Season 1 - A retrospect

[ T H E F I R S T R E T R O S P E C T ]

Closing thoughts of Season 1

Wrriten by: Shan (Head Curator)

Published on: 01 JUN 2021, 2:10am

Looking back on this adventure...

It was a whole miracle the project managed to pull through & finish despite our insane academic schedule, this passion project is a proposal for an online show entirely self-made for internship in our final year in art school.

Due to the pandemic, it was near impossible to get placements or jobs for internship. After a while, the institution encouraged us to try our hands at self-proposed projects - remotely worked on, online/digital etc. We were desperate to clock-in hours for internship, they had informed us that it was essential we pass this module because we could not graduate without a successful internship, or internships. Well...ain't it fun?

At this point in my short stint in art school, I was becoming disillusioned with 'A R T', the all-caps all-encompassing hyperreal ideal of me doodling lines on paper. It made me question the purpose of involving with Art. It took the fun out of something intrinsically creative & free-form, it was suffocating creating in an institution that does not support their students to learn.

So, one-part rebellion, two-parts trolling & absolutely ready to give hell, this is the birth of Craftcube_Openworld.

Alright, enough backstory!

Teamwork makes the Dream work.

So, I had an idea but I was only 1 person - what on earth could I do? I was no stranger to group-work thanks to my diploma years spent in polytechnic, but this project really nailed home the importance of having a team. From the detailed planning, to the logistics, aligning everyone's schedule, prep work, the WHOLE thing - it needed every working part to co-operate and move together.

Because season 1 was for internship, which was running on top of regular curriculum, planning had to be flexible to accommodate the many changes that happened throughout the course of 4 months. And we had no prior training in the curatorial arts, in fact, the training was concurrent as the co-curator & myself had taken a curatorial elective for that semester! Learning & practicing all together at the same time, #madlads.

Getting started?

One of the first focused act made when we entered the server (realm) was to create home base. The purpose was to house our artist-players, but in hindsight it was an intuitive step of any Minecraft player - build your base. And since we're operating the entire project in Creative Mode, we thought it would hilarious to build an opulent um...modern home? No clue what this is, but it's long and loud with the blingest of blocks.

Recalling what I said to my co-curator:

I need to channel my inner Jeffree Star.

And I did, while my partner-in-crime went ahead to build a railway track from the original spawn point to home base.

I think making our first mark in the form of our blinged-out base & leading railways with monuments of texts along the way was important in setting the mood, we had the appetite for an adventure & we have the ambition to go the whole mile/length/kilometre. And as we furnished the insides of our crazy home, it reminded me of the unbridled anticipation for the next exciting venture when I was playing Minecraft with my friends all those years ago. Child-like wonderment, I truly believe it was then I finally believed in myself & the project would be a success even if we don't make it big.

For my fellow artist friends it was harder to immerse into the game. As they're a bunch who had no prior experience with gaming, or with Minecraft, it apparent that their interactions & engagement with the virtual environment differs in levels of processing mechanics, visuals, tropes etc. But it was this foreign & unnatural encounter of an environment us gamers have taken as second nature, creates works that are rich in process, the progression of getting acquainted with the medium left strokes of learning behind.

"Too strong for this dream. To tell them how to live is to prevent them from living."

- End Credits of Minecraft [to player]

In the end,

Making art in Minecraft is not a novel idea, every player of the game has been creating, involved in & contributed to art. It's the essential to enjoying Minecraft, a manifestation of the immaterial - like building your house. To play Minecraft is to play with 'Art', because the game is made to allow for creative use. And so, it's been a dream to critically engage with these two mediums, to see them colliding & becoming an exciting experience of an elevated artform. It's also been stimulating to have conversations & theorised interventions as methods against the 'system', through Minecraft. In a way, the game has become a second world or second life to exist in.

Upon 'completing' the game other-worldly beings speaking beyond the screen, directly addressing to us the players via texts rolling as end credits. They speak of our 'life' or 'adventure' as a dream, short one in Minecraft & a long dream IRL. They try to convey to us that this dream we are in is more than what we think it is, they want to comfort us when our dreams become too deep & dark, to let us know we have the power to change our dream.

So, from this dream we will wake. And the CC_OW team will be seeing faces old & new in the next short-long dream.

CraftCube_Openworld; Season 1