It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us.
Charles Dickens
So that was 2019 for me. The worst of times is why I’ve not been so active in Second Life. For many months it was uncomfortable to use a keyboard for any period of time, and my head was, well, not quite with it.
The best of times were conferences, festivals, an opportunity to work on printmaking – and seeing the start of 2020! I was really unfortunate to have the problems, but I was really fortunate to have come through them so well. So my ambition in 2020 is to spend more time fully engaged in artwork, both my video art practice again, and in developing my printmaking practice.
And to finish off 2019, the highlights:
Seeing the sun set on the Rockies on my birthday as the plane descended into Denver. It never even occured to me that I would ever get selected for the competition section. This year I did, for Repeat Hikari.
The whole world is an illusion
Whatever you see outside
The mountains, the lakes, the people
They are illusions
Created by the senses of the mind together
Little Glass Men, Apache Force
So that was Supernova Digital Animation Festival, and within weeks I’d been accepted to show in Berlin. This time Future City at the Foresight Film Festival, which brings science and people together with art.
And on the way back from Berlin, I got an invitation to Histoire du Jeu: Beyond Games, an academic event in Montreal on at the same time as the combined MEGA/MIGS19 video game events, one for the public, the other for business. Once again, a different audience for my work, and at an enormous event compared to the usual academic ones. Here I was talking about a range of my video art, and how the label of machinima isconnected to games yet become disconnected from art. The presentation is online on my other website.
Outside that conference itself, the highlight was of seeing Montreal covered with snow, at about 09:30, at about -11C.
So, finally, I hope you all have a peaceful, interesting and safe 2020. And hopefully we will meet somewhere on the way!