konst – Monocultured

Computer games and almost an opening.

Olle Essvik has been working on a computer game based on Beckets Waiting for Godot. A month ago he gave a presentation of the finished first part of it at Gallery 54, and I took the opportunity to record a short video. If you like to play the game you can do so at jimpalt.org/waitingfor and should you want to learn more about the making of and thoughts behind it, you can read an interview in Swedish at konsten.net and another in English over at Game Scenes.

Following that, Andreas Vesterlund is presenting the Skup Palet event week Your Mentality is Alert. It was a week-long process oriented collaboration which ended with not so much an “opening” as a “closing of the process so far.” In practice, it’s difficult to organize something which looks like an opening without interpreting it as one, but in the video Andreas tries his best to explain what has been going on and some of the ambitions going into it.

Both videos are in Swedish.

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Every once in a while I think I ought to be more serious in documenting these kinds of events in Gothenburg, but can’t seem to make good on my ruminations. If you enjoy these videos, or if you have suggestions on improvements, let me know and I’ll add your voice to the todo-choir.

Honestly, one of the things driving my ambition to make a more focused video blog is that I get to play with my old MIDI keyboard, and I’d have to finally learn After Effects properly to do titles and whatnot. In addition to, you know, providing a cultural service with above average editing and good taste.

Konstnärsnämnden: The audacity of hope. (Föreläsning)

Konstnärsnämnden hade i onsdags en två timmar lång presentation om sin verksamhet, stipendier man kan söka och vanliga misstag folk gör. Jag spelade in den tillsammans med frågorna som dök upp och fotograferade den Powerpoint som Lars Olof Gustafson hade med sig. Man kan höra min kamera surra till ibland; Jag tror inte att jag missade någon projektion.

Lars röst hörs främst i höger kanal, emedan frågorna ligger på den vänstra. Hörlurar rekommenderas. Notera att detta är en slideshow, inte rörlig video, så samma bild ligger ibland kvar några minuter

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För mer info om konstnärsnämnden, kolla in deras hemsida: www.konstnarsnamnden.se

Om du vill ladda ner presentationen så högerklicka på den här länken till flashversionen och välja “spara som…” Videon finns även på Vimeo, där du kan titta på den och ladda ner den i Quicktime-format: vimeo.com/7223127.

Upptäcker ni några fel i videon eller renskrivningen av frågorna, låt mig veta. Vill ni visa uppskattning för denna kulturgärning så kan ni gå ihop ett gäng och köpa mig en julklapp.

For our regular readers: This post only concerns Swedes (more or less) so you don’t have to worry your pretty heads about it. We’ll be back with the regularly scheduled programme presently.

Fans, fever, frolicking

I’m at home with a slight fever which I aquired last weekend (totally worth it though) and am drinking paracetamol and snake oil. I’ll head to work within the next hour, but thought I’d do my bi-weekly post instead of watching Battlestar Galactica(there are only so many episodes left that I haven’t seen, and I need to pace myself).

The message of the day: Backup your data, kids!

Lars, the architect I’m working with at the museum, hadn’t done it for a while, and his internal drive packed in. The data recovery people said that the driver head had scratched the platterns beyond salvation. A couple of weeks worth of work moved into the great wide yonder.
I immediately bought SuperDuper! and now have schedules backups of everything. I’ve also ordered a new drive to mirror my internal one.

While at it, I also bought Defcon, a tactical nuclear war simulator based on the movie WarGames. Between the sparse graphics and the eerie ambient sounds, it’s an utterly engrossing game that I’m looking forward to spending a couple of hours with. One of the more interesting aspects of the game is that you can ally yourself with anyone else, but are also at liberty to end these alliances at a whim. This makes paranoia and psychological warfare just as important as any military assets you might have, and might give a better understanding of the Mutual Assured Detruction doctrine. It’s like playing chicken with nukes.

Most of my friends and collegues don’t play games more complicated than Tetris, so I need new gaming friends. Get in touch please.

In between days when I don’t do anything but work, the thought has occoured to me that come May I’ll need to make money. Nothing that I nor the Gothenburg crew does lends itself to making money directly from a paying audience, but relies on either getting grants or selling art to collectors or investors. And there’s not a whole lot of that going on.

On that note, it’s impressive how independent writers, musicians and game programmers manage to eek out a living using mainly online self-publishing. It’s not for everyone, and requires a total dedication not only to your craft but also to your audience. If you look at the tremendous work that writers Scott Sigler or Mur Lafferty put in maintaining an active fan base, it soon becomes apparent that their “job description” is similar to that of a herder of cats, or perhaps the Pied Piper.

I’m not sure how well writing compares to the work that I and my friends are doing, which usually involves galleries and curated shows, but as far as making money is concerned, I feel that there are great things to be made and gained from taking a step back from the dead-end-job/show/grant/show/dead-end-job cykle that so many of us are stuck in.

Boingboing.net linked to an artikle by Kevin Kelly that seems right up the ally of so many people who are stuck in the mindset that making a living is an “either/or” proposition (including me): 1000 true fans.

It’s a more personal approach of the whole ‘long tail’ discussion from last year, and if what you do involves an audience, you’ll appreciate the article. Go read.