Sensacional, eu que adoro HUD´s e mandalas, não pude ver associação e trabalho mais lindo. Recomendo leitura e vejam o filme.
G4TV posted an interesting conversation regarding the “death of the HUD” in games. This is a great discussion. Read MORE here.
I have always been fascinated by the HUD. No, not the 1963 Western starring Paul Newman, but the Head’s Up Display found lurking in the corner of many video game interfaces. You know what I mean. The small map-like radar scope or grid view of the game world that lets the player know at-a-glance his situational awareness. The player is usually presented as a dot in the center of the HUD, with various icons and graphics representing other players or items nearby. Every HUD is different, and their variety and depth and significance has become a minor obsession of mine.
When Mediasapien first came across this site from Cornell University, we were stunned. Collaborating with Buddhist monks, researchers created a stunning animation of the Kalachakra Mandala - a 2D image that represents the three-dimensional palace of the Kalachakra deity. Basically they took a 2D sand painting, and extrapolated a 3D model of a five story temple. Go look. You will never look at sand paintings the same way again.
There is an interesting parallel between the visual language of HUDs and Mandalas. Even though they come from radically different sources, there is a similarity in the use of icons and signifiers to represent elements of value or importance. I can’t help but take the analogy one step further and imbue the HUD with the kind of spiritual relevance and guidance within the game that the mandala has in reality. Think about it, while fighting it out in GTA 4 multiplayer, the player needs the information in the HUD. To a l337 gamer, the HUD is the difference between life and death. I definitely do NOT want to sound glib, or suggest that real people’s spiritual practices are in any way trivial. I’m trying to say just the opposite. In some small way, as games become increasingly relevant in our lives, the language of the HUD reflects this significance, and serves as a visual reminder of the in-game experiences and values of the player.
The following art installation explores the blurring distinctions between the digital and the material worlds in an effort to discover the specific location of spiritual relevance. Projected upon the far wall is a video loop of the artist’s avatar from the Xbox game Saint’s Row, who is seen calmly treading water.
In the corner of the video is a graphic common to many videogames — a HUD, or head’s up display – which shows a top-down “radar scope” view of the player’s location and nearby surroundings, including icons representing potential enemies, goals, power-up’s and other important in-game elements. Placed on a low table in the center of the room is a rendering of the HUD in colored sand which includes many icons and elements of the projected HUD. This sand rendering is made by hand on location, and lasts only as long as the exhibition — it cannot be moved or preserved. This impermanence serves several goals. It reflects the temporary nature of life, and the search for deeper meaning in cultural signs, signifiers and maps. And it challenges the concept “The map is not the Territory”.
How does that statement resonate in today’s mediascape, in which we visit countless digital territories, reference maps that signify maps, and have deeply fulfilling personal experiences in virtual space? Are there any original territories left, or has literally everything become a signifier for something else, an infinite loop of maps leading to other maps eventually leading back to the first -but not necessarily the original — map?
Self Portrait - Saints Row on the Xbox 360 from Media Sapien on Vimeo.
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