{"id":123979,"date":"2022-04-17T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-17T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-130222"},"modified":"2022-04-17T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-04-17T11:00:00","slug":"feature-artist-larry-achiampongs-life-of-nintendo-creativity-and-inspiration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2022\/04\/17\/feature-artist-larry-achiampongs-life-of-nintendo-creativity-and-inspiration\/","title":{"rendered":"Feature: Artist Larry Achiampong’s Life Of Nintendo, Creativity And Inspiration"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Larry<\/a>
Image: Emile Holba<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While there are often discussions around the merits of gaming as an artform, we perhaps talk less about examples of games helping to inspire other contemporary art. Yet as years pass it’s an inevitability, as the role of games in the lives of millions has transformed since the mid- to late-’90s. We’re gradually seeing more creative work and art outside of gaming with those tell-tale signs, those nods and echoes that gamers of all ages and types can instinctively understand and appreciate.<\/p>\n

Larry Achiampong, a British Ghanaian artist with work in varied areas such as sculpture, collages, music, film and more, is an example of this. A current and also rising star of contemporary art in the UK, in this year alone he’s completed a commission for a permanent work at Westminster Underground Station in London<\/a>, and currently has the Wayfinder exhibition at Turner Contemporary in Margate<\/a> on show. It was the latter that got our attention, as it includes a gaming room as part of the exhibit, with Achiampong talking with The Guardian<\/a> about how gaming influences his work<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We were fortunate enough to talk at length with Achiampong about this, particularly in relation to Wayfinder (his debut film) but also on the broader impact of games and their importance. His lifelong passion for games shines through, with references and memories emerging throughout the interview; we’ve decided to publish the full conversation with light edits for clarity.<\/p>\n

\"Super<\/a>
Image: Nintendo Life<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Can you talk, first of all, about how you were introduced to gaming, and the influence it had on you growing up?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Being a child of the \u201880s and \u201890s, I was introduced to the 8-bit era of gaming. My family, my elder brother started off with the SEGA Master System, and one of the earliest memories I have is playing Safari Hunt and then Shinobi. It was quite interesting because the first stage in Shinobi you walk in a New York City-like street, and you see these posters of Marilyn, playing on Andy Warhol’s work. Now, I\u2019m not aware of Warhol at that time, but I remember being captivated by the imagery that looked realistic for its time.<\/p>\n

Later on, I would go to my cousin\u2019s and he had an NES, and that really locked down my love of gaming. He was playing Super Mario Bros. 3<\/a>, I think it was the sound that locked me in. You know when you\u2019re in the map screen and you move Mario and Luigi, you hear those sounds. It\u2019s so infectious and there’s nothing really like it, you know? There\u2019s something about what Nintendo does with its IPs that is very infectious. All the way through, when you think of renditions of F-Zero classics in Mario Kart 8, it’s sound that\u2019s so beautiful.<\/p>\n

I came from a lower working class background, and I didn\u2019t get taken to art galleries in the way that some of my art scene contemporaries did. But I was into gaming, comics, watching cartoons. For me, gaming provided a way of escaping problems in the world, in my life. You get power ups, you come back again if you die, if you know how to cheat a level you can. There\u2019s so many things you can do.<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s something about what Nintendo does with its IPs that is very infectious. All the way through, when you think of renditions of F-Zero classics in Mario Kart 8, it’s sound that\u2019s so beautiful.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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I\u2019ve said this for years, gaming is a complex artform on the level of things like literature, cinema and so on. It\u2019s so interactive, and that\u2019s kept me entertained over the years and maintained my relationship with it. For me, I couldn\u2019t help but reference that through my work, in an Easter Egg format. So in the Glyth ‘Golliwog’ series I did<\/a>, my reference to that was Pac-Man. If you\u2019re to think about prejudice in that way, you\u2019re one character being chased around by a group of characters. I wouldn\u2019t say the game is violent, but when talking about prejudice that\u2019s a reference.<\/p>\n

Gaming has been with me for years. Gaming, virtualised environments, they\u2019re a big thing in the art scene. But when I was studying at art school, 2002-2005, and 2006-2008 for my postgrad, gaming was frowned upon. If you played video games you were juvenile, not serious. That upset me and almost pushed me away from gaming, because I was at a point of trying to elevate my career. Weirdly enough, me and my partner at the time had our first child in 2008, and that reinvigorated my interest. He was a daytime sleeper as a baby, so I\u2019d be up with him at night sometimes playing games, holding him while having a pad in my hand.<\/p>\n

That was a beautiful revisiting of the reasons why I love gaming. It captivates you and can be part of wholesome communal conversation. This was before talking about gaming as an online phenomenon.<\/p>\n

I read your letter for the exhibition, and you mentioned the sound of Super Mario Bros. 3. It was interesting that you referenced reggae beats in the game, for example. In those 8- and 16-bit years, playing games, were you immersing yourself in a way to connect those games to your background and upbringing (in London)?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh definitely. So if you move onto something like Streets of Rage<\/a>, the club culture in that, it\u2019s unmistakeable. I would have bought GamesMaster or Official Nintendo Magazine at that time, and I don\u2019t remember anyone talking about club culture in games like that. I remember hearing music in that game and thinking \u201cwoah, it\u2019s like the sound of a House beat\u201d, or touching into Jungle, what would become Garage etc. And I thought \u201cdamn, this is my world!\u201d. A collection of people thousands of miles away in Japan were creating that, how is this possible? Back then there\u2019s no other way or place where I feel quite at home in that way. That was special for me in those years, and maybe for other kids too. We\u2019d trade on concrete playgrounds, it was a conversation. It was like a conversation that programmers and coders had with kids, that maybe parents were too busy to have. With my parents they\u2019d work multiple jobs to keep the lights on.<\/p>\n

It’s a beautiful moment where you think \u201cthis is built for me, I can exist and hang out here\u201d. Education didn\u2019t really cater to someone like me growing up as a young black kid, the conversations around race and class and so on. They weren\u2019t opening up to kids like me, or even young working class white kids and so on. So with video games, similar to comics, there\u2019s an element of life and satire that\u2019s sewn in, and for me that kept me coming back.<\/p>\n

\"Wayfinder,<\/a>
Wayfinder, the film plays a key role in Achiampong’s exhibition (Image: Turner Contemporary \/ Reece Straw)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Looking at the game list from the exhibition, what stands out to me (particularly from late \u201890s as games became more 3D) is a focus on titles that are a journey, or have a great deal of exploration. In your film, Wayfinder, that feeling of a journey is also prevalent. How influential is that idea of travel and exploration in your work?<\/strong><\/p>\n

For me, two cornerstones, in a sense they\u2019re the same game IP and engine but they\u2019re also polar opposites, are Ocarina of Time<\/a> and Majora\u2019s Mask<\/a>, with the latter really getting me into that aspect of a journey. Majora\u2019s Mask is the weird step-cousin, almost. Ocarina of Time plays in a way that now feels quite safe. Majora\u2019s Mask, though, is so many things. It\u2019s like a comedy, a horror, there are honest moments of intense sadness and conversations around depression, with the Mask Seller talking of meeting a terrible fate, and that kind of thing.<\/p>\n

It’s so animated in that way, and that\u2019s without even thinking about design, and influences of West African communities and mask making. When I think about that moment in time, late \u201890s into early 2000s, playing in a 3D environment, it was completely new. Even seeing day turn to night, and in Majora\u2019s Mask being able to turn time backwards in a strange way, where the end of the world is impending. When you think of it in that game world and then in real life, people were talking a lot about the Millennium. It was just a special, infectious moment full of possibilities. And again the music, Song of Storms<\/a>, that sound pulls you in, that relationship with folk traditions. It makes me think about old-school British folk music.<\/p>\n

That understanding of the journey, it permeates through the work I\u2019ve made in Relic Traveller (a multi-phase project), and Wayfinder as well. The film is divided into six chapters, and I really wanted to think about different environments like you have in a game. Like Metroid Prime<\/a>, which is in the show\u2019s gaming room \u2013 the beautiful thing with the game is the separate zones. Lava, ice and so on, very distinct in terms of sound, music, how you interact with enemies and objects. I wanted to take that opportunity making my first feature film to try and think about the differences of these environments within a British perspective.<\/p>\n

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Majora\u2019s Mask is so many things. It\u2019s like a comedy, a horror, there are honest moments of intense sadness and conversations around depression, with the Mask Seller talking of meeting a terrible fate.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

People like to travel outside of the UK, but we don\u2019t think about how the landmass here is so varied. Like Hadrian\u2019s Wall, where you can literally look towards Scotland at a certain point, or way down South there\u2019s Dungeness, the UK\u2019s \u2018only desert\u2019. I researched it for Relic Traveller and thought \u201cwhat, a desert is a land filled with sand?\u201d, but then I travelled down there and thought \u201cI get it\u201d, it was both beautiful and depressing in the same breath. I could imagine being in a sand-based landscape where there might be similar feelings, where there\u2019s nothing but also everything, you know?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the cool thing with some games. Tales of Symphonia<\/a>, that relationship of journeying with a team of people, but sometimes others leave or pass away from the team. So you go through these emotions of angst, highs and lows, but there\u2019s still the journey that moves on.<\/p>\n

In Wayfinder, the way it\u2019s shot there are different areas and approaches to showing each location, in the sense you couldn\u2019t always pinpoint a \u2018real world\u2019 location. Was that a part of the concept of exploration, perhaps into the unknown and unfamiliar?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Definitely. I like to work with performers and actors that are often not formally trained or haven\u2019t been to acting school, where a part could work particularly well for them. So in Wayfinder there\u2019s that feeling, especially with The Wanderer, I enjoy that consideration, like in a game where your character may be quiet but they represent something, an extension of yourself. Without giving too much expression to the character, it lets the viewer sit in that space with them, together, almost controlling their role in a way.<\/p>\n

It applies to certain camera views, in first- or third-person, like the third chapter in The National Gallery<\/a>. You may have picked it out but there\u2019s Resident Evil<\/a> as a big reference point! For historical portraiture and paintings it\u2019s magnificent, but there\u2019s something unnerving about it. Even for me, to this day, as an artist, I look at certain images and it irks me a bit. I think of my first experience with Resident Evil, you go through the Spencer Mansion and just seeing \u2013 amongst the horrors of mutations \u2013 you have this backdrop or paintings and sculptures that are quite eerie.<\/p>\n

I remember when I experienced that I thought \u201cyeah, that\u2019s why I feel that way about The National Gallery!\u201d. Because you can\u2019t really talk about that, or describe it, but then you have a piece of popular culture like Resident Evil that opens that up. So having the opportunity to film there felt like a big moment to explore. I wasn\u2019t able to talk about those influences so much among the crew, there was one person that plays games but not Resident Evil, so I couldn\u2019t go into that kind of depth with them. But I knew, if we sit here for a moment and capture some of these views, we\u2019ll be able to create that feeling.<\/p>\n