Transformative Grid: The Future

As an avid movie goer, science fiction nerd, video game player, and as an architect, I've been noticing a recurring use of the hexagon in relation to the future.  This post is going to be a different type of visual analysis that relates many different media mediums together to display the use of the hexagon in future situations.  The reason I've titled it transformative grid is because in most instances the hexagon is replacing the standard square grid.  It's as if in the future simple squares are no longer fitting and hexagons fix the more complex needs of the future.  Or it's some new style or phase in which conceptual artists are going through that uses the simplicity of the hexagon to achieve a more complex aesthetic.  When Modernism started to find its place in the world in art, architecture, and design, the square was a very easily manipulated and generative form.  Futuristic renditions must be avoiding the idea of reliving modernism and establishing a characteristic of its own.  I do not know however if it is something that people altogether are noticing or catching on to, if one saw that someone did something with it and decided to go with it, if its all the same person, or what.  But it is out there.  Keep your eyes open.  I'll dive into some examples that I've seen it take place in and then throw some images at you to let you see for yourself.  I'll start off with movies since they might be something you as a viewer might relate easier too.  I couldn't find an image of this, seeing that it was a specific moment in the movie, but in JJ Abrams' new Star Trek and Star Trek: Into Darkness, the hexagon is prominent in the HUD (Heads Up Display) of the bridge's main screen and piloting window.  When the bridge screen first comes on live there are multiple hexagons that target and move throughout the screen.  There are also multiple instances of it used in the interior aesthetic.  There are small clips here and there that show lit up interior walls with a skeletal hexagon grid laid over it.  In the movie 'Tron Legacy,' and the video game, the grid is this new idea of a digital world that the main character's father has envisioned and created.  It is constantly referenced throughout the movie and you see hints of the actually rectangular grid with little points of light that represent intersections.  However, floor tiles, clothes, building form, and again, screens all have hexagonal patterns.  Even at the end of the movie when he holds his disk up in the air to transport him back to the regular world the pulses of digital light that surround him are hexagons.  While in the older 80's movie of Tron, the gateway and the grid were all made up of squares.  Pictured below is an image from the video game that shows the ground floor hexagon pattern.  In the video game Halo 4, the hexagon also became prominent in the HUD of the main character.  As you play the game the HUD uses hexagons to display information to the character, specifically when you are getting shot at or shot.  When hit, a red hexagon grid appears based on the direction you are getting shot from.  Also, from the outside of his helmet the glass has the patterning as well.  Pictured below is a poster for the game near its time of release. In another video game, 'Mass Effect,' the hexagon is primarily used as an aesthetic in armor.  It may be hard to notice in the image below but it's one of the only ones I could find.  Describing the many instances in pictures rather than actually experiencing it during gameplay or while watching a movie is hard.  By this time you may be getting the gist of my perplexed curiosity to why the hexagon has replaced the simple square or circle, and maybe it is a merger of the two, but I will wrap up my argument with a few more images and be speedy.  The new avengers/spiderman movies that released both used hexagonal facades on their design of the OSCORP tower, also pictured below.  And lastly, real world application of the hexagon, slightly skewed, but could've easily been squares or circles, can be seen in Nike Combat Armor.  Pictured below.  That is my rant on the overused hexagon aesthetic in future renditions of design and its application in real world uses.

Halo 4 Poster

Tron: Legacy

Mass Effect Suit

OSCORP Tower

Nike Combat Armor