This 11-minute documentary short by Brisbane animator Simon Cottee gives a nice look at contemporary pixel art and its origins.
Unsurprisingly, game developer Jason Rohrer has the most thoughtful perspective on the idealized, ex-post-facto perception of pixels as these perfect, hard-edged squares, which he attributes in part to looking back at old low-res games on new, hi-res monitors.
Cottee et al make the connection between pixels and pointillism, but the focus on animation leaves out the influence both pixel-centric image software, like Photoshop, and pixel-related art shown in galleries. [Juan Cespedes, Cory Arcangel, Sherrie Levine, Joerg Colberg or Thomas Ruff, or even Tauba Auerbach or Gerhard Richter] Still well worth a view.
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the making of, by greg allen