Nicholas Stitten

I decided to make my final project show the timeline of my life, through the game consoles that I played growing up. I chose to make glitched images as a way to tie in to the video game theme, by glitching the photos in similar ways to how the systems themselves can glitch. This series is meant to portray the way that video games can blur the line between life and virtual existence, while also showing that glitches can happen in the real world as well. 

           The photo’s are ordered based on the year that I got to experience each system, and represents an accurate timeline of my human growth. Each console is glitched in a way reminiscent of common glitches that would take place in each system. For instance, The GameCube would cause useable objects to stretch and tear endlessly if they happened to spawn onto a preexisting object that couldn’t be moved, or the PS4 would cause lens flares that glitch shadows of objects if you moved in-game cameras too fast. Each image is shot at different perspectives based on my memories of the cameras in some of my favorite games, with me acting as the First Person camera view to recreate specific angles. Time is linear, but games allow you to access experiences that happened long ago in similar ways, with the player being the only thing that has changed. I hope I was able to show the fascinating nature of how games and time can merge, and how the glitches that come from that can be the most enjoyable experiences one can find.

I am going to be creating a series of glitch images to show the progression of my passion for gaming. I’m going to take shots of all of my game systems being turned on, and use photoshop to glitch them out like video games typically glitch. Some may feature multiple systems spawning into one another, while others may be affected to look like they’re floating. I want to blur the lines between reality and video games, and the best way to do that would be to frame each shot from different perspectives, representing the various cameras in different games, and changing the colors of the surrounding areas to be more cohesive with the different colors of the consoles themselves. Since my project would also be showing the impact of time on consoles and video games, each photo would be filtered to make them feel like they were taken with equipment from the year that they came out. I hope that I’m able to create a narrative that shows how the release of new systems bring video games and real life much closer to each other!

I used a vintage filter over the video to make it feel like a home-movie, and give the room itself an otherworldly feel. The filter tinted the light coming in from the window to make it a strange yellow-green to add to the feeling of unease. The character starts out in all blue to represent their trust in the familiar setting and their confidence in themselves to uncover the mystery of the lights. The room itself is lit blue as an homage to the religious concept that blue is a safe color that protects from bad spirits, as a way to lull the viewer into a false sense of security. The light becomes red to give off an ominous vibe, and the clown arrives wearing all red to symbolize power, while also acting as a red flag to warn of the danger that has now been unleashed. The fade to black is meant to create a perfect loop with the beginning of the video. The entire piece itself is a reference to one of my recurring nightmares. I hope you enjoy it!

The second montage is how I feel everyone sees me. I’m currently an assistant manager at a gamestop and so many people assume that is all I am, which is why a picture of me is acting as the blacked out ME in that photo. The flames represent how the perceptions of others is slowly killing my energy and passions, and the picture of Tanjiro from Demon Slayer shows how I feel as if people only see me as nothing more than an animated character.

I am a senior in ATEC, studying Game Design and Project Management. I have no prior experience with photography, but I would really like to know how to properly compose shots, since I’m typically the photographer for my friends. My favorite subjects to study are science and math, because I enjoy finding the answers to “why” questions. In 5 years, I hope to have produced my first full video game under my own studio, and if it’s not done in 5 years, it will certainly be done in 10.