The ‘S’ hole project is a series of illustrations that I have made for my website, featuring the ‘S’ in the seaofsaa logo as a hole / abyss. I took the idea from the nifty artwork that Javier Aramburu did for Los Planetas‘s album Una Semana en el Motor de un Autobús (1998), so this is kind of a humble tribute.

When this album came out it was quite successful in the Spanish alternative pop-rock scene, and even today it is still a landmark (check it out in Spotify if you are curious about it). In my opinion it is an excellent album, but what truly impress me is the graphic artwork.

It is beautifully simple, sure not technically groundbreaking, but the concept behind it is very smart. The cover is basically the old international symbol for harmful chemicals, which is a well-known flat 2D picture, however, when you turn the sleeve around, the symbol in the back is the same but the point of view has changed slightly. It shows that, in fact, there is an X-shaped hole on the ground, a portal to the ‘toxicosmos’…

Toxicosmos is one of the album tracks, and like most of it, it is about drugs, addictions… etc. It was going to be the album name; the artwork is based on it, and it really fits!.

But besides this perfect match between the graphics and the album theme, the main point to me is how an apparent 2D subject shifts into a 3D one just by changing the point of view, which is basically the same principle behind a trompe-l’œil.
This elegant and clever way of faking 3D has been always an inspiration to me, and it is all about the point of view.

In daily real life, your point of view determines what your perceptions are and therefore, your judgments. If it changes, everything changes. New information is what can make it to change.
In arts (literature, painting, cinema…) the point of view is the way the author allows you to know what is going on, and by manipulating it, some emotions, opinions or details can be emphasize.

So, it is critical, as an artist, to know what do you want to communicate in order to choose the most accurate point of view possible. This decision is a difficult one and it really makes the difference between good and bad art.

Javier Aramburu did a great job with the point of view here. By a simple manipulation of it, he reveals his message amazingly well. Very inspiring!.

In modern art forms, like videogames, the point of view is equally critical. It is so important that some game genres are named after which point of view they use (first person shooter, third person shooter…).
Faking 3D has been used extensively in videogames too, sometimes doing it with graphics, sometimes through maths and code. At this site you can find some simple techniques for faking 3D in 2D engines.

Finally, if you are reading this, it means that you have jumped into the ‘S’ hole so… nice to have you here, welcome to seaofsaa and enjoy it!.