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Join Us This month’s video essay recommendations have some genuinely excellent filmmaking in the mix, from a “desktop horror” short to a video that manages to make competitive Tetris riveting. Works about “kid cities” and post-punk music round out this edition. Plus: Is making and/or consuming art effective activism? The answer may surprise you! “The History of Tetris World Records” by Summoning Salt The best storytellers make the unlikeliest scenes compelling.
Tetris is one of the most elegantly simple of video games, but a community has cohered around it that’s remarkably complex, strategizing even its most granular elements, like the optimal way to tap the control pad. This video might be Summoning Salt’s best yet, visualizing statistics and data in exciting ways. In one scene, a broken record is represented by a pan across a bar graph of high scores, emphasizing how significant it is and making the sense of triumph visceral.
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