let me begin with the game 2:22 am. made by alice lai and released in 2014 by umbrella-isle, 2:22 am is a game about...late night television. because i usually play games alone at night and it told me to do so...i did end up playing it late at night. the game is...weird. weird and surreal in a way that really gets to me. often times i see myself walking in the desolate maze, walking in a field where i leave behind a metaphorical trail, cooking an egg. i often think about it and its fragmentary and meandering nature a lot, wandering in a world that feels...surreal and sometimes hostile, even if it really isn't. it's almost like the suburban landscape that i walk around almost every day. i-
i've always been against putting numbers on things such as art. it often feels like i'm flattening the relation i have with the art i have engaged with. does a 5/10 mean it's okay, that it's bad, that it had some cool ideas or was just nothing? i guess it ties back to this disdain i have over how art is commodified and treated like one. the saying that someone is "consuming" or "reviewing" art is something that sickens me for some reason. going against these numbers is just...one part of that critique i have towards that attitude. it feels like such an act is devaluing the art and dehumanizing the artist—forcing them into the "productivity" machine where your measure in how productive you are is in how many reviews you get that give a "good" score over a "bad" one. it is to fundamentally flatten the relation of the art to the function of...mostly enjoyment from what i've seen. the art then, becomes nothing more than a product that's similar to those in the shelves of stores whose only worth is how well they function. i ha-
i'm consistently reminded of 2:22 am and its surreal media. everytime i walk, everytime i write, everytime i think, it's dreamscape seems to seep into my own, reconfiguring my own dreamscape to be even more odd than it already is. the fragments meet my own as they fill in some of the gaps and expand the horizon. i guess that's what i love and value about art. the fact that it can so thoroughly change a person's outlook. 2:22am almost felt like an invitation to something, a door that i can open. i saw you—a being of a person's/people's love and desire—at the other side of that door. the machinery of des-
there's this one scene where all you do is...mess with something, probably a part of a flower of some sorts. it's my favorite part of the whole game, being able to see it duplicate and manage to become something bigger than its part. i've had this fascination of flowers for quite a while now. something about them has guided me towards something...dreamlike.
perhaps the term "art criticism" is not what i'm doing, or that it does not get at the heart of what i want to do when i write about art. let's go with another term instead, something that would imply that i'm deeply looking at and playing with the flowers. hm..."art appreciation" can get there but that feels too vague. art...reflection? ehhhh...i can see it but it doesn't feel right. art...
"the observational eros" is a concept in jenny odell's "how to do nothing" that describes a feeling of total, almost time-freezing fascination with another. it's a feeling that i often have a hard time describing, especially when it comes to art. i suppose what i end up doing is continuously mull over it...for hours at a time. for days, weeks, sometimes months or even years. even when i'm not looking at the art itself, it's almost as if it's alive. i want to look at it from a new world, a new framework, a new perspective. the windows become art in its own context soon enough. at some point, the art shows its true form as it stares back at me, knowing that i have recognized its aliveness as it does the same to me. it feels a-
when i talk about art, it's almost as if i'm talking about a lover of some sorts. the ways in which i talk about how the art has changed my outlook, moved my feelings, or even just did the simple job of healing my soul for a little bit. it's almost like i met someone so special...that i can't help but talk about them in every moment. i love when people talk about their favorite art cause i can often feel their eyes sparkle and their heart rush, even if i'm just on the other side of their screen. i feel like that's what art critique should be: an act of love. to love the art is to be able to change the art into something more than its own parts in an almost magical process. it is to give care to every little bit of the art, from its highlights to its pitfalls, which often need the most love in order to be talked about. to do that however, you must let the art change you as well. let the art seep into the deepest crevices of your mind, let it change your own landscape, and take your time with it. art is a deeply human process that often leaves behind artifacts to gaze upon: don't let the machinery of commodification and productivity erode, or even worse, take that quality away. be sensitive to the art, and you will learn that the art is about as sensitive as, if not more than, you will ever be. more than reflection, more than critique: it is embodiment. letting the art soak into your being as its desires mix with yours. letting the art take over a part of you, or even letting it take over you entirely just for a bit. an almost e-
at some point, i have had a prolonged time where i haven't interacted with the art that i have loved for so long. however, i still end up being reminded of it. all the moments i had with it, all the times i cried over it, all the times that it has managed to create a brand new dream in the phantasmagoria that is my own mind. i sometimes notice that the flame between us is burning away, and that i have the choice to rekindle it. whether or not i do that...
the tv goes blank...there's nothing other than the static. you turn it off, perhaps you are saddened by the occasion. you know, however, that the time will come again where you and the art will cross paths in the future when you turn that tv on again. you will be slightly different, but so will the art. the two of your will pierce each other's soul with your gaze once again, and perhaps something new will form in the dreamscape as well.