The Wednesday Lecture:
Wednesday 27th January 2021, Willow Fisher
Today’s guest for the lecture was a much more relatable individual as his interests he has expressed through his creative work. Prior to the lecture we were informed of David Blandy’s work as an artist and his preferred artistic direction, through exploration of visual art being video games or short movies, in each one constructing his own fictional reality into an immersive experience. His interests strive to the pop culture of comic books and anime really broadening his view of the world from a young age to the possibilities in alternate realities in fantasy worlds.
Blandy began the lecture with a game called Babel, that included a jenga tower, dice, playing cards and a story to read out loud. I think this set the tone for this video call as it was going to be a different experience for us. Rather than the format of previous artist guests with the artists revealing information about themselves and sharing their artwork and talking about them. Blandy took a more I would say passive approach to introducing himself to us, engaging with us with that creative mindset enabling us to create a shared imagination through playing this game. He also encouraged us to play along writing our experience into a notebook, however I did not do this as I just wanted to observe to see how he presented himself and acted. He walked us through the game in his play through of Babel, whether or not the other students enjoyed this I found it quite interesting, he described the game itself as being an unusual and intriguing activity as it encourages a solo experience rather than that interactive multiplayer atmosphere you receive with many fantasy games. He stated that the single player actually has a limited chance of completing the quest through the game and all choices and directions taken can not be predicted. The game explores individuals discovering a way to survive the quest they are encountering alone, Blandy explained from his own experience of the game that it can be an intense but also lonely experience.
David Blandy informed us of his early influences that shaped him into the man he is today with his admiral career and work. From an early age he describes his fascination with role playing games, video games and comic books engaging his younger self into pop culture. He thoroughly enjoyed reading interactive fantasy books that included an immersive narrative that branched out across the pages and frames as it was read. He explained that from there he felt a strong desire and appeal to the alternate realities of the fantasy world. In his teenage years came the rise in independent comic books which he informed us of, these independent companies where using their platform to exploit social justice with issues concerning race, gender and sexuality through their fictional worlds and characters. Individuals reading this were then able to read and see these problems and gather a deeper understanding with something they can relate to. He described this as being an invitation for escapism from the real world introducing a gateway for young adults in particular and children. Regarding his interest in creating video games as well as playing them he informed us of an online game called ‘Asherons Call’ which was released in 1999, but it has its servers shut down in the year 2017. The game prior to its sudden departure created a community for many players forming online relationships with individuals across this fictional tale online. Keeping this in mind when the servers did go down dedicated and passionate players were left devastated collectively grieving this alternate life they lived and engaged with so frequently for so long. This aspect of grief inspired Blandy to create an installation piece in which its created environment resembled a planetarium featuring a chair and a voice over expressing both real and virtual grief. I can imagine the tone within this space as being an isolated one with a longing feeling of sadness and neglect, but for it also to be somewhat comforting for many.
The game David Blandy created in a collaborative process is called The World After. It is a fictional tale set 8000 years into the future after what he describes as a climate catalyst where humans have evolved conveying a real sense of sci-fi and fantasy to this almost apocalyptic future reality, based on the possibility of the environment and climate suffering for what mankind has made it endure. The artwork was commissioned by Focal Point Gallery and consisted of a game, film and installation piece. The World After fictional world creates a narrative of change, encouraging through its characters a fight for change in which the players have to experience and can substitute its scenarios to real life issues they may be faced with or experiencing. Blandy revealed that the inspiration for the atmosphere of the game came from an abandoned oil research facility on Canvey Island in Essex. He felt drawn to the juxtaposition of man and nature from the abandonment, the industrialisation of the place merging with the natural surroundings creating this otherworldly tone to it. The place is from the 1970’s and was left to wither alone due to the oil crash until it was rediscovered almost forty years later as a place of interest. A word he uses to describe the area is bio-diverse, he explained that the place featured organisms all over ranging in types completely overrun by nature. Experiencing this place and really engaging with its environment Blandy recognised it as being a metaphor for what could happen, a potential future from the damage the human race has done to the world's climate and environment. So with this idea came the influence for the tone of the game, he based his fantasy narrative on scientific research leading to the creation of a diverse range of characters and societies. A timeline was produced as well as varying clans within the fictional societies that were diverse in their ideologies, race, gender, and sexuality but all shared one thing, they were all confronting a reality of the surface world sharing the enemy of The Cryorg.
I found the development of this game and process behind it really fascinating, I myself enjoy reading sci-fi and fantasy, collecting a lot of comic books and playing video games so I understand for his perspective the dedication and passion for such a thing. He was asked by a student about the possibility of introducing the game to virtual reality, to which he replied that he is in fact open to the idea and intrigued by it. Describing it as potentially having an intense making process but he can visualise approaching this. Another question was what he enjoyed the most about the experience. To which he stated that it was the connections he made, going on to talk about how making and playing games is his passion so to be able to share that with others enabled him to connect with a lot of people. He ran gaming sessions through a discord server and met people through there enhancing the connection with shared admiration, the community surrounding the passion is what he adores the most. This lecture was certainly different to others I have experienced in the first semester but despite the difference I really found it interesting to have a guest discuss a different type of artwork and mindset. It is nice to not have a repetitive format of guest lectures every Wednesday. The only aspect I didn't enjoy that much was the sparseness of the content. This may have been purely accidental but I felt as though the session was quite quick, I felt that me and others didn't really get that opportunity to engage with him and his games. I would have really enjoyed more confidence from him with his encouragement to interact and ask questions, I really would have appreciated more information as well about his career and creations but other than that it was a nice change of pace and intriguing. Although I enjoy video games I can see myself relating this artist to future work regarding digital artwork as that is not really my preference, however I do on the other hand enjoy comic books and that illustrative side of creating characters and worlds graphically so I could relate to him perhaps in my individual work as a supporting hobby as I do enjoy drawing graphic novel art and drawing in my own time.
