Building dreams

Minecraft is a brilliant platform for having fun, but what about its potential as a launchpad for artists?

Minecraft’s eight-year history is studded with extraordinary moments. First, in initial dev videos, it stole attention as an infinite procedurally generated world of blocks. Later, players shared their experiences of it as a game about crafting a shelter to survive a night of zombies. Then, as it started to take off in popularity, players began to explore it as a solo and collaborative construction tool, a game about building things. When in 2010 videos began to pop up showing vast projects, such as a full-scale USS Enterprise and a fully functional CPU, it became clear that Minecraft was more than just a plaything or a game. It was becoming a creative medium in itself.

Since then, a generation of 3D artists has grown and developed an industry making things, places and spaces in Minecraft, 3D maps known in the community as builds. Their canvas is Minecraft’s practically infinite space, their materials the textures and shapes of its blocks.

Marceau Nakayama is one of those artists, having created a series of builds which express some of the breadth of what Minecraft makes possible. His Triangular Ascension 2.0 – Cyberpunk Hangar is a vast and cavernous space hangar that uses light emitting and glass blocks to create an atmosphere of hard light and volume, while the more grounded Kite City & The Burning Sands (see facing page) shows a settlement of wooden posts and cloth sheets perched on rocks in a desert.