3.2 You won't believe what this former WoW addict reveals about emergent social structures online.

Transcript

I’m relaxed. You’re in pain, but I feel.. I feel like my pain makes you more relaxed. I feel at my best when Aiden’s in pain. I feel like everyone has a little bit of that. It brings me some kind of sick joy. Don’t you think everyone has a little bit of that? What’s schadenfreude? Something like that, but it like reminds.. it’s not even that.. It reminds me, yeah. It like reminds you of how.. Totally. Not in pain you are. Yep. It’s like a constant gratefulness. Sure, it’s like.. I can just do whatever I have with my legs.

Yeah. Yeah. I’ve got a roof over my head. I got my Ikea 6 stand stool. Yeah. I’ve got it pretty good. Yeah, man, you do. I think I need a new chair. Go and sit on the chair. I don’t think I can.. Go and sit on the chair now. I want your take.. I would, but it’s too hard to get up and down right now. Aw, like.. Babe. It’s just not worth it to sit on a chair. Well, I’ll get.. I’ll push you onto it on your way out and you’ll be like, wow. How pretty was that dinner? It was beautiful. We had a Mexican food. Yeah. Aiden was feeling really bad laughing about Mexican food.

We had some jokes on South Park, so.. We made really nice tortilla to make up for it. We had the corn ones and it always reminds me of this one time, literally like 10 years ago. I was at this bar.. You know the bar right next to Enmore Theatre? Yeah. Garden Lounge or something. Yeah. Some shit like that and whatever it was called like 10 years ago. Yeah. And I went there like.. Secret Garden.

It was so bad, like so deeply upsetting that every time I have like Mexican food.. You think about that? 100%. That’s so funny. It was so sad. It was like.. Traumatic. It was like a.. You’ve been traumatized. El Paso like white tortilla and literally just like the dog shittest of dog shit like refried beans and that was it. That was like the whole thing. And I was like so upset. That’s so stupid. They were like.. No, it was just so fucking like.. We’re making it up. Killing off of these things. Sydney white, like mega Aussie

Vlad, like trying to do the cooking. That’s so funny. 10 years ago. So bad. And he was probably like the owner and the bartender. Yeah. True. True. Yeah. Like quit his corporate job and he’s like.. I like food. Yeah. I go for food like all the time. I’m always at food places. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What a fucking idiot. We hate restaurant proprietors who have not worked in the industry. It’s true. Yeah. It’s banned. Don’t go to those places. Yeah. It’s like don’t be a landlord unless you’ve been a tenant first. Exactly. Don’t be a boss unless..

Unless you’ve been stepped on by a boss. Sure. Yeah. Don’t be a pilot unless you’ve been a passenger. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like a pilot or a passenger right now? In this chair, I feel like a pilot. It looks like a pilot. But when I leave my front door, I feel like a passenger. Yeah. I’m just on a set of tracks in this deterministic experience we call life. Apparently that’s one of the things that like psychs you out about driving when you first start driving.

Like right next to the oncoming traffic. Mm-hmm. And that’s like, you know, a bit of a freak out. Yeah. Well, you wouldn’t know, would you? No. My whole life I’ve protested against driving for like environmental reasons. Ah, nope. Yes, I have. No, no. That’s not why. That’s not why. Yes, that’s why. That’s not why. I’m sorry. I won’t let you get away with that. Get away with what? You can’t just like pretend like you’re an eco, like non-driver. I don’t like push it. I’ve literally never heard you say that.

Ever. I don’t push it like in your face because I’ve never been that kind of guy. But like, let’s lay out the evidence. Okay, let’s try. Okay. Let’s lay out the evidence. I submit. Yep. Long time vegetarian and vegan. Yeah. All right. Two, avid cyclist for many years. Okay. Yeah. Three, literally a solar energy professional. Objection. Objection. You only just started doing that. And that was after you started getting interested in getting a license. So.

Before that, I was working for old people with dementia. So. I’ve pretty much always been like deeply concerned with people in the world. And that’s why I’ve been, you know, anti-driving and I’ve never learned because I just. Wow. Yeah. I don’t buy it. I just don’t buy it. You see what I mean, listener? This is why I keep things from Matt. Because he gets defensive.

Yeah. Sofa’s in now. And now we’re really podcasting. And you have a luxury style. You know, to your credit, you have not gotten up off that couch the whole time I’ve been here. No, sorry.

Completely. And now I understand. You’re so attached. Yeah. It’s like, I really, really won this sofa now, you know, like I really earned it. Doesn’t it make you scared? Like what that guy might’ve done with this couch now that you know him? Like in the past? Yeah. So it does smell very vaguely of his like crappy cologne and, and of his, like, I imagine it didn’t meet, but like his like really ugly and bratty dog.

You’re going to talk about his girlfriend. His spouse. I was like shaking your head. I did hear someone sniffling inside and I was like, oh God. I was like, don’t go there, bro. Don’t go there. I wasn’t going to go there. I saw you started shaking your head, but you thought it was funny. So.

Beep. Enough fucking catching up. All right. We’ll do that on our own time. Yeah. Fair enough. Talk about what we came here to talk about. All right. Let’s do it.

G’day. Welcome to episode two, season three. Hung up. I’m Aiden. I’m Matthew. Oh yeah. You’re trying that on, aren’t you? Trying what on? Excuse me. Matthew. That’s me. This week we’re talking about video games. And maybe someone else.

Yeah. We’ve been talking a lot about video games. We actually taped a demo episode to try and work out what we want to say. And I think we realized that like video games and the art world have a big long border. So they share something. Some things hop over the border, but some things seem never to hop over the border.

And obviously there’s other like, it’s very closely related in terms of like narrative to movies and books. And then it’s got its own special thing, which is the agency thing, which is like the big difference, I guess, that you could say it has. Because our main measure on hung up of like art, I would say that we keep coming back to is whether something moves us.

And it’s just like a really neat, like simple, like Occam’s razor type thing of saying, you know, is it good or not? You know, talking about an artwork. Yeah, totally. I think like if we haven’t seen each other in a while, that’ll often be like the nature of our chat. Like that’s like just where it will pick up from.

Like, oh, I saw this movie. I read this book. I fucking walked past this leaf. Yes. Or, you know, I dropped off this package at work. And basically the like subtext is like, and this is why it moved me kind of thing, you know? Exactly. And I think the cool thing about that is that language is kind of usually reserved for more like serious art forms.

You know, especially that. Like we wouldn’t go so far as to literally say this moved me. But it’s kind of nice to dignify video games in that way. Because it is, it’s funny. It’s an industry I think that we’re like, we know less about. I mean, all industries, all artistic industries, even us can be a bit like, you know, opaque.

Like the true workings of like theater. Fuck knows. Yeah. The dynamics there. The game that I just have been talking to you on and on and on about is Fallout. Like our whole relationship. True. You made me play it. And I liked it. Yeah. I thought it was cool. And I told you how when I was like 15, I went away on holiday and I just like kept reading about it.

Like I just got the game Fallout 3 and, you know, left it at home. And then I was like away for two weeks and I just couldn’t help myself. I was like running down to the business cafe in the crappy like three-star hotel and like Googling like whatever the fuck like was around in 2009. Like IGN Fallout lore.

And I wasn’t even that much of a nerd, which like kind of caught me by surprise. Like I’ve never been super into like fantasy or, you know, I was by far like not the nerdiest kid in my school. I don’t know where it came from. Something just grabbed me about it. But yeah, I think the one, you know, I’ve had a bunch of moments with that game over the years.

Like I kind of come in and out every couple of years. But I remember like I played it, you know, maybe last year, like I played Fallout 4, which is interesting, which is a much more like action oriented, shooter oriented. The funny thing about like Fallout 3 is that it’s and like there’s like three games in the last couple of years.

There’s like Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas and then Fallout 4. And Fallout 3 and New Vegas are like very much in the old style. They’re like, the graphics are pretty janky. The mechanics are cooked. It’s very like D&D RPG vibes. Like it’s all about like the fucking numbers that you’ve created for your computer, like for your character.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. It’s all about like percentages. And it’s not really about your like COD, fast twitch like skills. Whereas 4 is much more like that. It’s like more about like fighting monsters and being like, you know, playing a shooter. So I think, yeah, the moments that were really the most beautiful were in those older games, like particularly New Vegas.

Yeah. And something about it being kind of ugly. Yeah. Like it would make kids like, they would be grossed out by it now, I think. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. It’s like, it’s a tough thing to like, if you have like a favorite game from your childhood and you like try and show it to your friend and they never played it. It’s like, that’s the big hurdle.

You know, you know, it’s a really good game. If just they could get past that. But they’re like, it looks so ugly. Like, well, how could I? Some games kind of have this style that is a bit more lenient in terms of like, you know, even with a crappy computer, it still looks kind of nice. Yeah. So I thought it would be sick just to like start the episode with like, you know, some big moments we had with video games.

Some big like aesthetic, you know, moments of profundity. Yeah. Yeah. So I was thinking about what has moved me playing video games. And I realized that even in the most like, in some of those like really famous narrative games, like, I don’t know, like Zelda or I don’t know, games where you play a character through a story and there’s a progression and an arc.

And there’s like a whole, you know, there was like a whole writing team. And those never really got me like we’ve we were saying in our sort of research private Patreon subscriber only episode that none of these fucking writers have a fucking clue. Like, it’s just they all tend to suck even and maybe even especially on those big budget games where it’s like hyper realistic or whatever.

They spent millions of dollars on the engine and then the writing sucks. But anyway, all this is to say that when I was addicted to World of Warcraft as a teenager, I definitely, definitely had some like, like really like real feeling social moments with strangers over that.

I had this like I had a joined a guild in that game when I was like 16 or 17. What’s a guild? It’s like a it’s like a group of players on line who were like, we were all like sharing economic resources in the game and then like helping each other with things and then doing battles that were like you couldn’t do on your own.

And I like became socially close to these people through that like chat box and then eventually through like like audio, you know, microphone and like headphone chats. And yeah, it was like there was a family of people in this in this game. Like, so I mean, like there were four or five people in the guild who were related to each other and they were all playing in the same household.

And I like grew to knew them like that because they were a unit, they sort of dominated the kind of feeling of the chat. You know, it was kind of like their house and we were in it. And like I remember seeing pictures of the house somewhere. I think there was like a website, you know, like attendant to the guild.

And yeah, I remember seeing like pictures of like the dad playing it on a projector in the living room and then like the daughter playing in her room and then like mom playing, you know, like the whole family was playing. It was amazing. That’s wild. And I just felt this like strange, like that feeling of being at like a friend’s parents house where you don’t really get the customs or you don’t really fit in somehow.

And it was such an amazing, like real social, like friction in this game that’s designed to be like playing the pokies, like addictive as fuck. So it was kind of this cool thing where I had my own guy, my own like, you know, narrative through the game. But then like through this kind of like emergent social thing, I had like, you know, this strange social experience with people.

And then anyway, I think that seeing the inside of the house was one of the things that got me less interested in it. And I ended up, you know, playing more music and doing other stuff. But I was definitely hooked in that game for a while. And I had tons of those like strange social online interactions, you know. Yeah. Cool, man.

That’s awesome. It is really interesting and like, you know, rich part of like, especially online video game culture, especially like, you know, when was that? Like 10 years ago. Yeah. When it was, you know, in a different kind of cultural space. Yeah. It’s cool. It felt like an underground thing at the time. Yeah. Yeah.

Even now, I think it still can be with strangers at least. Like teenagers and their friends. That’s like, you know, everyone knows they do that. But like to go and play a video game with a stranger and like chat to them and like play with them. Yeah. I haven’t done that in ages. There is something like, yeah, that the sort of society feels creepy about that. We still do.

Like, it’s funny. And it’s an interesting point. I remember one of my, I was doing like a philosophy of science class at UCED. And one of my tutors, she was really great young. And she was telling me that they were like on the verge of trying to, or like her thesis was about video game addiction. And it was the social elements that was the thing that was like inhibiting it from getting a diagnosis, like other forms of addiction.

Right. They couldn’t like condemn it because they were like, people are having like relationships that are somewhat indistinguishable from genuine socializing. But you’re right to say that we still find it creepy. It’s like, even in like, you know, hyper internet art world scenes where like part of us is wanting to like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like online relationships, they’re exactly the same as real relationships. But like we can’t, we’re still, yeah, it’s almost feels a little bit like Baroque. How scary we can find them and how like cringey we can find them. Yeah. Until they spill out into the real world. Yeah. That’s, I like that word Baroque to use it.

And it’s like, they’re so like complex and there’s these whole, like every single one of those big, you know, budget games, especially if it’s like an online game that is by necessity, like by profit necessity, forced to be incredibly complex. Like you develop this, this user base of people who are experts and, you know, students and apprentices.

And like, it creates this whole like library of knowledge that, that they either have to build up or rely on like a website, you know, to, or make their own website or whatever, like a wiki to do. And it, yeah, something about that sort of deep, like arcane knowledge gives it that sort of, it gives that kind of like occult feeling.

Like, what are the, what are those guys doing in the woods kind of feeling like, which I think is like kind of a cool tension to have around it. You know, I don’t know. It sort of makes it a bit more tricky and juicy to me. Yeah. It’s, it’s really interesting. Cause like, yeah, we were talking about, yeah, video games can’t be, unfortunately, like the constraints make it seem that the stories can never be that good.

You know, story’s not the focus. It’s, it’s gameplay. Um, but when you take something online, like I’m thinking now about like, you know, Red Dead Redemption two was this, you know, big landmark single player game that was the most beautiful and immersive world, blah, blah, blah. And it also has an online component, you know, and in the online component, you just basically like, theoretically you could like roam around and like make these beautiful stories without the, uh, limitation of like the writers.

Because theoretically you could do something that’s closer to like, you know, being a cowboy with millions of other cowboys, but everyone just like shoots and pillages each other and turns it into like a 13 year old clusterfuck. That’s so funny. And it’s the same, like that’s rockstar. And that’s the same with like GTA, which is like, you know, the game of our lifetime.

True. Like GTA five has been on like some stupid amount of platforms. Yeah. It really is. Three console. Yeah. Three generations. Yeah. But I remember playing like, you know, being about maybe 14, 15 playing GTA and I was in like free room. This is online. And my like bent at that time as a video gamer was always to be like a baddie and was to always like cause chaos.

Like I would just like want to like screen cheat and like just be annoying. Like I’d always be the guy that’s like, Hey bro, like don’t blow up my thing. And I would blow it up. And he’d be like, why are you blowing up my thing? Anyway, so that’s, that’s all I’d ever known. Um, that impulse. And one time I remember just playing for about an hour with this guy wordlessly in GTA and we were just like cooperating.

Wow. And like, we were just like walking around and hanging out. And eventually we got like a helicopter or a car or something that was like really hard to find. Yeah. And I just like pulled out a rocket launcher and like blew up the helicopter. Yeah. And he just left. Yeah. And I was like, just sitting there, like looking at myself, like, why did I do that?

Back to your old ways. I’m like, why does everyone do that? Like, you know, in video games, it’s like nothing can be like complex or beautiful or like, that’s the thing that the maybe breaks it from social reality. Like it’s a no consequence thing. The social contract seems so much more thin. I mean, that’s like, that was one of the things about like, yeah, online anonymity that everyone’s like pissed about.

They’re like, everyone gets racist when you take away the like need to identify themselves. I don’t know. I think like, I really do think that the, that sort of like emergent social, like complexity of those online games might be one of the most like unique and like, like the best thing about video games.

Maybe, you know, it’s like the, the, the sort of the things that can happen when you have like 60 people in a room in this kind of imaginary world. Like that’s, that’s kind of what sort of strikes me as like the really profound difference that games can have, you know, from movies and books. Like it’s just, there’s no other way you can do that other than, you know, in the real physical world, which is, it’s obviously not the world of games, just to be clear.

So, um, yeah, like, hmm. You got any, yeah. Well, like it made me think of Among Us. Yeah. Obviously like you were in lockdown this year, which was a very simple human game. Totally. Little like flat graphics. Yeah. And the only, like the mechanism of the game was, you know, can you like, like detect the human patterns in these little characters?

Yeah. Can you see the like human failings and catch people out? Yeah. And it was a super social game, right? It was about like. Totally. Yeah. Voting people off. Yeah. Yeah. It’s highly social. It’s like, you gotta like suss out from the way people are behaving. Like, yeah. Yes. Or like. So cool. Also like misleading people in the chat box.

Yes. Yeah. It was Aiden. Yeah. Aiden is suss. Yeah. I thought that was a cool game. Video game writers is suss. I thought it was fun. Yeah. I thought it was fun. I got it on my phone. I played it a little bit. A couple of nights in the lockdown. And then I’ve never played it since. And it’s remained on my phone. You know what? I’m fucking delete that.

You know what? I want to talk to you about now. All right. Tell me. Like we were talking about, you were talking about like in a kind of beautiful and poetic way. It’s at the top of recently. I swear I didn’t just add that. Yeah. About like, yeah. Emergent social kind of cultures. And I was thinking of like some, it was almost like a utopian vision of like human bodies

and minds like freed from the realities of their, you know, whether it’s their bodily limitations or their economic limitations, free to be, yeah, like, you know, in a wow space, like to be like anything. Yeah. But then the next thing that came into mind is like all the displays, almost like NFT

adjacent of like status and absurdity and like microtransactions. And then I guess also, you know, cousins with that is this like concept of gamification. Yeah. Yeah. True. Those are kind of two different things. But yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So you can now like spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in video games, sometimes in a

single purchase, like, which is crazy. I feel like Grand Theft Auto just added that as well. Like you could buy like the Bugatti or whatever. And it’s like thousands of US dollars. There’s a huge like fucking hype car industry in GTA Online. Yeah. Like that’s the drops. It’s always like new cars, new cars, new cars.

Right. Right. Right. You need to be seen in the new car. That’s so funny. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve never really spent money on video games like that. Like it just always seems like the dumbest shit ever, you know, worse than an NFT somehow. Like. Yeah. Cool. I think like it’d be cool just to say some closing words on that topic just about, you

know, I like the co-option of that language and those ideas. Sure. Of the gamification. Yeah. Like I think of it in like the most like fucking grim cesspits of like middle management capitalism. Yeah. Like leaderboards where you’re pitting workers against each other.

Yeah. Like. Oh God. Yeah. Totally. You know, that kind of fucking bullshit. The like really dumb thing where it’s like in video games, they’re usually called challenges or something, but it’s like, like a productivity app and it’s like so fucking arbitrary and dumb. It’s like you fucking cleared five tasks today. You get a little golden sticker.

Like fuck off. Like it’s so condescending and I hate it. I’ve never, and it always has seemed like just like the dumbest thing ever. And I sort of, I imagine two scenarios. It’s like one person like bought out of their minds, just makes 50 blank tasks and clears them and like wins the game in air quotes. Or I think of like a really mean manager, like using that as their fucking yardstick for success.

And it’s like, I can’t complete these five today. Like, and they’re like, but you have to get your five today and it’s the end of the week. So you need like just, you know, both of those things like sicken me. Yeah. Yeah. I’m pretty suspicious, suspicious of it as a fucking, as you say, it’s never really helped me. It’s never really done anything for me.

It only seems to be like, you know, fucking tech companies can use it to fuck with me. And that’s about it. Didn’t it seem like such a clever idea 10 years ago? We were all like, wow, we’re all going to be speaking French, speaking Latin. We’re going to be fucking meditating and sleeping like amazing. We’re going to be eating exactly to the number, how many calories.

Well, just goes to show, not every idea is a good idea. It’s still the way it’s always been. You got to like sit down in a room with yourself, deeply convince yourself. That’s all you got. Totally. Fuck.

I wanted to kind of talk about like, um, the, the sort of, like we just read this essay. What was the guy’s name? I forget. It was in the LRB. Yeah. The London Review of Books. And it was written in like 2007 when video games had just overtaken, uh, books and movies as like, you know, just in an annual sort of revenue kind of sense.

It was like, they were talking about like 4.2 billion pounds or something. Today, I bet you it’s probably worth like 42 or 420 billion pounds, like globally. Anyway, it was interesting, like sort of historical piece to read, but he made, he made a really cool distinction that I thought would be cool to bring up was like the, the difference between games like Mario Kart and like Wii Tennis, which he was saying like, get at this like pure fun thing, like just pure entertainment.

He had this beautiful thing that the Japanese game designer, uh, Miyamoto, um, said he wanted like a grandparent and the grandchild to be able to enjoy the same game, which I think is super cool. And like noble and actually like quite deep and meaningful. If you ask me, um, the distinction between that type of game and then like, yeah, let’s say like, you know, Call of Duty and Splinter Cell and like World of Warcraft, what these games were now.

It’s like, it’s like, there’s objectives to complete and maybe a crappy story to follow along if you can through their horrendous writing. Um, and like, yeah, all these other sort of mediated, uh, these other layers that sort of, um, they sort of eke out the fun, like the pure fun for you, if there’s any at all in the game.

Um, do you like, do you, it seems like we both in, in general have tended towards the second cap. Like we tend to want these games that are like big, serious commitments. And it’s like a 40 hour gameplay sort of career. And, you know, you have to like, well, this guy in the, in the article was saying, it’s kind of like getting a job.

Like now you’re going to go and kill seven dragons and then you get the fucking reward. Um, yeah. Do you, do you think like, do you, do you think one of these two types is more like is better than the other or is more meaningful or something? Or is there, is there room for a moving experience in like Mario cart?

Hmm. If there’s room for a moving experience in Mario cart, like it’s to do with playing it with friends. Yeah. Like, like you’re saying with the grandparent or whatever. And it’s about getting, it’s like, you know, at that point, like we’re basically talking about like Nintendo, this dude, like you’re, for me, it seems like you’re extrapolating something.

Like any other traditional game, like non video game. You’re playing like, I don’t know, like tag or something together, but it’s just been like juiced up. But it’s essentially like in that world, it’s just a mechanism for like pure play.

And that feels like it has a very like deep rooted history, but that is not the kind of game you would play by yourself. It would be weird to do Wii bowling all by yourself, I guess. Yeah, that’s true. I’m sure people did it. People have definitely done that. The way Nintendo is marketed. And I think the most fun I’ve had with it.

I know you can, I know Mario has its, you know, galaxy or whatever. Yeah, that’s true. Really fun gameplay stuff. But actually he also, he talked about that and he was like, it’s not, you know, there’s no narrative really. Like there, there is a very bare, bare whiff of a narrative, but there’s no like writing in that, you know. It’s just mechanic. Which is kind of cool because it’s like, we know what we’re good at, you know, sparkly and fun.

Although like, say what you want about Call of Duty. It’s the game I’ve had the most fun with, like bar none. Yeah. My entire life. Yeah. Mine is also a shooter, I would say, like Battlefield 2. And like fucking, I think they stopped like running it because you had to go on to servers like in like 2000 and I don’t know, 16 or something.

But I just had endless, endless fun with it or like heaps, that thing that I was saying about emergent social things. It’s like, it’s happening, it’s happening like seven times a match, you know, and you could have dozens of matches in an evening. And just so much like pure fun, no fucking narrative, like boring, but just pure, pure fun.

There was this huge, big, like player base of people with like, you know, the normal bell curve of skill level. So it was, there was always someone to pick on and there was always someone to pick on you. And it was just like fucking fantastic fun. It was great. It’s a really good point. And I think Call of Duty is kind of, you know, unique in the sense or like any of those like big shooters like Battlefield was, especially I think Call of Duty like 4 and, you know, around that time, it really was like, had never quite reached that level of, I don’t know, like complexity before and fun.

Yeah. It was like all the mechanics. Yeah. Like that game was just, it was a real shift, right? In terms of like what they had been able to provide to players. Totally. Yeah. In terms of, but yeah, I’ve never been able to like lose myself for, you know, hours and hours and hours like I could in those games. Complete immersion, even like today with like the latest one, like, you know, that goes back to those mechanics.

But yeah, it’s really funny what you bring up about like the emergent social mechanic of like a round, like even just in one round. So you’ve got like 10 minutes, say it’s like deathmatch and your goal is to like kill the other guy as much as possible. But the Call of Duty especially, I think Battlefield’s a bit slower pace and a bit bigger maps.

But Call of Duty is usually quite small. So there’s these almost like semi or subconscious movement patterns that you’re making as you like continue to move around the map. And you can almost like say you kill someone and you keep like the thing that I love the most about those games is like keeping this like pace going.

As I like go deeper into like the enemy zone and all these parts of my brain, it’s like I can feel them. I like, okay, you know, that person was killed, you know, 30 seconds ago. They probably like have reappeared here and they’re probably coming on here. Like there’s a sense of continual like perpetual motion and you can almost sense and then you kill the guy or whatever.

And then you see their like gamer name and you’re like, you know, you’ve just like gotten into this dynamic. Like, fuck, that guy killed me four times or you can see him fucking running back. You can have libraries and nemesis. Yeah, exactly. You see him like sprinting back into the room that he thinks you’ll be in. But you’re creating these like little mini battles.

Yeah, little micro narratives. Yeah. Constantly developing and disappearing. It’s so true. And I think like one thing that we could talk about. So one thing that we sort of we should bring up from the like research app that we recorded but didn’t release was that there is definitely like that kind of like genius mastery in the design of these things.

Like you can find in a painter. Like one thing that came to mind when you were talking about that was the people that design those maps. Like there is no real world location that looks anything like that. But it feels like something you could plausibly see in the real world. Although it’s like set up for that kind of amazing like flow. Like you’re just constantly flowing through these maps.

In a real world situation, there’s just tons of dead ends. Like it would be really boring to do that, I think. Maybe it’d be interesting for one round. But the novelty would wear off and there would be all sorts of annoying like bits where you can hide where no one can see you kind of thing. I think that like is just one example of that kind of like mastery thing.

Imagine what those guys spent in terms of time and money on like making sure the map. Because that’s like the whole meat of it really is the maps. Yeah, especially those games. Like it’s, you know, it’s 10 or 20 maps and that’s what millions of people are going to be playing for like a year straight. That’s an interesting like thing.

Like just saying that like reminded me of being a kid playing Counter-Strike. And there’s the really famous map called D-Dust or Dust. Dust was like one that shipped with the game. And then D-Dust was one that like a user made, I think. But it ended up becoming like the most famous map.

And I just always remember. And it’s like it’s funny. It’s like set in the daytime. And it’s just this eternal day. And I just have this kind of feeling of like millions and millions and millions and billions of people knowing that place like it was their family childhood home, you know. And like every square inch of it lit up eternally by the same sun, you know.

It’s just this funny like meta location in thousands of people’s brain stems now. Like they know it. You could know it in like a bodily sense of the word of knowing, you know, like how you know the shape of like, you know, your own house kind of thing. Really? Yeah. And then some, dude. Yeah, sure.

As we’re talking now, it’s like, yeah, giving me like crazy flashbacks to like, yeah, Call of Duty maps. And, you know, those things are masterfully designed. And something that speaks to that too is the fact that over the lifespan, like so now that Call of Duty 4 came out, whatever, 10, 15 years ago. In the new game, you still have maps from Call of Duty 4.

Right. Because they’re that good. They’re that hard to make that they’ve been like there are games that people are like, no, it’s a new console cycle. It’s a brand new game. I’m putting my foot down. I just want to play with my friends on that map. And like it’s almost like they’ll just be like, it’s all I need. Like I’ll just do this forever. Interesting. Yeah. That is honestly how I felt when they turned the servers off for Battlefield 2.

I was like, I’m not done. I was having so much fun, you know? Yeah. And it’s funny. We’re not even that serious gamers. Like we’re casual gamers at best. We haven’t played a game in ages right now. I think though the thing, like part of that distance might also, you know, we’re older now. Yep. And we’re removed from it. We have responsibilities.

Yeah. But not even responsibilities. I don’t think like playing Modern Warfare 2 in high school was fucking fun and addictive and intense. But I don’t know if it was. And like, yeah, there are moments. There’s like a map set in like a Brazilian favela. And like, it was beautiful. But I don’t know if I would have known that.

Like, I don’t know if I would have was aware of being moved. I might have just been like fucking Xbox 360 booting noise. Yeah. So I wonder where like having some distance and like I’ve got this game at home. Yeah. You know, and I haven’t booted it in three months. Whereas, you know, if I was 16, there’s no way.

Yeah. So it’s almost it’s like, yeah, I wonder whether like, with a bit of distance, you can find, you know, it’s more easier to mine the aesthetics and the, you know, with a bit of reminiscing and nostalgia. Yeah. Because there is a lot of ugliness, I think, with video games, too, that can’t be ignored,

you know, in a way that like it can make you feel like shit. You can fuck up your day. Like you can become addicted to it. Like it is escapist as fuck. And there is a reason that we do feel culturally a bit dismissive of like the value of hardcore video gamers, because there is no denying that part of the culture.

Like, yeah, cool. We can talk about like, wow, and card and socializing and beauty. But there is also a lot of, you know, I don’t know, just like man childish sadness. Yeah. Yeah. You know, for sure. Yeah. There’s a lot of like, that feeling that rightly gives us that the heebie jeebies that like

creepy, sickly, social thing that like this thing up, you know, there are sensitive people, beautiful, sensitive people in this world who in their spare time murder 14 year olds on the internet. I have actually always like, once I got out of my like, I’m a snob and I only like artisan

cheeses. I only like Matisse and real French champagne. Matisse. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. Once I got out of that phase, I’ve taken a lot of pride into, you know, as I think everyone should. And I hope that we’re not losing that. Like the fucking, you know, it’s an old, it’s probably, when was that shit around?

Like early nineties. Like video games? No, like the high, low shit. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Give it to you. Give it to yourself, man. Yeah. You’re allowed. Yeah. You’re allowed. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just the world today, even from 10 years ago, when that guy wrote his article, I was, I was saying to you before we started taping, it’s like, there are some, some

stuff that some things that make sense, but like everything’s just so mixed up now, folks. It’s all mixed up and strange. And just none of that stuff seems to be as like, you know, like it doesn’t seem to be such a defining feature of anyone anymore. Like whether they like a certain thing or do a certain thing. Do you not think? I mean, I don’t know.

I don’t really. There are people who are like serious artists who are also like on world of Warcraft, you know? And like, who gives a fuck? Like whatever. I, I want you to be right, but I still do think that the shit this guy was saying, we’ll link the article. He was like, he was saying it’s, it’s super culturally segregated.

Like people don’t fucking give a shit about video games and people who play video games don’t go to the theater. They don’t read newspapers. You said. Yeah. They don’t read newspapers. I thought that was fine. They don’t go to the fucking art gallery. No one reads newspapers anymore today. That’s changed. People read a shitload of news, a shitload, probably more than ever. More than they play games.

Probably. Yeah. I reckon. Well, actually not. I reckon on, on a whole video games take up more like just total hours spent. Yeah. Probably more hours. Yeah. The thing is you’ve got like the teenagers reading news and like every generation up. Whereas like, you know, not that many people over like 45 play video games.

True. I mean, there are 45 year olds today who were like, like already adults when gaming was like maturing, you know? That’s true. So. I don’t know. I’m not super tapped in. I’m just going based on, you know, what I see. And I, and I do think like there’s a comment on the article where he’s like, a lot of people

won’t know what’s happening in video games, like around you. Yeah. He talks about Bioshock. Yeah. You know, this important game. And he goes, you know, it’s doing all of this and that and this. And that’s a game that’s like critically acclaimed and gamers love it. And he’s like, none of my friends know what it is. And to be honest, like how many people do you know that know what Bioshock is?

I do know a lot of people that know what that is, but I have a weird friend group. Like they know what Bioshock is. Yeah, for sure. Who knows what Bioshock is? Like you want to just name drop? Like Griffin knows what it is. Glenn knows what it is. Ella probably doesn’t know what it is. Glenn knows what Bioshock is. Yeah, for sure. Does Glenn play video games? He has played video games. He’s borrowing Angel Switch right now, actually.

We’re keeping you up to date on the list. I don’t know. Like whatever. Okay. What if you went like one generation up, like a little bit older? Yeah. Okay. Like Nat probably would know. And then like, yeah, that generation is getting a little bit shakier.

Yeah. Yeah. Look, it’s saying it’s subcultural. It’s like almost countercultural and it’s creepy. And like there is definitely a perception that gamers are nerds and nerds are bad. Right. Like. Okay. I almost want to go like full James Baldwin quote. Okay. Where he’s like, you know, something’s fucked up in your society when it’s not producing poets.

Yeah. Something even worse is happening when it’s not listening to the report that only poets can give. Sub in like any artist you want. Is our like culture listening to the report that like only video games can give? Because they have like a unique thing, which is this agency.

Yeah. But I still feel that they’re not given. It’s not the kind of thing you put on the same category as. Yeah. You know, it would be a bit unusual if you sat down, party or whatever, or just for some drinks. And you’re like, I watched this amazing movie. Everyone would kind of listen and expect that. But if you were like, I played this video game and it did this and that and this.

Yeah. And I had this moment. That would still be a little bit weird, which feels old fashioned. I think until there are some really genuinely good writers in those fucking dev teams, like, I just don’t see how people can come to a party with that fucking sentence loaded up in their brain. People are moved by like the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

And that’s fine. That doesn’t count. Of course it counts. Well, I mean, it counts as art or whatever. Like, and it counts as a moving experience for sure. But like, but like everyone knows that like that’s not, you know, like the cool movie that they have to know. Black Panther? I mean, that’s, that’s a cool exception to it.

Yeah. But what I’m saying is that I don’t think video games is yet able to express what only video games can tell. I don’t think that’s true. At its best. You know, like, I think there’s so much more room for like that amazing, immersive, moving experience of some type of agency.

You know, somewhere. It can’t depend on the writing. Like, let’s circle back to like my moving video game story. And I don’t have all the details. But like, this is game Fallout. It’s like, you know, nuclear war, dystopia, post-apocalyptic thing. So they’ve got these like old fashioned terminals as their computers.

Like, you know, sexy green hacker text on like black background. And one of the ways that you can explore the game is just to walk through buildings and like read through terminals. And it’s like a super old school like role playing game mechanic. Like, you know, in Skyrim or Oblivion, you pick up books.

And in Cyberpunk, you pick up these like discs or whatever. And it’s really like, you know, for people that want to go hard, they could read a whole book of like lore in game. And there can be like lots of room for like really cool stories. Because like in those terminals, there might be like private emails. Like you’re in a new culture, like in a vault or, you know, in a community of people.

And you can read like secret emails that have been sent between like, you know, between people. Or you could never know that terminal’s ever there. Or you could not have enough like hacking skills to get into it. Or you could just like not care and you could never read it. So that’s the kind of, I think, storytelling ability that games currently do have.

Where you can combine like written text with complete agency. Like you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to. You could go hard. And I remember there was one moment where I had like gone into this place, explored, read through all of the terminals. And it was basically about the story of this like crazy CEO like descending into madness.

And he had actually like started laying traps in each of the rooms. Like as you walked into the final office, there was like a shotgun trap that you like got shot by. Or there was like grenades on the staircase. And just this abandoned place. And then so I’d come through town like, you know, out the back of like the Vegas Strip or whatever.

And I’d come like a weird way. So I’d gone through that building before coming into town. So I’d like learned about this guy and this history. And then I got into town. And so like the town experience is where the game designers expected you to go first. So then when I start talking to people, everyone’s talking like, hey, don’t go over to that tower.

Big crazy jack lived there. And I was like, oh, fuck. Cool. Like I kind of like through my own agency and exploration, like almost subverted the game. And the developers knew that was something that you could do as well because they didn’t limit you. So I don’t think like I think if we talk about agency as the defining factor of a video game and then we’re saying, oh, no, it’s the writing and the characters that has to like be the thing.

That just feels like we’re doing the like let’s emulate movies or novels. I’m like, no, let’s create the space that the player explores. And it’s always going to be gameplay. Like it’s never going to live up to the fucking Sopranos or whatever, like a book level of writing. And it just feels like are we going for the right thing by asking for that?

Yeah. Good point. Good point. I will cop to that. Like I think I agree with what you’re saying. And then it kind of like brings up to me another point that the guy had in the essay, which was like talking about how that like a lot of games, especially that type of game, have these like really annoying, like dumb feeling conventions, which to someone maybe getting into it for the first time, it feels like pointless and like needlessly difficult and like a sort of a block to having fun or something.

Do you have any examples of those? Yeah, like, yeah, heaps. Yeah, there’s like there’s heaps like, like, dude, give me a genre and I’ll give you a convention. I don’t know. What’s your like the fantasy ones? Okay, hit points. And then your hit points recharge or they don’t if it’s a hard game. Fantasy. Yeah, fucking picking up books to read the story.

Like that’s a total convention. Having statistics like you have a number out of 100 or just an uncapped number. Like it’s full of conventions. And then and then just the aesthetic is quite conventional, too. It’s like the medieval times, but there’s magic and dragons like and scary monsters. Yeah, right. So all these things that we’ve just part of the genre, like deeply baked in.

Yeah. And it’s like he quoted he quoted someone who was talking about cinema conventions. And like I was saying, like, they seem like totally arbitrary if you think about it. And like I fucking agree. Like, like there is definitely some at least with cinema. There’s some kind of like psychological basis that some of them are formed on like that famous effect where it’s like if you show a person’s face and then cut right to something happening.

It seems like they’re reacting to that. Even if in reality is the famous like little film sequence where it’s like the same person’s face. And then it cuts to all these different types of scenes, like a tragedy and then a funny thing. And like your brain sort of imbues his expression with whatever. So that kind of thing like is in video games, too.

But there’s also a lot of these conventions that just seem like like a block to that kind of revelatory moving experience. I’m proposing could be coming from video games. It’s a good point. It would be interesting to see a game that gets like, you know, Call of Duty money, but it’s just like totally unconventional.

I want to design the perfect video game like that. I don’t actually want to do this, but I want to like theoretically do it now. I’m saying like it’s it’s got like an interesting narrative that was like that has unexpected twists and turns because that’s fun. You know, it has characters who are kind of believable, but also strange. And there are no conventions like you don’t respawn.

You know, there’s no like fucking like bad guy. You don’t respawn. Yeah, you don’t respawn or something. So you don’t die. Yeah, you don’t die or like it’s really hard for you to die or something. You know, like there’s no fucking big bad guy. Maybe like Minecraft had shit like that. Yeah, sure. Like that was a good game. Actually, that was totally unconventional.

Like they definitely, I’m sure there was definitely like a builder kind of games. I mean, I played a couple of those when I was a kid, but yeah, that’s a good example of a game. And it fucking rocked the world, dude. It was like the game. It was like the casual game. It still has an absurd community. It is huge. It’s growing. Have you seen that one? It’s like, I’m sure you know about the shit, but there’s like, listener, go check this out.

There’s like Minecraft, like basically like project teams, you know, of like in the hundreds who will create like full scale replicas. So the one I saw was like a huge, like a really significant part of the Lord of the Rings, like landscape, like a whole part of the world.

And they needed like a fucking team to like delegate work and QA the fucking building blocks. Emergent social stuff. Oh my God. Talk about giving yourself like gaming as work. Yeah. Yeah. Just give a second. All right, honey. Like we’re going to get takeaway tonight. I’ve got like fucking, I’ve promised.

I promised I would complete Mordor by 8am tomorrow morning. I’m going to stay up all night. I don’t know if it’s wild, but there’s a lot of pride there as well. And it’s totally, yeah. That I think was quite moving to see like that stuff speaks to like some of the video game adjacent stuff. Yeah. Is there something a bit funny about that genre being so popular?

Like, uh, the one to many parasocial, like watch PewDiePie have mad fun, like playing a video game and be loud and be stupid. And you all million people sit there quietly and like with your arms folded or like maybe on your side in bed with your laptop and like watch this guy, like do the fun thing.

Like something in me feels a little bit suspicious of like why that’s so popular. I get that it’s like comforting and shit. Especially the one that you said where you’re like lying on your side with your laptop open in bed. That’s like, fuck, what’s going on, man? Are you okay? Are we good? That’s when you’ve had a tough day at work. Yeah.

I want to, yeah. I wanted you to say like, they’re making their like sexy Mexican feast and they’re like, they’re like, they got the laptop on in the corner in the kitchen and they’re like not even watching him, but he’s just there. Like he’s their friend. I don’t even know if that’s better. But they’re like enlightened and they’ve got their own like life to look forward to. That’s the best scenario you could, you could have to watch.

I don’t know. Our relationship with content is always going to be troubled. Sure. It just like, as we started to examine that one, I thought it was an interesting cause yeah, when you’re a kid, you didn’t want to like, you’re like, no, it’s my turn. Like now you watch me. Like I wanted people to watch me play. It’s not the other way around. Since we were at the post-grad show at NAS to tape some stuff or to see some stuff, we bumped into Billy Robinson who had a couple of really cool things to say about gaming and ceramics and shrines and pilgrimages.

So here’s our little quick chat with Billy.

I am Billy Robinson. Sometimes I go by Seville. Sometimes it’s Billy.

I’m a ceramic artist, but I generally do installation. I feel like the ceramic object, it deserves to be installed more than just pass by quickly. I’m really into tactile interventions within artworks. And my main focus is basically glaze chemistry. I’m a huge glaze nerd and I could talk to you about that for hours.

Okay. First of all, what’s this? I can see like this big sign that says souvenirs. Yeah. This is my souvenir stall. Okay. So for my post-graduate big exhibition work, I decided to make a shrine and I’ve got the stall. So it’s kind of about the economic structures that support specific sites of worship, whether that’s like a shrine or an artwork.

Right. That’s kind of how like shrines or like big ideologies proliferated their imagery is through economic means. So people would buy like pilgrim badges from sites and then they take them and then they disperse them or they give them to friends as gifts. Yeah. I love that. That was really cool. There’s a book. One of my favorite travel writers, he has a book called Souvenir.

And I heard him like talking about it and he was talking about like, I don’t know, like the politics of visiting places and buying souvenirs and how there’s kind of like a thing of like, it’s like tacky, like souvenir stores are like tacky or something. But then he was saying it’s almost like the local like economy was more appreciative of the like air quotes bad traveler who like came in, bought heaps of souvenirs and like fucked off.

Versus the like poor student who’s like taking up all the like resources but like getting on anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love the cool thing of like, yeah, there’s kind of something. No, it’s great. It’s a community thing because it’s the people who like live around the shrine or the area that get the money. But then also the identity, the icon benefits off that as well because if you’re buying something or if something is mass produced, it means it’s significant in some way.

There’s something about it that means why people want to produce it, why people want to buy it. Yeah. It’s like we were reading some like, who was it, John Berger maybe or something for an earlier episode about photography, I think. Yeah. And he had this one liner about like postcards of the Mona Lisa. Yeah. And I thought it was such an interesting, basically he was saying like now, you know, there’s millions of copies of it, but you can have it surrounded by your own things rather than you’re sort of in like you’re an alien in its world.

It can be like in your world. Yeah. Captured in some sense. It changes the meaning of the work, but it still upholds its value. Yeah. Like it’s like, why is there so many postcards of Mona Lisa available? Why is it so important? Yeah. Why is it, why do we want to buy it? Yeah. Totally. Yeah. And that’s like, and then so someone’s made that decision at some point.

Yeah. Not that that’s not a unique work in itself. Yeah. It’s kind of the commodity culture that surrounds the work. Yeah. Really like makes the value grow. Yes. Economic and transcendental. Yes. And it applies to religion, it applies to art, it applies to pretty much everything. So what were you guys saying about video games? Right.

So we were like, and we walked up to that work there and we were talking about like Matt and I slowly building this thread, maybe from like a first draft show, like eight or nine months ago. We saw friends. Yeah. Something like that. We saw like Francesca Zaks, like really sick, like drawings. And we saw them also at the corner store. And we were like, damn, there’s like this fantasy world.

Yeah. And then like recently we just got some Alvin Willey stuff and we were like, hmm, fantasy is coming up again. Fantasy is coming up again. And it feels like it’s this cool tether that we’ve like kind of mapped. Yeah. I don’t know how long it’s been going on for, but we’ve been kind of noticing it. And we walked up to your work and we were like, hey, like another kind of vibe. Yeah. Yeah. But Matt, you were kind of like, this is more of a Zelda thing.

And yeah, that’s kind of where we were up to. I love Zelda. Really? Yeah. Like huge influence. Actually, before I came, before I came to NAS, I was studying video game concept art. No way. So I’m really into world building and that’s why I kind of want to do installation and immersive things. Yeah. I love the, like, yeah, you’ve really got the beautiful, like the lighting on each shelf

of the shop. Yeah. Thank you. It’s very tacky. So good. No, yeah. It’s tacky pro. It’s like, it looks like cabaret almost. Yeah. Yeah. That kind of level of production. Yeah. It’s a spectacle of itself. Yeah. Yeah. But no, I love video games. I try to like bring in the interactive aspect of video games in my artwork because it’s like, you’ve got this digital world and how does a person put themselves inside of it?

And so you have the controller and you have like the vision and everything and the way you move through a world and you have little icons that are flashing little points of value that direct you through a certain pathway and stuff like that. That’s really interesting, but you can’t really do anything tactile in a gallery setting. Yeah. So I kind of wanted people to touch the work. Yeah. I wanted to do something where I could communicate with them.

Yeah. Totally. And then when they can take the work with them, it turns into something else. Yes. And it extends the life of the installation, which is notoriously transient. For sure. Yeah. It ends when the show ends. And also like notoriously, like you’re not allowed to touch, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s so to do. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s like, or even sometimes like parts of the artwork that the artist had intended

you, for example, to be able to walk past or walk over, people are like, I don’t want to do that. Yeah. Awesome. I’m really glad to let me do it. Yeah. That’s really cool. I love this too. It’s really cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The old school, the non-cool payment system. And it’s got a gallery, what is that, the label, label made?

It’s a brother label maker or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. It’s like, yeah, totally that, like, bringing that commerce into the space. I like it. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Totally. That’s so cool. Something that’s done behind the scenes is like, right up in there. Yeah. Yeah. I guess it like, in a really like schlocky way, it makes you realize that art and capitalism is just interconnected.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can’t really escape that. So you try and navigate it the way you can. True. Yeah. And you have to stone it by doing it really out in the open. Yeah. I love that. I’ve never seen this before. It’s sick. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I was more, more video game centered. I’d love to do some kind of putting my work into like the digital world and like navigating it that way. Yeah.

Yeah. Especially with like pathways, how someone is supposed to walk around a lot is really interesting. How they do that in an open world game is really interesting. Yeah. Right. Interesting. I can tell you’ve thought a lot about it. Oh, I just thought a lot of time. Okay. I’ve got to get a postcard before I go. Yeah. Yeah. These are so good. Thank you. Cool. Thanks very much. It was lovely to meet you, Bailey.

Me too. Okay. See you later.

One wreck. This is a new segment. Just a wreck. It can be anything. Mm-hmm. What are you wrecking? Um, I was just shown this album called Steve McQueen by a band called Prefab Sprout. I went over to my mate Griffin’s house and three young lads were all sitting around the table just nodding and singing the whole thing.

I was like, okay, fine. I will. I will check out this recommendation. And I was listening to it today and it’s very cool. It has the most amazing arrangements on it. Just like sounds and, and chord progressions and words that just, I would never have thought went together. Like, it’s just really cool. I’m still, it’s, it’s like, I’m still my first like listen of it.

So, you know, TBC. So, you know, maybe we’ll check in next week for my Steve McQueen update. No, you’ve, you’ve wrecked it. I’ve used it up. You’ve fucking put your body on the line. Okay. You got what you got. Cool. All right. It turns out to be a really shit record. True. Yeah. True. You’re a seal of approval. Okay. It’s going on the record.

And that’s going to be on the website too. True. All right. Fine. All right. I’ll, I’ll stick with it. I’m trying to decide my wreck. I don’t know. My wreck is either, uh, just Nangs. All right. Right on. Cool. I can get behind that. Swimming in rivers. My man went fucking way off this week.

All right. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. My name is Matt. I’m Aiden. And you have been listening to Hung Up. We’re on Instagram at hungup.au. And if you send us a message, we will respond to the message. Yeah. Send us a DM and also reviews, reviews on iTunes and new reviews on Spotify. They’ve just added the feature.

If you enjoyed this, give us a fucking run it up. Dude, get on Spotify. Yeah. Punch in number five, five stars. Also, what about guests? Yeah. We’re talking to, we’re, our manager is talking to several high profile managers in the local Sydney art scene.

Reach out to us. If you want to be a guest or if you know someone who would be a good guest. Yep. Just DM us hungup.au. Yep. And maybe we can chat. Yep. All right. Thanks for listening. We’ll be right back.

We’ll be right back.

Show notes

Aiden and Matt give triple A gaming a decent seeing-to: Can video games with bad scripts be moving? How many people know the layout of de_dust better than their own house? Do conventions ruin games for non-gamers?   This episode also features an interview with Billie Robertson aka @mud_grub who was minding a souvenir shop/shrine at the NAS post grad show.   LRB article: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v31/n01/john-lanchester/is-it-art