How do creative practices integrate historical developments such as optical illusion and cinematic methods with modern gaming and data technologies to create innovative hybrid media, and how might this fusion inspire new works that contains visual traces of media archaeology

Introduction: The parallel evolution of cinematic and optical illusions with video game development spans a broad timeline, from early 19th-century motion devices like the zoetrope to mid-20th-century computer experiments such as the 1950s oscilloscope games and military simulations. This convergence becomes more apparent over time, culminating in the late 1990s and early 2000s when real-time rendering, motion capture, and virtual cinematography bridged the two fields, blending storytelling, interactivity, and perception into hybrid digital experiences.

This project investigates how the intersecting trajectories of cinematic illusion, gaming technologies, and their associated tools and devices have influenced both historical and contemporary forms of hybrid media. It leads to the question: How might new contributions to hybrid media emerge from the fusion of these technologies, and how could they shape future design practices? Rather than viewing these developments as a linear progression from low-tech to high-tech, the project explores alternative trajectories that challenge dominant technological narratives and industry standards. By recontextualizing and integrating legacy technologies with emerging tools, or by valuing the distinct affordances of older media, it seeks to uncover new paradigms for technological development and creative practice. As boundaries between media forms continue to dissolve, the convergence of cinema, gaming, and digital technology has given rise to a proliferation of hybrid works that defy traditional categorization. These works share a core concern with illusion, whether cinematic, optical, or interactive, and collectively reshape how we perceive space, time, and narrative within media environments.

This research aims to explore how these changes have developed over time and how they appear today

This research furthermore aims to investigate how cinematic illusion and gaming technologies have evolved in parallel and sometimes intertwining ways, particularly through the material tools and devices that shaped their development: from early optical toys like the zoetrope to contemporary game engines. These devices form a historical lineage of visual trickery and interaction that underpins today’s immersive and hybrid media works. Central to this evolution is the manipulation of perception, space, and narrative, which has influenced how we engage with design, media, and storytelling. Design concepts such as modularity, interactivity, and user agency have roots in both cinema and games. For example, the first-person perspective, which began with early optical experiments, has become a standard in game design and interactive installations, transforming user experience by merging viewpoint with agency. Similarly, the game engine has evolved from a gameplay-specific tool into a highly flexible platform used in cinematic visualization, real-time simulations, and speculative design. These tools now enable designers to craft dynamic systems that respond to user interaction, allowing for more participatory and immersive forms of media.

A key reference point is the early 2000s era of net art, when artists and designers began to experiment with the web as a medium in itself. Utilizing tools such as HTML, Flash, and Java applets, these practitioners developed raw, often intentionally “unfinished” aesthetics. Their work embraced repetition, feedback loops, and non-linear navigation to challenge the conventions of both traditional design and web usability. Artists such as JODI, Olia Lialina, and Cory Arcangel were instrumental in framing the internet as a site for play, performance, and visual experimentation. These experiments laid the groundwork for contemporary participatory design approaches by emphasizing user interaction, DIY ethos, and the importance of informal or "vernacular" creativity.

This ties directly into the concept of digital folklore, as defined by Lialina and Dragan Espenschied, which refers to the grassroots practices and aesthetics that flourish in online spaces; such as memes, ASCII art, emoticons, and other user-generated content. These informal digital expressions are often dismissed as trivial, yet they have profound implications for design. They challenge top-down aesthetics by highlighting the role of users as cultural producers, thus influencing everything from UI/UX design to branding strategies in contemporary digital culture.

In addition to these cultural movements, the visual language of data graphics has played a critical role in shaping hybrid media. From early military command systems to contemporary dashboards and real-time visualizations, these interfaces carry forward cinematic techniques such as framing and layering while drawing on gaming conventions like heads-up displays (HUDs). The result is a blend of narrative, information design, and interaction, offering new models for immersive storytelling and interface aesthetics that blend data and emotion, logic and illusion.

Games, in particular, have introduced powerful conceptual and structural models for interactive design. Through modular environments, non-linear storytelling, and real-time feedback systems, game design has influenced cinematic visualization, digital installations, and speculative design environments.

These systems prioritize user choice and interaction, allowing for open-ended experiences that blend authored content with emergent behaviors. Game engines, once confined to the gaming industry, are now central to the development of experiential spaces, enabling designers to create responsive, generative, and immersive systems.

Performative and generative aspects are also central to this study, particularly in the tradition of live cinema and VJ culture. Beginning with early experiments of the 1930s, where artists drew directly onto film and evolving through analog electronic devices developed at institutions like Bell Labs and the Experimental Television Center, this lineage of live visual performance continues in contemporary media practices.

Simultaneously, video game consoles and home computing platforms such as the Atari, Amiga, and Commodore 64 gave rise to the demoscene: a subculture that used gaming hardware to create real-time audiovisual performances. These early experiments with game-based generativity laid the groundwork for present-day practices in live coding, audiovisual performance, and interactive installation.