Flatworld 64 is a new series of paintings by digital artist Danny Jarratt. Co-opting the design language of 90’s collect-a-thon video games, Danny invites audiences to step into a flattened, graphic world. He offers audiences a momentary escape from the noise of navigating heteronormative daily life. This series of bright, digital paintings are made up of gestures and painterly marks translated into a digital realm. Low-resolution and pixelated graphic shapes sit alongside digital airbrush and drop shadows, giving a sense of collapsed perspective and a non hierarchical plane of existence. Danny describes them as ‘perhaps paintings, or perhaps screenshots’ of a queer videogame landscape.
Photos: Morgan Sette
Within these worlds there were valuable objects to collect: Golden Jigsaws, Golden Bananas and Golden Stars. The worlds were filled with collectables and quickly the player would learn the lore of the land and develop a spatial understanding of the world and a connection to the place and self. In searching for these objects, I became connected. I feel deep attachments to Donkey Kong 64’s Jungle Japes and Super Mario 64’s Tick Tock Clock. All these spaces are queer escapes, where identity is transformative and always resistant.
This body of work portrays the world as flattened and paused, populated with unseen people, remnants of buildings and rare Ghost Diamonds.
Photographer: Will Adams.
Artist statement
Through my heteronormative childhood, I found the media landscape of television oppressive. I was told to sit in front of the ‘idiot box’ and be a passive viewer. However, with the introduction of the Nintendo 64 and collect-a-thon video games the television transformed from passive to collaborative experience. Through role playing games my identity shifted from repressed to forever-in-flux: I could be male, female, a bear and/or a bird. As I inhabited these avatars I would explore different worlds including jungles, ruins, factories or outer space.
Photographer: Will Adams
The player/audience is given reprieve from heteronormative noise and left with a peaceful queer silence; a moment in the game where everything stops. The bright colours and silence offer a zen and meditative escape. Unlike the video games which inspire them, this space does not reward the player/audience with level progression or bosses to fight. Instead you're rewarded with a better understanding of this queer environment, a search for diamonds and a queered quiet & flow.