It was always about the art, even in the early years. But something else was about to happen. The air itself became dense and electrified, filled to the brink of bits and bytes just waiting to burst into pixel fireworks. Suddenly there was a Spectravideo home computer, and a Vic-20. The Commodore 64 was pure love, and it still is. A weird Atari game console, all the things from Nintendo, Atari 520, Amiga 500. I lived and breathed possibilities beyond imagination. My first PC, a 80286 computer with 42 MB harddrive, removed the little doubt that was left of what I wanted to do the rest of my life.
The machines was merely tools though. The hardware was not interesting, and the advanced programming was only one of the tasks for realizing a greater vision. In high school there was a computer assignment about making a phonebook database in Basic — my software barely worked, but it had a beautiful UI, and the most advanced inline-assembly mouse pointer possible at the time. At home my life circled around indie games, demo groups and computer parties and competitions. Software like Deluxe Paint, POV-Ray, Arts & Letters, The Draw. I even sold some ANSI commissions. It was everything but plans for further studies after college. My only interest in university was that stolen dial-up account that gave me access to IRC, e-mail, and more importantly: the world wide web. Internet experiences were, at the time, crude and very limited, especially compared to our multimedia games and demo competition entries. But was it possible to make something beautiful of it, like in the past with low-res computer and ANSI graphics? I definitely believed so.
In 1995, and with more of my time spent on freelance work than homeworks, I finally, barely, graduated. And started my first full-time job the day after. I was gonna work with games, and websites, and websites that are games, learning what I needed to create what I must. My work would become visual, social, useful and entertaining. I relocated to Stockholm but travelled and worked with people around the globe. I would work for small none-profit organisations and big corporations, and never lose focus of what I think is important. And that would always be about the art.
