Focusing on coherent worlds

M.C.Escher 

For one of our more recent contextual studies classes, we were taught about and looked into the concept of coherent worlds in classic pieces of art and how it has worked it's way into video games. We looked into many different small aspects of this topic but the main piece was focused on was the Dutch artist, M.C.Escher (1898 - 1972) and how his curious and intriguing artistic pieces have been inspirational and fairly influential so much so that there is museum dedicated to his work in Hague. Escher's pieces started off as mathematical masterpieces, focusing mainly on the use of patterns and tessellations to make the viewer see different shapes within his art. These pieces were neat and mostly completed in colour to really help capture the viewer's attentions (example: the first image seen below)

Later on in his artistic career, Escher begin to expand his use of creative and mathematically influenced thinking and started to begin working on something a little different, pieces that had never been produced or seen before. The pieces began to focus on architecture, specifically pieces of architecture that would physically impossible in the real world. The most famous one of his drawings with this concept is called 'Relativity' (The first image below) and it depicts a room with stairs and entrances dotted around the structure as well as people exploring the building. But, the mind boggling thing about this is, the structure and where the people are walking doesn't make any sense

because, for the first time, Escher has moved away from his pieces of mathematical perfection and and completely ignore the rules that gravity inflicts upon us which manages to make this piece bizarre and captivating all at once. This piece snowballed into a large collection of designs created by Escher where he delved into and explored the 'Infinity theory', drawing images that shows a impossible situation or structure, similar to that found in Relativity (for example, the second image shown below.)

Monument Valley

Earlier I spoke about Escher's work how it had influenced later design pieces and concepts and one of these is can be clearly seen in the newly released game called 'Monument Valley' which was released in 2014 and developed by a small group of people called 'Ustwo'. Monument valley follows the story of the young princess Ida who travels from kingdom to kingdom as she seems be to be on a quest for knowledge but her intentions are unknown to the player. Ida must make her way around through isometric tower structures which use the art of optical illusion, giving the game a creative depth. Each level is laid out as a puzzle which the player can interact with as moving pieces of the buildings will allow new paths and options to become available to the player. Below are a few screen shots of the game, each level is cleverly thought out and visually stunning to look at.

As well as being inspired by Japanese print work and minimalist sculptures, it is clear to see that the developed of this game took a strong influence from Escher's infinity theory. The game is made up of strong structures that use optical illusions and sometimes a complete lack of rational thinking or gravity to allow the player to change the way they see the level and reach the end goal. Ida can walk along walls and pathways that SHOULD be impossible to do but using the infinity theory has a allowed and new and different way of discovering the palace she is exploring.

Below is an example of one of the levels from Monument valley, which was obviously based on and heavily influenced by Escher's piece called 'waterfall' which is the second image seen below.