View of selected illustration work in level 1 of Checkpoint 2022

Barnaba Mikułowski, also known as Vaticinator, is an artist based out of Wroclaw, Poland, where he’s an Art Director for the indie game studio Cat-Astrophe Games, and Faculty of Graphics and Media Art at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design.

Mikułowski’s portfolio spans 15+ years of work, including games, comics, animations and interactive installations, all of which are encapsulated in a digital exhibition space which you can explore at the link below. Mikułowski is interviewed by Eleanor Schichtel.

What led to you designing a 3D online exhibition for your portfolio? Walk us through the process of making this space to house your work.

I had the idea for this kind of exhibition for a long time. In Poland, where I come from, online publishing was not taken seriously. And COVID came along and the situation changed. Online exhibitions started to be the only possible forms of presenting works to a wider audience. There are commercial solutions available that allow you to arrange virtual galleries and customize them according to your needs, but they don't give you full freedom. Thanks to my experience working on computer games I could afford to create my own scenery from scratch, without the limitations of these ready-made solutions.

The process of creating such an exhibition is basically identical to creating a level for a game. I think that next time I would use even more solutions taken from games. I approached this exhibition quite carefully. This exhibition is also the culmination of a certain stage in my life that resulted in a PhD. I thought it would be good to collect all my projects together and see what I've been able to do and think about what to do next. That's why I named this exhibition Checkpoint, somewhat in the name of checkpoints in computer games.

Tell us about your work as an Art Director for Cat-Astrophe Games!

Oh, this job is like a constant adventure. When I started the core of the studio consisted of 5-6 people. Today it's about 20 people. It's still not an impressive number as for a game studio but from my point of view the change is huge. Having one project in my mind is completely different than having many in parallel.

I'm creating graphics for the game along with everyone else. In fact, a lot of the graphical direction in our projects is taken by the rest of the staff. I try to make sure that the graphics in each project are consistent and I'm always available for advice if someone has a technical problem or gets stuck with something. I think the most important thing is that we work in a nice atmosphere and we all respect each other.

How do you situate your work in relation to the term “contemporary art”?

It depends on which works I am thinking about. I lumped my works together as part of the exhibition. I did this to get people interested in computer game graphics interested in art. And to confront people interested in art with game graphics. I think that many people associated with fine arts still associate games only with a new form of entertainment. And it is true that most of the games released on the market are just for entertainment and de-stress after school or work. Fortunately, many people have noticed that games can also be a great carrier of content and provoke important thoughts. And this is the domain of contemporary art.

I don't consider the graphics I created for games to be modern art because they are just elements of the work that a computer game is. It's hard for me to say if our games are a form of modern art. Some of them certainly aren't, and some of them might be. They definitely weren't created with the idea of being enclosed in a gallery space. In the field of contemporary art I rather express myself through individual projects like interactive installations.

View of selected character design work in level 2 of Checkpoint 2022

What have you been playing lately?

It was Dying Light 2, and I was curious to see how the project that a lot of my friends worked on went.

What specific elements of video game production speak most directly to you when you are playing the work of others?

I really like it when a game puts me in some kind of unusual, mysterious mood. First impressions from the game are provided by the graphics and music. Then comes the plot and exploration of the created world. If it all works, then I am delighted.

What games have directly inspired your current work?

I admit that I am not a person who spends a lot of time playing games. I have more satisfaction in making a game than in playing games. When I have time for myself and I could play something, I immediately think, “maybe it's better to create something new?” I have purchased a lot of games that I haven't even installed. Of course, I try to follow new titles and analyze their graphic design, but I rely mainly on youtube gameplays (it's faster). In fact, nowadays my inspiration comes mainly from movies, comics, animations and literature.

What games do you deeply enjoy but have no discernible relationship with your current work?

My favorite genre of games is RPGs, but nothing like that promises to be in our portfolio at the moment. As a child, I loved Diablo, Baldur's Gate, Fallout and Torment. I'm still fascinated by those titles to this day. You need a big budget for a solid RPG game, and right now as a company we can't afford such risky production. This is my dream for the future. The benefit is that we're learning all the time, and I believe that when we get down to making an RPG, it has a chance to be a really good game. With our current team, we could already make such a project, but as usual, everything is about finances. We just have to be patient, the ideas are lying in a drawer :)

What is an environment that video games are not normally in that you would find fun if they were?

I think I would get the most enjoyment from a game that worked like the world in The Matrix. Maybe that's what I'm doing?

VGA QUESTION ZONE: Barnaba Mikułowski