bit-abstractions dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Is your work space drab? Do you want art to reflect your geekiness? Then you might like an art movement that has been gaining popularity over the past few decades. This is movement is 'Geek Art' where artists take inspiration from all things tech and geek. The art works range from 'Hello, world!' in 23 programming languages to collages of Old Atari games to more contemporary pieces like modern apps as Famicon software. It's sites like Redbubble and Society 6 which have enabled the independent artist to get their work out there while sites such as 20x200 take a more curated approach. 8bit retro is the new Mona Lisa!"
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The Geek Art Movement More

The Geek Art Movement

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  • Those would be Atari games, not Altair.

  • ASCII art [wikipedia.org] is cool enough, but RTTY art [rtty.com] is where it's at!

    -Anon.

    • When ASCII art isn't enough, there's always the Rasterbator [arje.net]. Feel free to click on it. It's completely SFW.

    • Wait, RTTY art wants me to enable Java in my browser (Chrome)?

      No thanks.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Before slashdot invented the "lameness filter", some fool did Goatse in ASCII art. I had to give them credit for effort, even though they were a grade-A idiot. I wish I could mod them as such:

          +5 creativity
          -9999999 asshat

  • as a geek (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    it offends me what can constitute art these days

  • Do you want art to reflect your geek?

    Reflect my geek? Who is my geek?

  • Geek art since the 80's (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MindPrison ( 864299 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @03:26PM (#42561477) Journal
    I used to be a demo-coder / gfx artist back in the C-64 & Amiga days, we did both ASCII art, and pixel art.

    Geek art is special to us, I'm in my 40's and amongst some of the "geek" artist pieces I do - is with 80's electronics components, I puzzle them together as "working art", meaning...it's like a digital sculpture that can be hung up on the wall, and it can DO stuff ;)

    Some of my friends make pixel art with beads & pearls, Mario, Sonic, Pac-Man etc. Very cool stuff. It's a special generation that will be remembered for this art. I can pretty much guarantee you that original artwork from those days will be worth a fortune in the future, pretty much like certain collectible games and retro computers are now.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by VickiM ( 920888 )
      My holiday tree is decorated with bead pixel art from mainly 8-bit and 16-bit games, plus a Fygar. I think the giant Golgo 13 head the spouse demanded is a bit off-putting, but it's generally very cool indeed.

      The Magnet Man bead art was upgraded to the year-round honor of hanging on the fridge with the help of some neodymium magnets.

    • Re:Geek art since the 80's (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @04:16PM (#42561981) Journal

      This is why the whole "games as art" debate has always confused me. Pixel art is art. FM synthesized music is art. The two together form an aesthetic that never existed before the 80s, and didn't make it past the 2000s. Even what we're seeing today is a revival, none of the retro art I've seen could have existed in 1990. IMO, that makes these games not just art, but quite significant historically.

      • Pixel art is art. FM synthesized music is art. The two together form an aesthetic that never existed before the 80s, and didn't make it past the 2000s. Even what we're seeing today is a revival, none of the retro art I've seen could have existed in 1990.

        I had a thought very similar to this a few weeks back while driving with a friend (both in our late 40s). A Steve Miller Band song came on the radio (either Fly Like An Eagle or Jet Airliner, can't remember which) with the classic sweeping synthesizer sounds, and it struck me...when exactly did that old synth sound go from being the "sound of the future" to being "retro"? Made me feel very old...

    • I can pretty much guarantee you that original artwork from those days will be worth a fortune in the future, pretty much like certain collectible games and retro computers are now.

      Certainly - if it's the right original artwork. The other 99.9999999% won't be worth a bucket of warm spit.

      And collectibles? They move in waves. Beanie Babies were hot once. So were Magic cards. But anyone who invested in them thinking they'd be rich in the future... they're pretty much screwed now. You can make a

  • cat("hello world!\n")

    I think I've proven something that I didn't want to know.

    • Is it really a mistake to forget the newline? Single quotes will also work like in the example.

      I think they just did a straight copy&paste for all of the languages from here [wikipedia.org].

      Personally, I don't like that it has C# and HTML. The middle-top one looks like ABAP? I don't know, never used it. Anyone know what language this is?
  • for such things as PCB art and the like. I own many pieces of geek art and I love it all. I think as more geek/nerd/techie artists emerge there is the growing "homage" to the roots of what made them who they are. A respectable rendre hommage to the tech they grew up with. I say the more the merrier.

  • I prefer my art in a form that's fascinating not only to the niche audience but to others as well. For me, this means interesting desktop ornaments from Shapeways. The options trumpeted in the summary feel way to...not to be so cliche but...hipster? Seems more of a focus on being unique than being appealing.

    • Agreed. I mount my computer components on a single acrylic sheet and hang them on the wall. Some have mistaken them for art, but it's just functional to me, up off the floor, easy to manage... I've thought of adding some sort of picture-like frames, but meh, whatever.

      Them: Oh that's a cool piece, very cyber punk, it's all what is it?
       Me: I guess it sort of is a form of geek art. That's my computer.
      Them: Obviously, but like which one? An old 386 or 486 or something?
       Me: No, and stop touching the fan

  • This is just hipster crap - science because its cool or whatever (see maddox's recent discussion).

    Also, for the love of god, http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/using-namespace-std.html [parashift.com]

    (in this case, I guess its OK, but can we stop putting that globally?)

  • A print of the southern Milky Way, from the Pointers (Alpha and Beta Centauri) to the Eta Carinae nebula. Including the Southern Cross and the Coal Sack.

    A Georgia O'Keeffe print of a Jimson Weed flower that looks like a dogwood but isn't.

    ...laura

  • Princess Peach Pointillism (Score:3)

    by don_carnage ( 145494 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @03:44PM (#42561647) Homepage
    I made a 3' x 4' Princess Peach out of 980 painted soda bottle caps: http://www.instructables.com/id/Princess-Peach-Pointillism [instructables.com] [Helps if I log in before I post.]

  • Hard drives (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Quila ( 201335 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @03:45PM (#42561657)

    Don't forget the hard drive platter mobiles.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skine ( 1524819 )

      Do you mean hanging pieces of hard drive suspended by wire, or a vehicle made out completely out of, or in the shape of, hard drive platters?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Quila ( 201335 )

        The former is standard geek art, but the latter sounds pretty cool too. Talk about low rolling resistance wheels.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Or music composed by tweaking & controlling the drive motors.

  • Electronics Art (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Here's a guy that makes electronics art that I stumbled onto years ago. He takes parts from old TVs, VCRs, and other obsolete electronics and solders little people/aliens and the occasional animal out of them. He custom-made me a penguin (due to my fondness of Linux), which I'm fairly proud to own. Pretty cool stuff, IMO...

    http://www.etsy.com/shop/obviousfront

  • If coding was my primary job duty, sure, I could see this kind of art being pretty relevant. But even though I have an IT background, and some coding-related books sitting around, working at a large, modern telescope [subarutelescope.org] in a major observatory complex [hawaii.edu], my geekdom is more about space science, so the art on the walls (and my laptop's wallpaper) tends to be more along the lines of either stuff out in space, or stuff that looks at stuff out in space. For example, my current wallpaper [hawaii.edu].

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tqk ( 413719 )

      For example, my current wallpaper ...

      Cool! Damn, some of you people have sweet toys to play with. Here I'm struggling to get people to allow me to turn off automatic night lights so I can see some stars at night, and they're wondering WTF I'd want to do that?!? $deity! Grumble, mumble, ... peons! Meanwhile, you get to hang out on a mountaintop above most of the atmosphere and the clouds ...

      Enjoy the ride! You'll miss it horribly when it ends.

      Doesn't Orion look beautiful at this time of year? :-)

  • I have about 150 prints on my walls (and a large framed print as well), all photos I have taken over the years. Camping, Mexico, Arizona, Korea, Ecuador/Galapagos, the places I have been and have fond memories of.

    I also have a couple photos of my wife and kids as well...

    I also have a " mud phone" which a friend of mine made about 12 years ago. He used earth from my yard and fashioned a cell phone out of it (complete with buttons, a screen, microphone, and speaker, with the words "Nokia Mud Phone" on the b

  • I stumbled onto this artist years ago who makes people from old TVs/VCRs etc. I've purchased a few of them over the years. At one point, I mailed him a box of parts that I had un-soldered from some old junk and he sent me some free capacitor guys... http://www.obviousfront.com [obviousfront.com]

  • Count me in... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Latentius ( 2557506 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @04:14PM (#42561957)

    I'd count myself among those geeks. Not long ago, I bought an interesting etched silicon wafer off ebay (not too expensive, really), and then framed it and hung it on the wall. I think it's beautiful in its own right, and the geekiness just makes it that much better.

    Framed Silicon [flickr.com]

    (On a side note, finding sufficiently large square pictures frames turned out to be much more difficult than I had imagined.)

  • I'm wearing a t-shirt from Woot and have an old Bloom County cartoon of Opus doing battle with a Ronco ad spouting TV set stuck on my mini-fridge.

    Does that count?

  • Yes, let's go make some Famicom cartridge labels, and pretend that that's all that's involved in making software! Want a product to become a reality? Just create some box art, and magically, the product is sparked into reality! Why waste money on programmers when you can just hire a few artists and create new software that way?

    Never mind that a few real programs were actually created this way (Syncronys SoftRAM.)

  • I have a poster from the original Thunderbirds puppet show on my wall at work. Occasionally an older person will say "...I remember that show". It was one of my favorites, along with Original Trek, Outer Limits, Hitchcok, and Twilight Zone.

  • Not much real geek art myself besides the clock made from a platter of our old computer system. Do have a few old disks hung up like someone else. I framed my dead MMO disks, lol. I used my vintage music collection more as a focus than my computers as my door trim is old album covers and the framed pictures are a mosaic(Judas Priest logo, and picture of a 45rpm record) of all my album covers (no pilfering pics either, i shot my actual album covers myself)

    Coffee table is a 1980 Wang minicomputer tho :)

    Saving

  • These are the equivalent of Dogs Playing Poker as far as creating a one-time-only dating experience.

  • Gecko Romin' Art

  • Individuality is great, and you should have things that are meaningful close at hand and on display, but just recognize that to most people geek art has about as much class as dogs playing poker [google.com]. If you have non-geeky visitors and want to be taken seriously, maybe find something you like that is more mainstream for the living room. Same for your cube at work. Something geeky on your monitor and on your desk, something more mainstream on the walls.

  • Piet? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by braindrainbahrain ( 874202 ) on Friday January 11, 2013 @09:15PM (#42564507)

    How come the Piet programming language [dangermouse.net] didn't make the cut? :(

  • I'm quite sure there are plenty of other fails in that image, but I just opened and it hit me straight away. REM Balh blah @echo off @echo Hello world! Why? There is @echo off, if next echo line is prefixed with @sign? Also that REM will be printed out if it isn't prefixed with @or is not after the echo off line. So much fail. Can anyone spot other massive fails from it?

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