A couple of days of small jobs. Updating Argus a little and completing the list of videos for Wonderland, and today a full run-through of the show. The first half was 47 minutes, the second about 39, so about right (though I would prefer to remove a song from the first half). The projector loads in order of files saved to the USB (not alphabetical!), so rather than saving one at a time I delete everything and use Irfanview's batch processing to save them.
My PC worryingly locked out for the second time yesterday. I blame the rubbish, new, graphics driver from NVidia, which I only installed because Windows Update refused to update and I wondered if the ancient (but very reliable) driver was a cause. It didn't help, and now the driver crashes regularly AND I can't reinstall the old and reliable version.
I've also worked on the look of the Aspartame frame, one of the two new black frames I've been making. These two were made as tests for a new class of frame. All tests should be pushed an experimented with. I really need more places to show paintings, only I see them most of the time and they look so poor online compared to real life, unlike the awfulness of 'digital art' or 'acrylics'. Even photographers are more like artists than 'digital artists', and photographers are generally people who think of themselves as creative but lack the skill to draw or paint, like a film critic who convinces himself that he knows a lot about film and could easily make a great film, but of course doesn't and can't, vs. the film maker who proves his worth by doing. A bad film maker is obviously a better artist than the best critic. So it is with digital artists and photographers; a scribbling child (like Cy Twombly) is better.
In other news, the new, second edition of The Many Beautiful Worlds of Death has been published. I've made the eBook free so that it might get some readership.
I'm slowly releasing Sheeky's sound effects on Itch and will continue, and probably release others. I might release old games too, but how games and sound effects frustrate me. Flatspace, on Steam, gets good reviews yet Flatspace IIk, which is almost the same game in terms of controls and style, yet with more depth, much more content and many bugs fixed, gets worse reviews when it is unquestionably far better than the first game. The same with Hilt II, which has great reviews and response on Amiga, as did X-COM (UFO Enemy Unknown), and my game Taskforce is far better than Hilt II and certainly on par with X-COM, yet gets zero sales and generally a poor reception. How I hate everything to do with games. My lifetime income from 50 games and over 30 years of programming would amount to about one year of minimum wage pay, almost all from Flatspace.
But, of course, there are many positives. Programming taught me logical thought and the power of a plan executed step by step. Prometheus, SFXEngine, and Argus are amazing pieces of software which have changed my artistic output enormously. The experience also showed me the effect of a hit in the realm of creativity, and how some things which appear to be short term often work well long term. I have great sympathy with Richard O'Brien, who probably gets annoyed at each mention of The Rocky Horror Show, knowing that his newest or next (probably failed) project is the one that gets his love and attention, when the world doesn't care or rate that. Art taught me that the world can turn. From Beethoven to Bowie, all great artworks were ignored or criticised at first.
