Jump to:
- falling in love beyond people
- you need to say things
- bad code only
- i’m outside and i’m looking in
- 1000xresist
On Falling In Love Beyond People
I just finished a wonderful book named “Brian” in which a socially isolated man signs up for BFI membership and embarks on a journey of cinema. In that he finds identity, spirit and community through film. It’s just a touching story, I really related to Brian as a character. Art changes Brian’s life for the better, and it’s something that really rings true for me.
Art changed my life, and continues to do so. I think it’s fair to say it was my first love (at the age of 5 with Spyro the Dragon no less!!), far before any person. And art has triggered potentially every single possible emotion within me, as if that were possible to track, the deepest feelings of passion, despair, connection, sublime awe - which is more than I can say I have felt with several human partners. Brian reminded me that love does not only exist directly between people, true love can exist in your feelings towards art, towards the environment, towards spirituality - whatever it is that isn’t a tangible human person.
However, you’ll end up realising that falling in love with things beyond a person will often lead you to better and deeper connections with people. I’m not talking about it like romance being the end-goal here, but I do think that if you are looking for a romantic partner then being in love with things beyond the idea of having a partner is a helpful first step.
I’m so lucky to be able to feel as much as I do, that I genuinely love hearing my friends talk to me about something they love creating and how it makes them feel to do so.
You Need To Say Things
I’ve recently become aware of how much I stop myself from saying and doing things, online. I’m particularly aware of the power of words, and of the terrifying fact that you can’t “un-say” something. Action is risky, it’s scary, someone might not like what you do and say. They might tell you it’s incorrect, it’s weird, it’s degenerate, or sometimes even more awfully - they don’t even acknowledge what you’re trying to say. KEEP SHARING AND SAYING STUFF!!!
What am I going to say next? Hmm I guess I could go on a small tangent about my love of dragons and I think there’s a metaphor for dragons being vehicles for female emancipation in western medieval history. Dragons stole away women ready to be betrothed to their husbands, and being a woman in those times must have been particularly shit. I like to imagine instead women befriending these dragons and running away with them rather than live a life of domestic misery. Dragons are part of the historical male fantasy, George defeats the Dragon, the Lambton Worm is slain etc etc - it’s all about domination and defeat over a monster and namely “taking back what was theirs” - their lands, their women.
So I really like this alternate idea of women having some kind of connection to dragons. There is also the tale of the Lindorm King in Sweden in which a woman is told by a soothsayer that her beautiful prince lies beneath the skin of a dragon. She must encourage the dragon to shed its skin by shedding her own clothes in turn - and becomes physically affectionate and excited by the wyrm. History’s first scaly?
Anyway, that felt really good to get out.
Bad Code Only
I’ve always hated maths and numbers, my brain just can’t parse them correctly when used to solve problems or questions. However using numbers creatively??? Has unlocked something in my brain.
I’ve been teaching myself Hydra the last few weeks after being introduced to the wonderful scene of London? Live? Coding? And I’ve met the kindest, most welcoming and creative people through it. It’s become a true highlight of the month! There’s something about the low stakes of it all, and yes you could perform this very second if you turned up for the first time that day.
So, yes! I really wanted to perform, and Hydra has been a wonderful tool to learn. I go to live coding events and I get so excited seeing new lines of code to steal and work with.
I also learned a valuable lesson - I played it safe to avoid any crashes or dreaded black screens - AND I STILL GOT CRASHES AND BLACK SCREENS! So yeah, might as well take the risk.
I’m outside and I’m looking in
I have an unhealthy coupling with “art” and “industry”. Growing up working class meant my only exposure to creativity was through videogames and kids tv shows, most of which are products being sold. People who worked there were providing a service to create those products. At 11 I had independent internet access which was… questionable, but I discovered DeviantART and ConceptArt.org which while very helpful for career development, further emphasised the link between creativity and external validation.
So from a very young age, my mindset was: artist = having a paid job as an artist at a studio somewhere. I thought it wasn’t an innate ability you had, it was something you had to prove externally you were good enough to be hired for.
I’ve done a lot of therapy in my life and I’m glad to say I truly believe creativity is innate to us and what defines us as human. It’s our right as human beings to create.
So it’s absolutely ridiculous to apply the same old busted logic of “I require external approval to feel like I belong” to creative events.
And I originally wrote a whole load of paragraphs explaining why I’m an outsider, but honestly what’s the use in that? Something new would be to just say “I definitely belonged in this space” for 99.9% of the events I’ve attended.
1000xRESIST
Sunset Visitor
- 28/4/26
In an industry where expectations of high fidelity and being able to do Everything Forever in a game is becoming the norm. 1000xResist is a story that you meet head on, explore and then most importantly walk away from afterwards.
Resistance is an interesting theme and I learned how many definitions and positive/negative connotations of it can exist in this game. Resistance can be both a positive and a negative. One of the main characters Iris resists her heritage in front of her school friends, she resists Jiao’s closeness. Iris resists being used as a guinea pig for scientific research. Watcher resists tyranny and a changing ruling class with the same problematic ideals underneath.
This leads me to an interesting thought I had about the changing power systems in 1000xResist - there’s a political saying particularly relevant to today’s world of there being “same policies with a different face”. I felt particularly struck by Knower looking down at my handcuffed self telling me “this time it’s different” as I then found myself apparently liberated by a person with the exact same face as the one who imprisoned me.
I really enjoyed the surprises this game had in store for me. There’s an expectation for sci-fi to strictly stay within its worldly confines of a distant future. Any references to current day politics are veiled within metaphor. When I suddenly found myself transplanted into the middle of a violent clash between Hong Kong protestors and the police I was in complete awe of a team not being afraid to SAY SOMETHING!!!!! About what is happening in our world.
There is an animated short I was reminded of throughout this game, called Tough by Jennifer Zheng which shows conversations between a mother who lived through the Cultural Revolution in China and left, and her daughter who grew up in the UK. There is a generational and cultural divide between the two of them and an explicit barrier between them in the animation - the mother speaks Mandarin and the daughter replies in English. In the interactions between Iris and her mother, and even between Iris and Jiao I was reminded of this animation.
Learning that the team who made this game came from performing arts, illustration, motion graphics and the like was an exciting discovery. As an animator in games, it makes me so happy to see a restricted budget work so successfully.
The animation budget was clearly restricted for the most vital moments and as an animator myself, I was so happy to be reminded of how much our brain can fill in the blanks. Do characters really need perfect lip-sync? Do we need to see a sequence of tens of soldiers shot up all at once? We don’t actually!
The flash forward/backward sequencing is such a clever combination of intent and animation budgeting. The game deals with cause and effect and the ability to flick back and forth between timelines was the perfect way to explore that. It also felt like the process of 2d animation flipping through keyframes. Particularly the soldier’s death you can play/rewind and most importantly, hold, on those moments, of her freefall down to her death. It’s theatrical and the game is the stage.
To summarise, I could talk about this game for a very long time. It has reinvigorated myself creatively and I’m so so thankful that a game like this was able to be made.