It might not feel like it, but it’s been 15 years since 2006. That’s a decade and a half. The average age of your common garden variety TikTok-er, who doesn’t know what a VCR is and will generally run pop culture circles around you all while making you feel old. Tremendously old. Ah, well. This site and you guys are my safe space. We all know the 90s and 2000s were the best for gaming, those kids be darned.
And one of the coolest things to come out of that golden year was 8-BIT, a documentary highlighting the virtues of the chip-based aesthetic, both visually and audially. Presented with some super-slick visuals in an easy-to-follow format, the film talked us through the early development of gaming, its influence on music, and why so many of us still harbour nostalgia for that bygone age.
Even though it’s been so long since its debut, it’s just as relevant today as it was back then in an era of Blackberries and crunchy laptop JPEGs; trouble is, for some time it was difficult to track down. Thankfully, as CDM has revealed, it’s now available for unlimited online viewing. I guess that pesky contemporary digital landscape is good for something after all.
Check the official synopsis: “A combination “rockumentary,” art expose, and culture-critical investigation, 8 BIT ties together the 1980s demo scene, chip-tune music, and artists using “machinima” and modified computer games. Produced in New York City, Los Angeles, Paris, and Tokyo, the documentary brings a global perspective to the new artistic approaches of the DIY generation that grew up playing Atari, Commodore 64, and other video game consoles.”
You can rent 8-BIT now for a mere £2.20 here. That’s less the price of a coffee these days – and really, isn’t education priceless?
Will you be checking out the documentary? Let us know!
Via, CDM.
