Post by Robert What in The war with the void (manifesto) jam comments

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Hi. Good manifesto! As small note:

I've noticed a distinct trend among these varied texts - a kind of desperate artistic nihilism which (however personally valid) often only appear to be about whatever the writer is discussing - and might in fact actually concern the fact that itch.io is utterly SHIT as a platform..

The amount of "Look just do what the hell you want because nobody's gonna even notice" type Manifestos is telling; yet perhaps they exist not as a general, rational response to the Artistic Void into which we all piss daily - but more simply because itch.io is a stinking Capitalist toilet into which artists have little choice but to pour their time and talent into - without glory, the chance for a decent living wage, or to catalyze vital interaction with the (mostly imaginary) society that's grown up on Itch's digital wasteland.

I guess what I'm saying is, let's not forget the Medium we're embedded in as workers.

Ok, sure - as you say, I will indeed continue making games nobody GAS about - but let's not be too harsh on ourselves as artists, considering the platform we're all working (slaving) on is taking the lion's share of the shiny coins we're producing. (There's a reason they call it ART-WORK!) #unionize #occupyitch #antiwork

Keep up the good fight

SIncerely, RW

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fae.exe3 days ago (1 edit)

Beautifully put. I agree. I think something i kind of failed to communicate is the idea that other people giving a shit is not a good measure of "success," whatever that might mean.

My father is an artist and has struggled all his life with an absence of recognition of any of his work, and thus considers his life and work as an artist a failure; he considers that this brands him talentless and "without a spark." Somehow this has never stopped him from making shit and from taking up new mediums; music production at 40, painting at 50, writing novels at 60. As I have found myself engaged onto a somewhat similar road albeit within different mediums and have experienced a similar and constant struggle with obscurity, this is my answer to that, in a way.

The fact that i might both never attain the artistic skill required to make the works that I'd want to make (in the sense that I compare them to the works of other artists and find them to be technically inferior and lacking, which might make my works redundant or worthless in some senses of those words) and that i will most likely remain in obscurity regardless and throughout - both of these things do not mean that I am a failure as a person, nor as an artist, and neither means that what I am making is pointless or that I should stop.

Because I'm not fighting against obscurity; I am fighting against the void, against death, and every game that I make before I lose that battle is my personal victory. Regardless of quality, regardless of skill, regardless of human connection or obscurity: I win. Every time. I just can't stop winning.

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