Jayson B Wenzoski
604.518.8382
ludus.formator@gmail.com

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Artistic Statement

Plato believed not in a material world as being real, but rather a shadow of the real world. This is echoed in the medium of interactive software entertainment. Only video games/interactive software, of all other mass produced art, have the highest potential of immersion while allowing for freedom of reality's strictures. The marriage of visual, audio and tactile gameplay elements add to a sum of all three professional creative fields working in unison to achieve a solid product with meaning and purpose. I believe that through video games peoples' minds can be reached and stimulated through this mixed medium in ways previously unable.

As a game designer, I draw inspiration from everything from everyday experiences to the esoteric and abstract. I aspire to present a visceral experience while providing an underlying structure and base of philosophy for a fun and enjoyable entertainment that has the meaningfulness of art. There is a strange beauty in the logic and data that I interpret, learn, modify and present with the experience of the end user in mind at all times. It is that experience, those moments that the player lives in, where they feel alive within another world, even just for a few seconds. That is the art I like to create.

Biography

I grew up in small towns where there wasn't very much in the way of entertainment. So growing up I tended to devise ways of entertaining myself and sometimes others. I had a tenacity for drawing, a passion for writing and most of all; the knowledge that imagination can be infinite. My influences as I was developing were mainly video games and movies. I would love designing on paper many more levels to my favourite games and imagine what it would be like to play through them. Hundreds of pages were filled with different and original characters, other pages with props and objects and the rest were vast environments and maps of imaginary places.

I was exposed to video games at an early age and in the mid-late 1980s in the age of NES and the Sega Master System I understood them. I had cousins that were teenagers at the time and they had photocopied booklets on tips and tricks and cheat codes for current games. This was a time before the internet and before video game magazines. Video games from then on were a huge influence in my life and the way I looked at life, more like a set of rules with goals and objectives and timing.

Living in a small town left me with the insatiable need to create. Characters, props, weapons, landscapes, entire worlds, stories and back stories; All were created in drawings and comics in my spare time and other times when I should have been paying attention in class. Yes, I was that kid. The one that was always drawing.

Other than video games, most sources of inspiration and influence came from comic books, literature and movies. These are not the only things that shaped who I am and what I like, however, these were the greatest influences in my life. I was also inspired by the realms of science and nature.

My growth as an artist and designer really began when I was about 10 years old. I was tutored by a local cartoonist and he taught me the basics and fundamentals of art. My life in art began there and I went on to win several contests, local and regional, appearing in several newspapers and having a couple of job offers in the creative field before graduating from high school.

Another passion blossomed in my teenage years, music. So once I had graduated I moved on to study music production and engineering at a local college. Music became another huge influence and inspirational energy for me in this time.

My greatest influences are in video games, movies, comic books and literature. My greatest values are in art, design, education, organization and creativity. The skills I have developed reside in art, game/level design and musical engineering. I believe that what I bring to a production is a concise vision and my greatest skills are within my creative and design abilities, the skills to bring things of imagination to life.

I know that one can produce art and design only through what they have ingested through their senses. A creative individual must become their own greatest critic and must realize that their experiences translate into what they make. This is what I am, a creative individual with the need to create and the skills and knowledge to do so.