<![CDATA[superbrothers.]]>Sometimes art follows the same ideal as the scientific principle Occham’s razor: “All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.” While there can be beauty and complexity in an appearance of excess – Jackson Pollock is the first example that pops into my mind – there is a polar, but equally “complex simplicity” in the restraint and deftness needed to create an equal eye-catching visual from the simplest building blocks.

Plus, retro shit is just cool.

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Toronto’s own Superbrothers (a.k.a. Craig D. Adams) takes the building block of the digital age, the lovely little pixel, and works his magic by cleanly and masterfully making art that is both retro and forward and groundbreaking all at once. It’s not a recreation of the old pixel as much as re-imagining of it, not a re-use but a way of taking the energy and creativity of the old 8-bit universe and imbuing it into new work. There’s a crazy beauty in examining the little things that make up everything else: oxygen molecules seem lowly until they gather to create wind; a water molecule seems miniscule until they coalesce into the ocean. And pixels are the foundation for all our digital canvases, with Adams giving us a fascinating view, as if through a microscope, into all the possibilities the little guys still hold and the magic they wield even in their most unaugmented form.

Adding to the coolness are two videos, created by Superbrothers, for the amazing Jim Guthrie (which he composed, appropriately and amazingly, on a Playstation…)

Vodpod videos no longer available. Vodpod videos no longer available.

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If you’re into it (and why wouldn’t you be…) then head to the Superbrothers Shop to pick up prints and tees.

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