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The Artist is Absent (Patreon)

Published:
2016-07-26 13:00:16
Imported:
2026-06

Content

The finalized version of The Artist is Absent is now online. Go tell everyone you know.

Files

The Artist is Absent: Davey Wreden and The Beginner's Guide

patreon: http://patreon.com/InnuendoStudios tumblr: http://innuendostudios.tumblr.com twitter: https://twitter.com/InnuendoStudios transcript: http://innuendostudios.tumblr.com/post/147996259202/heres-a-new-video-half-an-hour-on-linguistic-and resources: SEMIOTICS A good place to start is Folding Ideas' (really old) video on signs and memes: https://youtu.be/rs0sybzUu24 Here's a paper when you wanna go more in depth: http://www.indiana.edu/~slavicgf/e103/assignments/Chandler_ch1_pt1.pdf DEATH OF THE AUTHOR I'd say the best place to start would be the essay "Greatly Exaggerated" by David Foster Wallace, but it's, sadly, not online.

Comments

gomollusk

I didn't know what to expect when the script kept growing but this was so good that I actually became very excited when you mentioned linking some further reading in your video description. Excellent work.

Aaron

Hey! When I first played Beginners Guide I was completely flummoxed at the online analysis of it. I found it all lacking, as if Game Reviewers™ realized they were facing something complex and layered and felt like pointing out that fact was doing it a service. Looking at it from the perspective of "is Coda real?" or "I dunno I think this game may be trying to SAY something" feels like monkeys looking at a black monolith and wondering if it's full of pudding.

iDragonarion

I can't believe you've made another video where, by the end, I am left thinking "how is this guy so good and how do I become him." I can see why it took you so long to write, though. Brief as the 'fundamentals' parts were, I can imagine each took quite a bit of time to research then simplify and truncate. I remember borrowing a semiotics book from the university library in college and it starting way too far of where I was. Then again, I was a science major, so what did I know. I actually had to sit here and think for a few minutes to remember what I took when I first played Beginner's Guide. I know I loved it, thought it was much more honest than Stanley, and made me feel that much closer and inspired by Wreden. At the same time, it sort of sealed for me the idea that people who make things on the internet may seem approachable, but they really should be given the same space I'd naturally have between myself and, say, Al Pacino. In the end, I thought it was about the frustrations of creation, of making something and feeling it is bad, or forgetting why you started and having to reconstruct its meaning to finish or continue with it, or it being perceived as a completely different story than what I intended it to be, and so on. The idea that this is just a sample from a relatively young medium of how far compiling and decompiling a work can go freaks me out. I'm a physics major, and I've always wanted to write (and enough strangers have complemented my writing unknowingly to know that I've got _something_ going), but learning about all of this makes me feel like I could never add to what has already been done.

Michael (Holy) Pearson (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-17 06:00 For what it's worth, I didn't understand what I was supposed to take away WRT the part about "TBG," I understood what the game was doing/about, and that it was being used kind of as an example, but I am not sure how explaining how these things--that most people probably take for granted--work relates to TBG. Still I am glad to have learned something about TBG (without having to sit down with it.) I just feel like the piece was too muddy in this regard. If it's a three-legged stool, for me, one leg was sunk into some mud somewhat. My take on TBG is it's a follow-up to Stanley Parable, which is a line of arguably gimmicky titles, so the artist felt a need to do something similar to follow-up their prior success. So they chose to show the general public what it's like to mess around in level-designing software, doing things you're not supposed to. I don't mean this in a dismissive way, but one can argue that it's avoiding doing a work (of art) proper, if there is such a thing. To sell this experience, it is wrapped in layers of interpersonal mental gymnastics. Because things need gimmicks nowadays. I get it's a thriller/faux-documentary, but I don't understand what this piece is saying about the audience's relationship/duties, if any. Is there a "This is Phil Fish" parable in here? Was "Davey" similarly dissected in full view of the Internet? Or are we to applaud him, and revel in his subterfuge? I don't think it was ever properly framed. Peace out.
2016-07-27 18:13

Caoimhe Oakreef

You explained a bunch of ideas I was only passingly familiar with really well. I really loved this video thanks!

Aaron Roberto

As if this game couldn't be more meta... I posted about this game on the book face and how it made me feel (I too had a friendship rapidly go south so my reaction was similar to Ian's), and a friend who took the recommendation had an almost exactly opposite reaction.