Art for No One

My book, "How a Game Lives," is available for pre-order now. The deluxe edition- which includes prints and a vinyl album- will only be available until May 10! www.lostincult.co.uk/howagamelives

In college, there was an art exhibition on campus focused on the impermanence of art. One of the exhibits was a bowl of ashes titled "this painting was destroyed before the exhibition." Next to it was an oil painting titled "this painting will be destroyed if it is not taken by the end of the exhibition." I visited the exhibition every day, and nobody took the painting. On the last day, the painting was still there. I couldn't bear to see such craftsmanship destroyed, so I took it. Now it hangs in my bedroom, where only I can see it. Lately, I find myself looking at it and thinking "I'm the only one who ever sees this painting. Is this any different than if it were actually destroyed?"

Edited to actually close my quotation marks

Art is a form of communication. Sometimes you only want to talk to yourself.

Cannot describe how excited I am for the book. You've got me thinking a lot on the preservation of media and I'm thankful to be able to keep a part of yours now no matter what happens to this site

After Syd Barrett left Pink Floyd, he returned to his birth name Roger Barrett and spent the rest of his life in reclusion painting. The vast majority of his work was never seen by anyone but him and maybe his close family, because he destroyed most of his paintings upon finishing them. It's an incredible contrast to the exuberant displays and mainstream visibility that Pink Floyd went on to do those same years.

Sorry Jacob, but true art for noone is my 50 word docs and 4 premiere pro projects that I refuse to release because it isn't perfect yet, but refuse to work on it because I can't make it perfect yet

I'm not to the end of the video yet, but the idea of "art for no one" evokes, for me, the reality of everyone's singleplayer Minecraft worlds. An idea implied in "for no one" is "(except the creator.)" There are probably millions of beautiful, intricate, or personally meaningful things people have created in singleplayer game files, only to never touch that world again, to lose it on a broken hard drive, or at least, never made accessible to the public. I'm not fully comfortable equating Minecraft with art, but it feels analogous.

Hi, Jacob.
I paused at the time where you revealed the "twist" of the Beginners Guide, and went and finally played it.

I think it broke me. I cried at the end, with that betrayal, with that... rotten center that crumbles the whole exhibit, cried at seeing myself in Davey the narrator. Came back, finished your video, cried again.
But then again. I'm glad it exists. I'm glad City exists, even in its betrayal by the times, to a lesser extent by you. I'm glad YOU exist, and have helped me to develop my own meaning in seeing the art of games, and art in the world around me.

I'm sad. But, I guess, that's the whole point. Because the meaning of art is the meaning we put into it. The experiences we bring to the table mold and shape how we view art. It's not objective.

Sorry if this is rambling. I'm just... trying to find my own meaning, I guess. And I hope, some day, I do.

City has no scale without the person. City has no meaning without the person. City has no soul without the person. A city is a nature we made for us.

from the creator of such masterpieces as 'Fear of Depths' and 'Fear of Cold' may I present the esteemed Jacob Geller's latest perfection - 'Fear of Concrete'

This is a great essay, but I also want you to know that I was housing a giant burrito in my face for dinner when Saturn Devouring His Son popped up and I felt weirdly called out.

i've always found it interesting that the word we use for making art public is "releasing"
like a bird from it's cage, like a prisoner from their confinement we set our art free so it no longer belongs to us

While I respect any artist and their wishes for their art, I feel that being obsessed with the inaccessibility of your art is equal and opposite to the desperation for approval. I dont doubt that City is a masterpiece, but the intentional separation of it dulls it to me in concept. The indifference, though. Thats tasty as hell

Okay but "Las Vegas has more in common with the Nuclear Bombs dropped nearby than the environment it was built in" is such a hard line tho? Like wtf.

The Nazca lines are completely viewable from nearby hills. The concept that they are only visible from the air is one made up by ancient alien conspiracies - although the effort to make them properly proportioned to a perfectly down-ward view may imply that the goal is to be viewable by the heavens/stars/gods

I'll admit, my primary reaction to City's existence is pure contrarianism. "A place in the desert that I can't go? That I can't take pictures of? Says who? Can they stop me?" Just a gut reaction of opposition, before even any consideration of art- An artist can create art, can present that art to the world, but to tell the world how they can and cannot engage with that art? I don't really think that's up to them. ...That is a sort of entitlement, obviously. But we are entitled to some things, it's not always a word synonymous with 'unreasonable', and I feel like my own biases aside, there is still a line to be found there, somewhere.

What are the limits of privacy? Coda, in the Beginner's Guide, certainly seems like their privacy was violated. Prince's feels more hard to judge. And City? The idea of a thing so large it ceases to be a thing and becomes a place- CAN that even be considered private in the first place? Does anyone have that right? Heck if I know.

11 years have gone by, and yet, the concept of "Art for No One" still brings me back to 2013, when the creator one of Yume Nikki's most popular fangames at the time, LcdDem, simply vanished and told everyone not to talk about the game publicly, not to contact them, basically, to forget it existed. Same thing happens with all of their music - they deleted it off the face of the internet.
One part of me still wishes I could've told them how much LcdDem inspired me to create my own work - in fact, I might not have made my own games at all if it wasn't for LcdDem. Countless posts posing as this person have surfaced, under a veil of anonymity, indirectly claiming to be them, but it's never final. Of course, everyone has the right to anonymity. The only thing that stings is, having to feel guilty just for sharing an amazing piece of art, for mentioning it, talking about it. 11 years, and there was never any closure.
I tell myself I let go, and I wouldn't say it's a lie, but it's not completely true either. But it inevitably comes up in conversation - the way it handles colors, the atmosphere, the music, the way almost no inch of game space is wasted (except maybe the orange maze). It's at the root of why I picked RPG Maker at all, it's the first Japanese fangame I've ever played. It's the core of why I made my own fangame at all - how can I forget such beauty?

One of my friends made a painting that his art teacher called the best piece he’s ever seen. My friend painted over it completely and now hangs the completely black canvas over his door. I have still never seen the original. Only my friend and the teacher have. And no one else will. I think about this more than I should.
My friend never took a picture. And has said he forgot what the original looked like.

About the Rat King image from Plexus, I wonder if it's intended to display the violence of the action of revealing it.
It is not simply splayed along the edges. No, it was complete in the pages. The reader splays it, in an effort to reveal what is inside you splay and cut through the plexus of the art created by the artist.

I don't know who said it first. Pretty sure my grandfather was quoting someone else. He always said, "There is music that's meant to be heard. But there is also music that is meant to be played."