Luminous Passage and o(H)

During the early 1980s “golden age” of video arcade games, first generation vector graphics reached its apotheosis with Atari’s release of Tempest (Figure 4.1). With its cool, one-point perspective minimalism, and the simple, segmented perimeters, Tempest defined an aesthetic sensibility and helped to produce a vector-based visual culture. Gravitationally free and figured within the black, abstract space of the console screen, Tempest utilized perspectival space in such reductive and potent ways that it now resides within MOMA’s collection of design artifacts. ¹ Tempest has an explicit economy that was driven by the capacity of computing at the time, but its designers, whether in advertently or not, invented a language of shape and line that exceeded the sum of its parts. The influence of Tempest is still present today and it was no coincidence that the first Tron movie appeared a year after its release.