https://bexilsley.com Bex Ilsley Tue, 17 Jun 2025 09:46:13 +0000 https://bexilsley.com en https://bexilsley.com/I-m-Still-a-Cannibal-for-the-FBI Tue, 17 Jun 2025 09:46:13 +0000 Bex Ilsley https://bexilsley.com/I-m-Still-a-Cannibal-for-the-FBI I’m Still a Cannibal for the FBI 2025 - Development notes and research for I’m Still a Cannibal for the FBI, Bex Ilsley’s new Amiga adventure game project made with Aegis Visionary (1991). <img width="1751" height="1169" width_o="1751" height_o="1169" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/958bd2b52308f045addd629525dd4900ef011e94748a968c5c1296ae8d0b6550/img001.jpg" data-mid="234860185" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/958bd2b52308f045addd629525dd4900ef011e94748a968c5c1296ae8d0b6550/img001.jpg" /> This story begins in the mid-1990s, in a Dartford bedroom with popcorn wallpaper. I have always been a little nerd who likes adventure games. I remember spending ages playing through my dad’s Ian Livingstone books as a child and drawing felt tip pictures of winged, one-eyed monsters straight from a fantasy bestiary. My own mind, for better or worse, is my theatre and my sanctuary, and it always has been. I was a little kid, maybe 5 or 6 years old, when my dad got a secondhand Amiga. I don’t remember which kind specifically. It was set up on a mock-mahogany desk in my bedroom. I do still remember the whirr, the odd yellow-grey colour of the plastic, the clunky click of the mouse. I was too small to really know how to use it, but it fascinated me. He had a hundred or so floppy disks housed in one of these cases. The kind of thing you haven’t seen in so long, you can’t remember the last time you did - if you’re even old enough to have seen one at all. <img width="900" height="675" width_o="900" height_o="675" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d740a664f086c6bde304e5f8f626a3fc991c33f5d7f2339a006da705b480a6f2/3.5-dsktp-holder-8.jpg" data-mid="234690962" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/900/i/d740a664f086c6bde304e5f8f626a3fc991c33f5d7f2339a006da705b480a6f2/3.5-dsktp-holder-8.jpg" /> <img width="1200" height="1600" width_o="1200" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cd07dc4b07383b27aa12279eae2cb097cf14483593a2512efba7c05088645443/_57.jpg" data-mid="234690977" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/cd07dc4b07383b27aa12279eae2cb097cf14483593a2512efba7c05088645443/_57.jpg" /> I used to love the tactile sensation of flipping through these, the rhythm of the plastic, helping him pick a game. Each one had a solitary handwritten title on a generic label, so when we played, we had to choose what sounded interesting based on that alone.&nbsp; I remember particularly liking Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon. I wasn’t very good at it, because I was tiny, but I loved making parties, rolling for stats and equipping weapons. I loved imagining myself as a beautiful half-elf mage, creeping through the forest.&nbsp; I liked K240 (a thrilling fusion of space combat and ... mining logistics) and Valhalla: Before the War. These two were particularly engaging to me because they talked - as in, there were speaking voices in the games. Valhalla’s protagonist would break the fourth wall and speak directly to the player. The voices were robotic and weirdly compressed, but not unsettling. Warm, somehow. The Amiga had superior audio for its time which made real sampled speech possible thanks to its built-in Paula sound chip. Mid-1990s was perhaps a little late to be blown away by this, but these were the first games I remember seeing, a little while before we’d get a Playstation, so hearing speech was a genuine thrill for me. These things imprinted themselves permanently in my memory,&nbsp;unforgettable for my little brain, soaking up as much novelty as it could find. I loved spending time with my dad. <img width="320" height="256" width_o="320" height_o="256" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/62a84efdb3d824658e89a9018003f486e4ef390d366f9bf2492dccc4e3755406/valhalla-before-the-war_10.png" data-mid="234691023" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/320/i/62a84efdb3d824658e89a9018003f486e4ef390d366f9bf2492dccc4e3755406/valhalla-before-the-war_10.png" /> <img width="320" height="256" width_o="320" height_o="256" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fefd34f8bc3a96d660f444902ac20c877d7ba8e2d5b340672c426f2ac7eaffa8/eotb2.jpg" data-mid="234691043" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/320/i/fefd34f8bc3a96d660f444902ac20c877d7ba8e2d5b340672c426f2ac7eaffa8/eotb2.jpg" /> <img width="641" height="512" width_o="641" height_o="512" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b3a81752c7ce9c516e8c97ebf3a32e0fd08df039d51f4da3da2721279cc5899e/eotb23.jpg" data-mid="234720899" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/641/i/b3a81752c7ce9c516e8c97ebf3a32e0fd08df039d51f4da3da2721279cc5899e/eotb23.jpg" /> <img width="1200" height="960" width_o="1200" height_o="960" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ccc937915cc7a9965f09c5d3771660ebe8f04d3e50de164cee8b9afd60ddb659/k240-copy.jpg" data-mid="234720826" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ccc937915cc7a9965f09c5d3771660ebe8f04d3e50de164cee8b9afd60ddb659/k240-copy.jpg" /> One of these afternoons, I remember pulling a game from the pile with a title that absolutely nobody could resist. I begged my dad to play it with me. The best title I’d ever heard, scribbled in blue ballpoint pen: I Was a Cannibal for the FBI <img width="320" height="256" width_o="320" height_o="256" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ead36c735a89762343c31e9b8c7fb7d7ff4b28ab4f1ad198c62975296bf59773/15633116-i-was-a-cannibal-for-the-fbi-amiga-title-screen.png" data-mid="234691249" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/320/i/ead36c735a89762343c31e9b8c7fb7d7ff4b28ab4f1ad198c62975296bf59773/15633116-i-was-a-cannibal-for-the-fbi-amiga-title-screen.png" /> <img width="320" height="333" width_o="320" height_o="333" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d560b338bd5881730f443b2e71d1e667bad6b1d7a77de429ce8c69702477bd2e/3659_preview0.jpg" data-mid="234702576" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/320/i/d560b338bd5881730f443b2e71d1e667bad6b1d7a77de429ce8c69702477bd2e/3659_preview0.jpg" /> You’d be forgiven for finding the game itself underwhelming, given the title. It’s a very short puzzle game. You are an agent working for the FBI. You wake up on an island. You have a certain number of turns to figure out how to escape before the cannibals find you and boil you in a big pot. The first iteration of the game was made in the 80s. For now, let’s try our best to overlook the, er, uncomfortable colonial overtones and ‘savage native’ stuff. It was aiming for something pulpy and camp. Here is what I recall about playing this game. We spent a long, frustrated afternoon on it. For those unfamiliar with parser text adventures from this era, you’d type commands - CLIMB TREE. PUSH BOULDER. BREAK GLASS. Sometimes you’d need to figure out which specific verb the game was looking for to perform a certain task. I distinctly remember that we never managed to finish I Was a Cannibal for the FBI because we couldn't work out how to tell the game that we wanted to get into the beached canoe and leave the cannibal-ridden island, resulting in increasingly desperate back-and-forth, like so - use canoeYou cannot do that to a canoe. step into canoeYou cannot do that to a canoe. jump into canoeILLEGAL COMMAND. Years and years later, in 2022, I was thinking about this game again. The memory of it floated back into my head like a soggy log on that cursed beach. I remember tracking down the names of the games I remembered from my childhood at some point in the early 2010’s and I’d messed around with an emulator for a couple of hours, confirming they looked the same as they did in my memory, so I knew I hadn’t dreamed it up. I looked it up again. What I discovered about it was very exciting. Okay, I know that’s subjective. I happen to think it is exciting. Aegis Visionary (1991)In 2022, thanks to the Hall of Light, I found out that this silly little cannibal game was made for a reason. One I’d had no idea about. [1] Written using Aegis' adventure writing language VISIONARY. The game was a companion to THE VISIONARY PROGRAMMER'S HANDBOOK (included as an optional extra with VISIONARY or sold separately), but was nevertheless deemed freeware by author John Olsen. The source code of I WAS A CANNIBAL FOR THE FBI is available on the original game disk. Alternatively, it can be found in Appendix A of the handbook, which includes a detailed step-by-step analysis of the source code used to create the game. It was a demonstration, an example game for an authoring system. You could buy this Visionary software and manual and make your own adventure games from scratch. Cannibal was just a helpful tool for learning the language, rather than a weird standalone release. I have no idea how we missed this information at the time, since it is plastered all over the game, but memory is funny like that. <img width="706" height="555" width_o="706" height_o="555" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2625b0c5b2c5d5884bd6fdc9de2d6fdebed163baad2a2ad5ba6b1d593ee34b5a/Screenshot-2025-06-19-125613.jpg" data-mid="234758180" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/706/i/2625b0c5b2c5d5884bd6fdc9de2d6fdebed163baad2a2ad5ba6b1d593ee34b5a/Screenshot-2025-06-19-125613.jpg" /> <img width="711" height="552" width_o="711" height_o="552" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/aa71cbcfaf985ab19d30b504424b4b15ab4814e026110834bf80635f061589b0/Screenshot-2025-06-19-125744.jpg" data-mid="234758181" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/711/i/aa71cbcfaf985ab19d30b504424b4b15ab4814e026110834bf80635f061589b0/Screenshot-2025-06-19-125744.jpg" /> As soon as I learned this, I knew what I had to do. I had to go find some things on eBay. <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6d11768396f9caed685a4171aa4cbdfd0aba73e7e1e93f865e2d35d97762bae4/IMG_9441.JPG" data-mid="234721185" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6d11768396f9caed685a4171aa4cbdfd0aba73e7e1e93f865e2d35d97762bae4/IMG_9441.JPG" /> <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/231a55dafad1c2d34ba120576224277692875158d4abeba0c5cd8685afc4e32d/IMG_9442.JPG" data-mid="234721186" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/231a55dafad1c2d34ba120576224277692875158d4abeba0c5cd8685afc4e32d/IMG_9442.JPG" /> <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/04002440c92ed49ae0ea51adc08c407cff641a50d48ae065822bcdb668635ca5/IMG_9445.JPG" data-mid="234721188" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/04002440c92ed49ae0ea51adc08c407cff641a50d48ae065822bcdb668635ca5/IMG_9445.JPG" /> A history lesson Aegis Development was a pioneering software company founded in 1984, known for early contributions to graphics, music editing, and animation. Aegis had been behind tools like Sonix, Animator, and Videoscape 3D (a precursor to LightWave 3D, part of the&nbsp;Video Toaster suite). They also played a central role in establishing the ANIM file format, one of the Amiga’s lasting multimedia legacies. <img width="709" height="557" width_o="709" height_o="557" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/31fe297bf8250b0dc875eff1ccf4f617e9d2022ab68c6c8a643c3d6fa6dcdefb/Screenshot-2025-06-20-134433.jpg" data-mid="234803533" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/709/i/31fe297bf8250b0dc875eff1ccf4f617e9d2022ab68c6c8a643c3d6fa6dcdefb/Screenshot-2025-06-20-134433.jpg" /> <img width="625" height="758" width_o="625" height_o="758" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ed7383d07bac94d54412f26bb05896dd0351b2a487a8aa77d69cb515d1102946/aegis_sonix.jpg" data-mid="234722140" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/625/i/ed7383d07bac94d54412f26bb05896dd0351b2a487a8aa77d69cb515d1102946/aegis_sonix.jpg" /> <img width="703" height="554" width_o="703" height_o="554" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ddb86566d24554bbdc443dc0b9c565d7e689da5b4d09d98c1c2ac3dc5b72c3fe/Screenshot-2025-06-20-134236.jpg" data-mid="234803531" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/703/i/ddb86566d24554bbdc443dc0b9c565d7e689da5b4d09d98c1c2ac3dc5b72c3fe/Screenshot-2025-06-20-134236.jpg" /> <img width="709" height="549" width_o="709" height_o="549" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d0f2b0187a36c8edd1fe38042720dd2105d50a91528331ab02ceea98a6c7f58c/Screenshot-2025-06-20-161418.jpg" data-mid="234803534" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/709/i/d0f2b0187a36c8edd1fe38042720dd2105d50a91528331ab02ceea98a6c7f58c/Screenshot-2025-06-20-161418.jpg" /> <img width="745" height="930" width_o="745" height_o="930" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4208d2d2cc82c6db86015b67f718111e2e5be1e78c6c284bf70a8a5d8ddaad15/aegis_animator.jpg" data-mid="234722143" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/745/i/4208d2d2cc82c6db86015b67f718111e2e5be1e78c6c284bf70a8a5d8ddaad15/aegis_animator.jpg" /> <img width="701" height="541" width_o="701" height_o="541" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e533c01fa6db8d335fc13827d231a739165c679707cc088cac125f7d57087135/Screenshot-2025-06-20-161656.jpg" data-mid="234803536" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/701/i/e533c01fa6db8d335fc13827d231a739165c679707cc088cac125f7d57087135/Screenshot-2025-06-20-161656.jpg" /> <img width="750" height="908" width_o="750" height_o="908" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/45e66e9a80ffc483cc5d35abea7631c4f4f94317fda8653d5628698bb716cd5f/videoscape3d_boite.jpg" data-mid="234722141" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/750/i/45e66e9a80ffc483cc5d35abea7631c4f4f94317fda8653d5628698bb716cd5f/videoscape3d_boite.jpg" /> <img width="715" height="559" width_o="715" height_o="559" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b010b2550c2d6ddc83db65196a5d71352cdc33ad7fa0608abfb31eddb39bb3dc/Screenshot-2025-06-20-161722.jpg" data-mid="234803537" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/715/i/b010b2550c2d6ddc83db65196a5d71352cdc33ad7fa0608abfb31eddb39bb3dc/Screenshot-2025-06-20-161722.jpg" /> Over time, internal changes and market pressures mounted, competition got the better of Aegis, and so the company sold its entire catalogue to Oxxi, Inc. in 1989, and ceased operations. Oxxi, founded in 1985, was a California-based software publisher that built its business by acquiring and distributing titles created by other developers. Oxxi re-released many of the titles under the Aegis name but they also began expanding into new software, including an ambitious adventure game development toolkit: Aegis Visionary.&nbsp; Kevin Programmer Kevin Kelm had been building the foundations of Visionary since 1987. He had grown up coding on a PET and C64, but it was a university-era encounter with a UNIX version of Colossal Cave Adventure that sparked the idea that led Kevin to build T.A.C.L. (The Adventure Construction Language) - a flexible language for building adventure games more easily. I managed to track him down a couple of months ago to ask him about it. “There was an epiphany where I realized I knew how to make my own implementation work, but the idea of hard coding everything in the software was untenable, so I wrote TACL as a game development language to write games in instead.” <img width="952" height="1312" width_o="952" height_o="1312" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a0c1fbb68e90b8af4a788e8bb6fa90984ae1b9479ebf875bff1209da394a991e/6632_box0.jpg" data-mid="234722211" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/952/i/a0c1fbb68e90b8af4a788e8bb6fa90984ae1b9479ebf875bff1209da394a991e/6632_box0.jpg" /> <img width="884" height="1279" width_o="884" height_o="1279" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e198c9b3ad7a3620a23c00f4d992b8659805bb22a4a40cd1fe05651124d6355f/6632_box1.jpg" data-mid="234722212" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/884/i/e198c9b3ad7a3620a23c00f4d992b8659805bb22a4a40cd1fe05651124d6355f/6632_box1.jpg" /> <img width="943" height="697" width_o="943" height_o="697" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/13e7022d717ee0c9b847eba6b0d0fd41920e3c26ac18f847de14fb1d56f92c49/Screenshot-2025-06-18-112614.png" data-mid="234722347" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/943/i/13e7022d717ee0c9b847eba6b0d0fd41920e3c26ac18f847de14fb1d56f92c49/Screenshot-2025-06-18-112614.png" /> &nbsp; T.A.C.L. was developed by Kevin and his collaborator Rhett Rodewald under the name Alternate Realities. It was produced in 1989 through Micro Momentum - a tiny publisher based out of a garage in Connecticut. It was truly born from that era’s DIY spirit. I had fun exploring the T.A.C.L. disk and compiling the example games to try them out.&nbsp; <img width="693" height="487" width_o="693" height_o="487" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2f82b40520a2d82a150a747e7d022321aba7980f90534fe1606bdaf8b36a6c77/Screenshot-2025-06-19-111949.jpg" data-mid="234756578" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/693/i/2f82b40520a2d82a150a747e7d022321aba7980f90534fe1606bdaf8b36a6c77/Screenshot-2025-06-19-111949.jpg" /> <img width="706" height="547" width_o="706" height_o="547" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/94891af73146dd28707f12cb32da3f3d91a8e49f5d0741037abaf1e3a55f79fa/Screenshot-2026-01-22-153558.jpg" data-mid="243812273" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/706/i/94891af73146dd28707f12cb32da3f3d91a8e49f5d0741037abaf1e3a55f79fa/Screenshot-2026-01-22-153558.jpg" /> Eventually, Kevin connected with Oxxi-Aegis, who were looking to make an expanded, multimedia-rich version of T.A.C.L. for wider release. Kevin received test machines - an A500, an A2000, and others - and began working on Visionary. John Writer John Olsen came on board to help transform Visionary from a toolset into a user-friendly experience. He adapted one of his own C64 adventure games (I Was a Cannibal for the FBI) into Visionary format, adding graphics and sound, and simultaneously, he wrote The Visionary Programmer’s Handbook, a 384-page guide which walked users through the art of storytelling, design thinking, puzzle structure, and narrative craft, as well as each line of the Cannibal source code, all with warmth and clarity. <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/053fb70f0f6072845bb3d227cf027ece7727569d8de0f35b24a78b6413299371/IMG_9444.JPG" data-mid="234721187" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/053fb70f0f6072845bb3d227cf027ece7727569d8de0f35b24a78b6413299371/IMG_9444.JPG" /> <img width="845" height="617" width_o="845" height_o="617" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cf7321d3a2081ce2a2b4cfca55c3f30771cd3ac966bf988322f1f71a5eac5b1a/Screenshot-2026-02-09-091514.png" data-mid="244619473" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/845/i/cf7321d3a2081ce2a2b4cfca55c3f30771cd3ac966bf988322f1f71a5eac5b1a/Screenshot-2026-02-09-091514.png" /> “While I continued development and testing of the software,” Kevin explains, “John was there writing all the early test games and the user manual. We collaborated significantly to make everything more user-friendly… He was integral to the development process.” John had been writing and publishing text adventures since the early days of cassette magazines. He was also a middle school teacher who loved pulp serials, old horror radio plays and mystery cliffhangers. Early home computing gave him a way to turn those influences into playable stories, like ‘Frankenstein Adventure’ (1980) and ‘King Solomon’s Mines’ (1982). His games were full of treasures, crypts, jungles and graveyards - strange, haunted places full of danger and delight. In a 1994 interview, he described owning more than ten computers, including five Commodore 64s (one of which ran a bulletin board system nonstop for nine years), an Amiga 1000 and 500, and a then-new Macintosh LC-475. He couldn’t bear to part with any of them. By the early '90s, John had over 100 magazine articles and games published. <img width="800" height="510" width_o="800" height_o="510" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c3c5a225ddb219603dd23be270107d1c093d5e5449669e961d8bfd122782bdbe/cloaddec1981-1.jpg" data-mid="234806383" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/800/i/c3c5a225ddb219603dd23be270107d1c093d5e5449669e961d8bfd122782bdbe/cloaddec1981-1.jpg" /> <img width="550" height="800" width_o="550" height_o="800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e6904ccf6bdaf5eb11b47fd97fc82c5192f9dc1319311a9f4058833f3f3d9269/18463497-frankenstein-adventure-magazine-advertisement-computing-today-un.png" data-mid="234759678" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/550/i/e6904ccf6bdaf5eb11b47fd97fc82c5192f9dc1319311a9f4058833f3f3d9269/18463497-frankenstein-adventure-magazine-advertisement-computing-today-un.png" /> <img width="839" height="613" width_o="839" height_o="613" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9a5350fc255900467c768114320d075c388bb8f27e4407ee421466cb75f62a91/Screenshot-2026-02-09-092339.png" data-mid="244619679" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/839/i/9a5350fc255900467c768114320d075c388bb8f27e4407ee421466cb75f62a91/Screenshot-2026-02-09-092339.png" /> <img width="992" height="1498" width_o="992" height_o="1498" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/06e04e19f9844c3f44b8ccd0c3fe91c05f1cfbd397d14039350eb61d9787144d/7b759526-af91-48f0-96df-2e11503458e6-1.jpg" data-mid="247386639" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/992/i/06e04e19f9844c3f44b8ccd0c3fe91c05f1cfbd397d14039350eb61d9787144d/7b759526-af91-48f0-96df-2e11503458e6-1.jpg" /> <img width="2334" height="3238" width_o="2334" height_o="3238" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1f5faa0e557c245758c2767a0288808c8cbf6c4de40131f1520b30ff624ace0e/Run_Issue_04_1984_Apr.png" data-mid="243776191" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1f5faa0e557c245758c2767a0288808c8cbf6c4de40131f1520b30ff624ace0e/Run_Issue_04_1984_Apr.png" /> In late 1989, John bought a copy of T.A.C.L. and quickly wrote a trilogy of horror games with it. That enthusiasm led to his involvement in beta-testing Visionary, and later being asked to write its handbook. He wasn’t the engine underneath Visionary - that was Kevin’s - but he was the soul of it, the storyteller who showed what the tool could do for consumers. In 2025, I tried to find John. I emailed around to no avail. I sent him a letter. A real one in a black envelope with labels in Topaz font. I used Visionary syntax on the return address label. It was designed to be noticed. <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/636ae4aed7520c940c17f13c708e336d8b6a5e9748eec0924f4e95de833d5ff4/IMG_6546-1.jpeg" data-mid="234793222" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/636ae4aed7520c940c17f13c708e336d8b6a5e9748eec0924f4e95de833d5ff4/IMG_6546-1.jpeg" /> <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/73865a4f59a211baab6ae3282f5e1752f0b6721a7bec1e53d9474f98be5da8ad/IMG_6544-1-copy.jpg" data-mid="234793223" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/73865a4f59a211baab6ae3282f5e1752f0b6721a7bec1e53d9474f98be5da8ad/IMG_6544-1-copy.jpg" /> I told him about my memories and how I was thinking of using Cannibal&nbsp;for a project, and I asked for his blessing. Sadly, I never heard back. send letter to JohnYou cannot do that to a John. Maybe the address was out of date. Maybe he simply didn’t feel like replying. He’d be in his mid-seventies now. I still hope that he might see this somehow. I would love to speak with him if I could. [If anybody out there knows how to get in touch with John, please let me know!] <img width="680" height="904" width_o="680" height_o="904" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8ebcc907deef11f1a0863a8798fc40d54800844d428fbc796942d73f6156aee3/Amiga_Format_Issue_032_1992_03_Future_Publishing_GB_0017.jpg" data-mid="242704267" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/680/i/8ebcc907deef11f1a0863a8798fc40d54800844d428fbc796942d73f6156aee3/Amiga_Format_Issue_032_1992_03_Future_Publishing_GB_0017.jpg" /> <img width="5050" height="3253" width_o="5050" height_o="3253" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/635a529c4717d29917da66a6c85be312600647ca44aa4e33c3b97a4c5c1514b9/1587_misc0.jpg" data-mid="234804084" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/635a529c4717d29917da66a6c85be312600647ca44aa4e33c3b97a4c5c1514b9/1587_misc0.jpg" /> Visionary's launch was niche but ambitious, consisting of boxed software with a full printed manual and a proprietary scripting language with 70 commands. You also got:- Visionary Interactive Editor: a full-screen editor where you can type your game code out directly and access the other tools listed below. - VCode: Encrypts your image and sound files to prevent them from being extracted and modified. - VCoord: A tool to help locate the co-ordinates of specific parts of your game screen, to make it more easy to define click zones - parts of the screen where clickable objects and buttons appear. - VComp: a custom compiler that takes all your source code and compiles it into a pair of binary files, containing your game’s logic and vocabulary, which an Amiga can process. This makes your game playable in debugging mode within the Visionary Editor. - DBug: Opens your compiled game in debugging mode to check for problems. - VLink: links the files made with VComp and turns your game into a distributable version that runs without Visionary. It was a complete toolkit for building rich, narrative games on the Amiga, but it never found a mainstream audience. As Kevin puts it, “anything programming-centric is a hard sell for the general public… more than one end user was vexed at the effort necessary to make a game.” Oxxi released a few more software titles, but officially closed in 1995, following Commodore’s collapse. Visionary may not have been a hit, but it was bold and lovingly built. It feels, to me, like a fitting swan song for the Amiga’s weirder, more imaginative era. I think it’s worth remembering and preserving. I even think it’s worth resurrecting. Closing the loop When my ebay purchases arrived, the first thing I wanted to do was solve a problem so old it could be having its own mid-life crisis. get into canoe OK. It is a comfortable fit. row canoe Not while it is beached on the sand. push canoeOK.get in canoe OK. It is a comfortable fit. row canoeUsing the shovel, you row the canoe out to the freighter. You are taken aboard and enjoy your leisurely trip back to civilization and your job at the FBI. Congratulations on escaping the island! <img width="709" height="554" width_o="709" height_o="554" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cba56e5ad9a6bf88f85963f4a6a4521d550680a152d555a2d78580bc37437ce2/Screenshot-2025-06-19-130652.jpg" data-mid="234758072" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/709/i/cba56e5ad9a6bf88f85963f4a6a4521d550680a152d555a2d78580bc37437ce2/Screenshot-2025-06-19-130652.jpg" /> But it was so much more than that. It seems absurd that something like I Was a Cannibal for the FBI could have made such a lasting impression on me that I still thought about it thirty years later. Of course, games like this feel simplistic and dated now, relics from an innocent time. You really have to adjust to a slower and less dopamine-driven mode of engagement to enjoy them. I had been looking for a way to make things again, and I needed that to be slow. I’d grown weary of trying to respond in real-time to internet phenomena and social media trends. I’d been swallowed up and spat out by algorithms. I wanted to return to something that takes patience. I missed when I owned the things I paid for. I missed knowing they would work as long as I looked after them. I missed when the screen was a warm, familiar place I chose to go, instead of something nightmarish and addictive that follows me around. I know most of that fantasy is coloured by the pink sunset of nostalgia, I do - everybody’s childhood was a simpler time, because that is childhood. Nevertheless. I do think sometimes life gives you little signposts towards a good idea. It feels like that anyway. Finding out this game had a solution, and not only that - this game had a solution printed in black-and-white open source code in a book - felt like one such signpost. I had a way to reach back in time, grab my own loose-end and tie it up forever. A loop through time. I thought that could be a good concept to develop. I could get inside the game and intervene, I could fix it for my past self, add some more verbs to the parser, or alter the ending completely. I could use Visionary to tell a new story, maybe. I could ‘learn the video game equivalent of Latin’ as one friend put it. I could take something obsolete and forgotten and give it life. I could make something so retro that it’s borderline unplayable and do it with purpose. Kevin:&nbsp;“Those early days for me on the C64 and Amiga were filled with the warm thrill of discovery, of possibility, and a technology that was only barely out of my grasp at the time, at least in terms of how it actually worked. Today’s computers may as well be designed by aliens, as complicated as they are. But the endless hours of exploration and wonder in those days fills me with an indescribable warmth that I sort of suspect kids don’t get from it anymore (I could be wrong).” So that’s how I decided to make a game for the Amiga, using Visionary, in 2025. I knew I was getting myself into something big, long and probably infuriating. That was part of the charm. I’m Still a Cannibal for the FBI That’s the name of the sequel I have been working on. The first thing I did was see if I could make a small change to the existing Cannibal game. I just wanted to change the intro text, or swap one of the room images for a different one. If I could do one thing successfully, I could change the whole game eventually, right? I gathered together all of Cannibal’s source code files and its images and sounds. The first thing I noticed was that the images couldn’t be opened in software that should be able to display .iff images - and they came out all corrupted when I tried to convert them to .jpg. <img width="900" height="720" width_o="900" height_o="720" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bba1ef391ec7b55b4ef9cecbd6135c3189f4ff2e1fd1cc64ff5d9998024a49db/window.jpg" data-mid="234847307" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/900/i/bba1ef391ec7b55b4ef9cecbd6135c3189f4ff2e1fd1cc64ff5d9998024a49db/window.jpg" /> I realised this was because they’d been encoded with Visionary’s VCode utility. How this works: you run VCode from the command line interface by typing something like this:vcode image.iff password image2.iffVCode runs and produces an encoded image (that Visionary can still understand and display), saving it under the second filename.So - no matter, I thought. You define the password for your game elsewhere in your source code, so I can just use John’s password in his code - jroj - to decode them again. Right? Nope. They must have been encoded with a different password, to stop people like me from doing exactly what I was doing.** So, I had no choice but to... respect the author’s wishes and leave them alone? Or... reverse engineer VCode and figure out how it works and what it does to encode files. It took me two days. A cryptography lesson I learned that every image file was scrambled using a type of obfuscation called XOR. If we think of a file as a brick wall, it’s made up of long lines of bricks called bytes. In an IFF-ILBM image (the format used on the Amiga), the first few hundred bricks make up the header. This tells the computer things like the image’s width, height, number of colours, and how the rest of the data should be read. This first part was left untouched. Then, starting from the BODY chunk, everything was flipped using a single-byte XOR key. For John’s images, it was 0xE2.&nbsp;Hexadecimal: 0xE2 Decimal: 226 Binary: 11100010 The XOR process takes each byte (a sequence of eight binary digits - ‘bits’) and compares it to the key. Each bit is flipped (0 becomes 1, 1 becomes 0) only if the corresponding bit in the key is 1. Original byte: 00000011 XOR key: 11100010 Result:&nbsp;11100001 And so when you do this a second time, it switches everything back, like using the same key to both lock and unlock a door. It’s just enough to keep tinkerers out. For 34 years, it did. I was able to unmangle the original images, and though I won’t be using them in my sequel, it’s really useful to be able to zoom in and see exactly how they were drawn and what the global palette looks like. <img width="320" height="256" width_o="320" height_o="256" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d4dfc4520ad3102a5b80ca33dc287df372ecb786b2712699951ff1ce951bc414/window_old.png" data-mid="234811957" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/320/i/d4dfc4520ad3102a5b80ca33dc287df372ecb786b2712699951ff1ce951bc414/window_old.png" /> <img width="320" height="200" width_o="320" height_o="200" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/50c006d688b2e4c0e7793f41d2a238574439f665926f35408624f06b81a9ac7f/buttons_old.png" data-mid="234811940" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/320/i/50c006d688b2e4c0e7793f41d2a238574439f665926f35408624f06b81a9ac7f/buttons_old.png" /> <img width="228" height="119" width_o="228" height_o="119" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8da30010a3bf31c574ed9dc40bd5c7309385b74c07f43883eda87e33db771b18/loc9_decoded_E2.png" data-mid="234811949" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/228/i/8da30010a3bf31c574ed9dc40bd5c7309385b74c07f43883eda87e33db771b18/loc9_decoded_E2.png" /> <img width="228" height="119" width_o="228" height_o="119" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5c07100304092584c3f67d53eac131aee50cd6cd5795324572a75ccdcacdc063/loc13_decoded_E2.png" data-mid="234811953" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/228/i/5c07100304092584c3f67d53eac131aee50cd6cd5795324572a75ccdcacdc063/loc13_decoded_E2.png" /> <img width="226" height="119" width_o="226" height_o="119" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e309eef4879b81548566596a039b8f04dff7265b28c21b0e50ad6c862ecd31be/loc15_decoded_E2.png" data-mid="234811955" border="0" 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data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/347079e9212eb55522b31531c51b551354e94c081b7599245eb02247e2bab525/loc7_decoded_E2.png" data-mid="234811947" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/228/i/347079e9212eb55522b31531c51b551354e94c081b7599245eb02247e2bab525/loc7_decoded_E2.png" /> <img width="228" height="119" width_o="228" height_o="119" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c1ca60a4779e6b11423676790e8e7b7fe0be833f96ceeb092e9cd5c6433a491d/loc1_decoded_E2.png" data-mid="234811941" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/228/i/c1ca60a4779e6b11423676790e8e7b7fe0be833f96ceeb092e9cd5c6433a491d/loc1_decoded_E2.png" /> <img width="228" height="119" width_o="228" height_o="119" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c87461da0abbb4813cc1bbeb43c2bc934ed35398820af5ec3bb07d30e3b1921a/loc2_decoded_E2.png" data-mid="234811942" border="0" 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data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/906cda1aa1603f0410fefd562420f616a54bbd1f30e9df178658f5c23e942be8/loc5_decoded_E2.png" data-mid="234811945" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/228/i/906cda1aa1603f0410fefd562420f616a54bbd1f30e9df178658f5c23e942be8/loc5_decoded_E2.png" /> <img width="228" height="119" width_o="228" height_o="119" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c30672392270f9948877775c493b81c95aff17a39c86da2df92a916ec6d17846/loc6_decoded_E2.png" data-mid="234811946" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/228/i/c30672392270f9948877775c493b81c95aff17a39c86da2df92a916ec6d17846/loc6_decoded_E2.png" /> <img width="228" height="119" width_o="228" height_o="119" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b4aae40aee55b55cd509d63c6e4398b807f8873d8822b2f35ba9be48f49f2862/loc8_decoded_E2.png" data-mid="234811948" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/228/i/b4aae40aee55b55cd509d63c6e4398b807f8873d8822b2f35ba9be48f49f2862/loc8_decoded_E2.png" /> <img width="228" height="119" width_o="228" height_o="119" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6b7ba59532c19ffa82be72950d798b4a59bfbcc4b915effaaac1fccd957065b9/loc11_decoded_E2.png" data-mid="234811951" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/228/i/6b7ba59532c19ffa82be72950d798b4a59bfbcc4b915effaaac1fccd957065b9/loc11_decoded_E2.png" /> <img width="228" height="119" width_o="228" height_o="119" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6ed788b88104646855d894e86b5b5e510aa658a10047afa8c6510bff6c1bfb17/loc12_decoded_E2.png" data-mid="234811952" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/228/i/6ed788b88104646855d894e86b5b5e510aa658a10047afa8c6510bff6c1bfb17/loc12_decoded_E2.png" /> <img width="228" height="119" width_o="228" height_o="119" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e192c32c7a988576935b930459b20d386ddf3115253da6d8b0d118443e1a2e79/loc10_decoded_E2.png" data-mid="234811950" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/228/i/e192c32c7a988576935b930459b20d386ddf3115253da6d8b0d118443e1a2e79/loc10_decoded_E2.png" /> You might think after this little diversion, I’d be off to a running start, and you’d be dead wrong. You are on the west end of the beach I made one small tweak to the code and changed the first bit of text that pops up when you start the game. I touched nothing else. I recompiled it, and something really odd happened. I couldn’t leave the first area (west_end_of_beach). Entering a direction command to move rooms just returned me to the room I was already in, printing the room description text, like so -&nbsp; <img width="604" height="360" width_o="604" height_o="360" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1d1dc5a892348b1d6f145ad298ec4a082887bad3de8ed9682de3125cef216f69/Screenshot-2025-04-16-140138.jpg" data-mid="234805006" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/604/i/1d1dc5a892348b1d6f145ad298ec4a082887bad3de8ed9682de3125cef216f69/Screenshot-2025-04-16-140138.jpg" /> I am not sure this game wants me to close any loops. It seems to really like loops. This drove me absolutely insane. I spent days and days on it. The problem persisted, even when I compiled the game from the original, untouched source code directly from the disk. It’s what led to me to find Kevin, so I could ask him for help. I thought it was perhaps a problem caused by using emulators, but I had tried lots of different settings and approaches, and this result was the same every time. What is especially puzzling is that every single other aspect of the game works as intended. All the other commands - examine, get, dig - worked perfectly. It even behaved properly for exits that didn’t exist, for example: W You can't go West from here. Since everything else was working and the parser could recognise actions, I couldn’t put the error down to some weird encoding compatibility issue in emulation. It didn’t seem to be something that might have changed between versions of Visionary. It was bizarre. I checked the .rooms file, where the code that should make this work lives, and all seemed to be in order: room west_end_of_beachattrib started N ForcedReturn N endattrib default s sand_dunes e east_end_of_beach n unused enddefault So I thought, perhaps it’s just an issue with Cannibal. If I try to recompile a different Visionary example game (there are two more - The Magic Potion and Catacoombs), would the same thing happen again? If I tried it with even the most basic of test games, a single room linked to another, could I move? <img width="589" height="439" width_o="589" height_o="439" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b4a09c685af42c029dc338231c1261839a995619fc3596eebb35c6002ec1eeba/Screenshot-2025-04-16-140156.jpg" data-mid="234842404" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/589/i/b4a09c685af42c029dc338231c1261839a995619fc3596eebb35c6002ec1eeba/Screenshot-2025-04-16-140156.jpg" /> Aaaaaaarrrrrgh! Let’s just take a second now, to enjoy the unearthed graphics from those games though, because the digital archeology aspect of this obsession is really amusing for me. A delight to see the name&nbsp;Jim Sachs! <img width="1200" height="960" width_o="1200" height_o="960" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/92584c517b0d4a73935aa0946017a7674ad4067cd70875830f043016d0cf769f/title.png" data-mid="234842412" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/92584c517b0d4a73935aa0946017a7674ad4067cd70875830f043016d0cf769f/title.png" /> <img width="496" height="254" width_o="496" height_o="254" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/697d19a7023130ccae5e3fb9b7ff853b8baefd7090a9a483e8a055a3be8094b0/scenes.png" data-mid="234842411" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/496/i/697d19a7023130ccae5e3fb9b7ff853b8baefd7090a9a483e8a055a3be8094b0/scenes.png" /> <img width="900" height="563" width_o="900" height_o="563" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/82e0a7bdd2ad9fe46fe9bfea63be2da2fe73c9ff05f5878e2af802705d8bdcfe/buttons2-copy.png" data-mid="234842834" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/900/i/82e0a7bdd2ad9fe46fe9bfea63be2da2fe73c9ff05f5878e2af802705d8bdcfe/buttons2-copy.png" /> <img width="800" height="500" width_o="800" height_o="500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e59a532d24d644d374235ed6170104df5cea393050b0d700136a4b184f309217/about-copy.png" data-mid="234842588" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/800/i/e59a532d24d644d374235ed6170104df5cea393050b0d700136a4b184f309217/about-copy.png" /> <img width="900" height="563" width_o="900" height_o="563" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8b9de93a51e0c3085d825280bf1e5320ced85fe8dd8ed05fd09af213ac334e2c/brushes-copy.png" data-mid="234842590" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/900/i/8b9de93a51e0c3085d825280bf1e5320ced85fe8dd8ed05fd09af213ac334e2c/brushes-copy.png" /> <img width="900" height="563" width_o="900" height_o="563" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d35ec849b38934baf86c0df1f21d7d9ad57c00892e16672b8497a6789e3ba6e0/floors-copy.png" data-mid="234842591" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/900/i/d35ec849b38934baf86c0df1f21d7d9ad57c00892e16672b8497a6789e3ba6e0/floors-copy.png" /> <img width="800" height="485" width_o="800" height_o="485" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0656dbc4924781ad7dade6823a295d4ab41555e0b3a652169f71b59bd3af75b9/monster-copy.png" data-mid="234842594" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/800/i/0656dbc4924781ad7dade6823a295d4ab41555e0b3a652169f71b59bd3af75b9/monster-copy.png" /> <img width="667" height="800" width_o="667" height_o="800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/83855723e5b2a4670b56d3e72549864e374cd70e6eb28b93ac967df5a4138932/monster-2-copy.png" data-mid="234842593" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/667/i/83855723e5b2a4670b56d3e72549864e374cd70e6eb28b93ac967df5a4138932/monster-2-copy.png" /> I tried so many things. In the end, I found a hacky fix. You can add custom vocabulary to Visionary games. I added one for the word ‘warp’, which would tell the game to take me to another area. This worked. action warp go sand_dunes endact&nbsp; From there, I was still unable to move, so I knew it wasn't a problem exclusive to the initial room.&nbsp; The way I finally got it working was by adding the direction commands as custom actions in my vocabulary file, just like my test above. I had to fiddle around a bit to sort out some conditional stuff involving a ladder and a boulder, but I now have an editable game that functions as closely to the original as I could get. action e, east, go east, move east if player in west_end_of_beach then&nbsp; go east_end_of_beach elsif player in in_the_shack then&nbsp; go meadow elsif player in meadow then&nbsp; go top_of_the_cliff elsif player in by_the_boulder then&nbsp; if boulder is moved then&nbsp; &nbsp;go in_the_cave&nbsp; else&nbsp; &nbsp;$tx := "You can't go East from here."&nbsp; &nbsp;call print&nbsp; endif else&nbsp; $tx := "You can't go East from here."&nbsp; call print endifendact I really hate unsolved mysteries though (not the TV show, I LOVED that). It doesn’t make any sense to me. How could the original, untouched Cannibal source code, fresh from the disk, produce a game with broken directions? Visionary is supposed to handle this automatically. Kevin said it was ‘strangely vexing’.&nbsp; People did successfully make games with Visionary in the 90s. Michael Zerbo made quite a few (all quite scary!). I wonder if he had any of these problems. His source code isn’t public as far as I can tell. It would be useful to see that. Perhaps I’ll track him down next. Still, I really can’t see it being a bug in the compiler that nobody noticed during testing, or in the years that followed. That seems very unlikely to me. <img width="708" height="555" width_o="708" height_o="555" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8afd9fed711908e54d78a1e5359d91e558239a28bc10ed32bd2b7eeb0a2a6fa4/Screenshot-2025-06-21-212554.jpg" data-mid="234846391" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/708/i/8afd9fed711908e54d78a1e5359d91e558239a28bc10ed32bd2b7eeb0a2a6fa4/Screenshot-2025-06-21-212554.jpg" /> <img width="719" height="554" width_o="719" height_o="554" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b461898e697e63247df2f25e1d74a6d7419a88cb0c4a2c860cccdcca108a3ae0/Screenshot-2025-06-21-212714.jpg" data-mid="234846393" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/719/i/b461898e697e63247df2f25e1d74a6d7419a88cb0c4a2c860cccdcca108a3ae0/Screenshot-2025-06-21-212714.jpg" /> <img width="710" height="563" width_o="710" height_o="563" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8e9987d57b8da13c935024caf8c5b79c031a59b700901ce4d9009d71a2e8ae95/Screenshot-2025-06-21-213519.jpg" data-mid="234846395" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/710/i/8e9987d57b8da13c935024caf8c5b79c031a59b700901ce4d9009d71a2e8ae95/Screenshot-2025-06-21-213519.jpg" /> <img width="707" height="552" width_o="707" height_o="552" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/901867e6da71acf8e5de43721ad160896ab1a77532decda61fb44617cda9f3b9/Screenshot-2025-06-21-213218.jpg" data-mid="234846394" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/707/i/901867e6da71acf8e5de43721ad160896ab1a77532decda61fb44617cda9f3b9/Screenshot-2025-06-21-213218.jpg" /> The ultimate test would be to buy myself an actual working Amiga and compile Cannibal on that, the old school way, but that is a daunting, expensive job for another day.&nbsp; If you actually read all this, my sincere thanks for sticking with me! Especially through the XOR stuff. Well done! My work on I’m Still a Cannibal for the FBI continues, and I won’t say anything about the plot. I’m hoping to have it done by the end of this year. It’s relaxing knowing there’s no pressure to get it out quickly. It’s already taken me decades, in a sense. Bye for now! Bex 24/06/25: You are walking through the sand dunes (at last!) <img width="709" height="550" width_o="709" height_o="550" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/91b720c630d0548990e043b51fa1e9fd02bbdd1d3882aa8b0bfeb21e65df7638/Screenshot-2025-06-24-141530.jpg" data-mid="234970294" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/709/i/91b720c630d0548990e043b51fa1e9fd02bbdd1d3882aa8b0bfeb21e65df7638/Screenshot-2025-06-24-141530.jpg" /> Very kindly, Amiga expert Ed Brindley has solved this mystery for me. It turns out I’ve been using a corrupted version of Visionary all along. It was the only one I could find online (in here), and I didn’t want to risk spending money on a floppy drive, since there’s no way of knowing what kind of state my eBay disks are in. I don’t know where they’ve been living all these years. Probably next to a giant magnet, knowing my luck. Ed pointed me towards a different disk image, and just like that, no more broken directions. I get why it went against my instincts to assume it was something like this.&nbsp;I’d dismissed the thought that my version of Visionary might be wonky, because after all, more complex aspects of the game worked fine, surely something as simple as navigating around the map would be the last thing to break, not the first? I’ve realised now that this kind of bug doesn’t really obey logical expectations. It seems more like a scratched record where all the tracks play beautifully except that one little part that jumps, wherever that part happens to be. There’s a lesson in here about not blindly trusting a beginner’s instincts when they’re based on very little.It feels SO good to be working clean at last. Thanks Ed!! ** Another note - ‘jroj’ totally does work as the password to decode Cannibal’s images with vcode. It always bothered me that the password in John’s .adv file didn’t work on his images, because that actually shouldn’t be possible. I tried again much later and it worked just fine. I have NO idea what I was doing wrong at the start... Still, so great to know all of the time spent on these problems was ~*completely unnecessary*~! Fantastic! 08/01/2026: Kent’s ancient woes Hi! I’m still alive and I’m still working on this. It’s taking much longer than I had anticipated, although, that is more to do with my time management than it is to do with technical issues. A 2026 resolution: say no to socialising, say yes to entire weekends lit only by the screen, hyperfocusing on passion projects. It’s for my health!! 🍏 There are things going on in the background that I’m keeping secret for now, but, one little crazy surprise I wanted to share today is this.As I said before, digging and discovering the history and hearing stories from the people involved in the Cannibal game is just as important to me as (if not more than) what my sequel plays like. It’s as if the concept of doing this - the journey itself - takes some precedent over the end product, and so I still spend time researching Visionary and coming up with new ways to learn old things. This means I end up doing odd stuff, like, browsing ancient archived newsgroups at 2am when I can’t sleep. Last night, I found this.Kent Dalton, back then a young employee of NCR Microelectronics in Fort Collins, CO, wrote the following in comp.sys.amiga.programmer on 29th April, 1992.I finally got some more time to play around with Visionary. I figured my first goal would be to get the demo game that comes with it, Magic Potion, to compile. This was my first mistake. I ran into very serious problems, that lead me to believe that either the demo is bug-ridden, Visionary setup is brain dead, or Visionary does not work on 68030/OS 2.04 (in which case it is brain dead. :^). If anyone out there has gotten this to work, even if you don't have time to read the rest of this message, please at least hit the reply key and let me know that you did get it to work. (Even a terse reply like, "Worked fine on my setup running: 'CPU_Type' and OS 'OS_Version', using Visionary 'Vis_version'" would be a great help.) My setup: Visionary 1.2, AmigaOS 2.04, CPU: 68030 (A3000), running off of HD. I compiled and linked, and everything appeared ok. When I run it everything comes up and initializes properly, (I get the picture of the palm tree, I can look at objects in the room, etc, etc), BUT I can't leave the room! There is supposed to be an exit to the west to the room defined as ByShack. Visionary recognizes the fact that the direction west is available but when I try to go west leaves me by the tree and gives me the "you are standing by a large palm tree" message again! Going north, etc, gives me the standard "You can't go that way." error message. For debugging purposes, I tried to add a new room, like so: room dbug_room defaults ByTreeenddefault code$tx := "You are in the debug room"call printendcodeendroom And then I updated the directions in the startup subroutine: directions ByTree, n w And updated the ByTree room: defaultn dbug_roomw ByShacku InTreeTopenddefault Again it compiles and links fine, recognizes attempts to go north as valid actions now, but puts me back by the tree. When running in the debugger, none of the objects defined in rooms other than ByTree are accessible. The jump command to rooms other than ByTree do not work. Turning on the menu and scrollbar in MP source code (to help dbug) does not work either. The XRF file indicates that the new rooms ARE being generated,the program just won't let me visit them. Has anybody gotten this thing to work? Is Visionary, as a programming language, completely broken? Is the demo, as a demo, completely broken? or What? I wasted several hours on this last night (up til 2am, argh :-( trying to get this nutty thing to work. Any help is *greatly* appreciated. *** I mean, wow. Here is an unanswered cry for help from someone 34 years before me, experiencing what sounds like the exact same problem I had with my own tangles with Visionary in 2025. How eerily similar his written frustrations sound to my own, right down to the way he writes, the style. I could have written this. I’m not going to say it sent chills down my spine or anything, but it delighted me. It’s funny and it’s vindicating. It’s finally catching a distant signal from a ship, seeing a dot on the horizon, after being stuck on the beach for so long. The work is a kind of digital performance art now, a piece about time and loose ends.&nbsp;It also raises a question about my own conclusions above. Kent wouldn’t have been using a contemporary emulator. Kent was on his Amiga in 1992 having this problem. So, was there a bugged release that nobody reported to Oxxi? Nah. I’m not going to insult Kevin by suggesting it. More likely a corrupted version floating around since day one, bootlegged and shared from disk to disk with errors. I guess it doesn’t really matter. I’m just blown away to find evidence of one other person in this world, with the same open tab, that I can help close a half-lifetime later.Kent works for Apple now. I’ve tried to reach out to tell him I can finally respond to his old self, if he’s interested in finishing his game. Obviously that’s a joke, but still. Feels good and strange.Back to the code for now. See you again soon! 21/01/26: Digital clippings I never realised, until today, how easy it is to search the full text contents of archive.org’s treasure trove of digitised historical magazines. Every now and then I need a break from my self-inflicted screen buffer hell, so I went digging once more, and look what I found!&nbsp;Here’s a selection of articles and reviews I found related to T.A.C.L. and Visionary. There are some fantastic additions to my online scrapbook here. It was so exciting to find and read through them. I feel at home with the visual language of these old magazines. I feel I’m in good company, however outdated, finding all this evidence that other people have explored the same disks I have and published their pictures and reviews. There’s only one that is negative, from Amiga Action’s Boggit’s Domain... but as I understand it, that was The Boggit’s entire deal.* Aren’t they beautiful? I wonder how many I can find real-life copies of.&nbsp; <img width="2338" height="3228" width_o="2338" height_o="3228" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/75050e520550fc9505770c5477205e063dcde84c29fc332e57a985dae2aae39b/info_Issue_47_1992-02.info_Publications_US.png" data-mid="243776181" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/75050e520550fc9505770c5477205e063dcde84c29fc332e57a985dae2aae39b/info_Issue_47_1992-02.info_Publications_US.png" /> <img width="5751" height="4069" width_o="5751" height_o="4069" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1a3061c9452cf53bac0a458966c2c5d042531612c2931598ae875dbdd5072a1d/CUAmiga_027_May_1992-1.png" data-mid="243776183" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1a3061c9452cf53bac0a458966c2c5d042531612c2931598ae875dbdd5072a1d/CUAmiga_027_May_1992-1.png" /> <img width="2940" height="3972" width_o="2940" height_o="3972" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e1b543423c0887406369aad0378311dada02ccf8150bed1997e0409baed165db/Amiga_Computing_Issue_044_Jan_92.png" data-mid="243776185" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e1b543423c0887406369aad0378311dada02ccf8150bed1997e0409baed165db/Amiga_Computing_Issue_044_Jan_92.png" /> <img width="704" height="730" width_o="704" height_o="730" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bc11f2ce96e2f41e57424d3faed5871e70edafee01f143d639f8ced366db9dd8/Screenshot-2026-01-21-202823.png" data-mid="243776188" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/704/i/bc11f2ce96e2f41e57424d3faed5871e70edafee01f143d639f8ced366db9dd8/Screenshot-2026-01-21-202823.png" /> <img width="10732" height="7250" width_o="10732" height_o="7250" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fd0d47fd58b759f6588bb42acfa3712cb3d479a27b39fb79b3ea4167b40e9c4c/Amiga_Shopper_Issue_17_1992-09_Future_Publishing_GB_text-1.png" data-mid="243776186" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fd0d47fd58b759f6588bb42acfa3712cb3d479a27b39fb79b3ea4167b40e9c4c/Amiga_Shopper_Issue_17_1992-09_Future_Publishing_GB_text-1.png" /> <img width="2688" height="3500" width_o="2688" height_o="3500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4cc2f0e4e29018db03056dea2d1360c076ed77779743e2afcba2428559d7a4ca/Amiga-Action-28-January-1992_text.png" data-mid="243776180" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4cc2f0e4e29018db03056dea2d1360c076ed77779743e2afcba2428559d7a4ca/Amiga-Action-28-January-1992_text.png" /> <img width="4992" height="2936" width_o="4992" height_o="2936" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d7523d80b2a13c5b33230c24ec373e84db6d21093b524578fc43536a6d244301/Australian_Commodore_and_Amiga_Review_The_Volume_10_Issue_2_1993-02_Saturday_Magazine_AU_text-1.png" data-mid="243776182" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d7523d80b2a13c5b33230c24ec373e84db6d21093b524578fc43536a6d244301/Australian_Commodore_and_Amiga_Review_The_Volume_10_Issue_2_1993-02_Saturday_Magazine_AU_text-1.png" /> <img width="2823" height="4031" width_o="2823" height_o="4031" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8e8f97ab33cd973562ee6d6cd4d5df189a21748deaa16b0bda0b10144e2b088f/CUAmiga022-Dec91.png" data-mid="243791783" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8e8f97ab33cd973562ee6d6cd4d5df189a21748deaa16b0bda0b10144e2b088f/CUAmiga022-Dec91.png" /> <img width="2966" height="3008" width_o="2966" height_o="3008" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d274c7173913885d211e3cdddb27268879e9b223fd1e73b0a50cb64b2d52c7a9/Amiga_World_Vol_08_07_1992_Jul-2.png" data-mid="243776187" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d274c7173913885d211e3cdddb27268879e9b223fd1e73b0a50cb64b2d52c7a9/Amiga_World_Vol_08_07_1992_Jul-2.png" /> <img width="2309" height="3189" width_o="2309" height_o="3189" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/80dbeb72217ce0058c4bb296da055ca1113100bfc18efaf6873ceb8de7cfc787/Amazing_Computing_Vol_05_01_1990_Jan.png" data-mid="243776190" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/80dbeb72217ce0058c4bb296da055ca1113100bfc18efaf6873ceb8de7cfc787/Amazing_Computing_Vol_05_01_1990_Jan.png" /> <img width="1578" height="1143" width_o="1578" height_o="1143" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5a1766b313891c2990c867b03eebc0ef55a586210d95575b6b518c9cb8ea2311/amiga-joker-01-1993.png" data-mid="243776192" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5a1766b313891c2990c867b03eebc0ef55a586210d95575b6b518c9cb8ea2311/amiga-joker-01-1993.png" /> <img width="594" height="818" width_o="594" height_o="818" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/28ba614f536b6dbebe69f184a15e49a38ecdb11dc43d599895ed72722b70ad50/Screenshot-2026-01-21-202727.png" data-mid="243776189" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/594/i/28ba614f536b6dbebe69f184a15e49a38ecdb11dc43d599895ed72722b70ad50/Screenshot-2026-01-21-202727.png" /> *I can write whatever I want here so, I thought it was funny that the Boggit, real name Andy Mitchell, also wrote under the name Vampyra for CU Amiga. In the magazine, Vampyra was a Temu-Elvira portrayed by none other than a pre-fame&nbsp;Geri Halliwell... and of course we’ll never like her, because she stole the phrase ‘girl power’ from the best band in the world.&nbsp; Anyway... The Sorcerer’s Den This one, I did already know about, but it seems worthwhile to add these here. Enchanted Realms was a US-based, independently published magazine dedicated to Amiga adventure games, produced every two months by Chuck Miller between 1990 and 1992. John wrote a column for Enchanted Realms - The Sorcerer’s Den - which was essentially a highly condensed, serialised version of the Visionary Programmer’s Handbook. Starting in issue 8 (Sep - Oct ‘91), John shared the most essential advice he had for getting started (”Cheeseburgers just don’t belong in a dungeon adventure!”). He also answered a couple of questions from curious would-be programmers before it all came to a sudden end. Here’s Chuck Miller in his own words, lifted from mocagh.org (an amazing resource from Howard Feldman - I could not have lived without his pdf version of John’s book these last 6 months.) Enchanted Realms was a labor of love that I self-published in my apartment just before I joined the staff at the now-defunct Computer Gaming World. The publication did end abruptly (at issue #11). It was very costly to produce and while I didn’t take a loss on each issue, I only broke even. Too small of a subscriber base to keep self-publishing it and too big a gamble going through traditional magazine channels. If I had known Issue 11 was the last, I would have done a farewell edition in it. <img width="2444" height="3238" width_o="2444" height_o="3238" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c6b639443f85fc025f32b3c9cc9e34164311549b83f011da5d5564ff2a4ebc91/enchantedrealms8.png" data-mid="243779411" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c6b639443f85fc025f32b3c9cc9e34164311549b83f011da5d5564ff2a4ebc91/enchantedrealms8.png" /> <img width="2411" height="3255" width_o="2411" height_o="3255" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/179fc0cf9900f847bc36686a17adfb67787f89f01267d1df544e55632e18c5ee/enchantedrealms9.png" data-mid="243779410" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/179fc0cf9900f847bc36686a17adfb67787f89f01267d1df544e55632e18c5ee/enchantedrealms9.png" /> <img width="2382" height="3256" width_o="2382" height_o="3256" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/552d5be5962cf712c0f1c3be71aca0138df6629b7c2831a6c26ddfd39b8d6a08/enchantedrealms10.png" data-mid="243779409" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/552d5be5962cf712c0f1c3be71aca0138df6629b7c2831a6c26ddfd39b8d6a08/enchantedrealms10.png" /> <img width="2427" height="3253" width_o="2427" height_o="3253" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5b690e4ef13fe88454a99c6de619ca105789cabeac0362807a9cc88302ad63b6/enchantedrealms11.png" data-mid="243779408" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5b690e4ef13fe88454a99c6de619ca105789cabeac0362807a9cc88302ad63b6/enchantedrealms11.png" /> There’s more to come, I am sure of that. I’m determined to finish this thing. <img width="707" height="560" width_o="707" height_o="560" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c61b13f2d0b18a1d476ed18db23c1577f783b4e4d4d46e1ffb833efe82dcfca5/Screenshot-2025-06-19-123031.jpg" data-mid="234758288" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/707/i/c61b13f2d0b18a1d476ed18db23c1577f783b4e4d4d46e1ffb833efe82dcfca5/Screenshot-2025-06-19-123031.jpg" /> { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BlogPosting", "headline": "I'm Still a Cannibal for the FBI", "description": "Development notes and research for I’m Still a Cannibal for the FBI, Bex Ilsley’s new Amiga adventure game project made with Aegis Visionary (1991).", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Bex Ilsley", "url": "https://bexilsley.com" }, "url": "https://bexilsley.com/I-m-Still-a-Cannibal-for-the-FBI", "mainEntityOfPage": "https://bexilsley.com/I-m-Still-a-Cannibal-for-the-FBI" } https://bexilsley.com/Are-You-Still-Watching Sat, 07 Jun 2025 16:17:50 +0000 Bex Ilsley https://bexilsley.com/Are-You-Still-Watching Are You Still Watching? 2015 - 2020 <img width="2500" height="3534" width_o="2500" height_o="3534" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/68aba71152a23e26f1c4283babb073866c6418273c3ab62f921cff9fb8ec6555/1ti.jpg" data-mid="234290043" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/68aba71152a23e26f1c4283babb073866c6418273c3ab62f921cff9fb8ec6555/1ti.jpg" /> <img width="2500" height="3534" width_o="2500" height_o="3534" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3128ce7f71920b1f80efb3255691a3322e9b7aa73059820dd6a96c1692f2f716/2ti_1.jpg" data-mid="234290014" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3128ce7f71920b1f80efb3255691a3322e9b7aa73059820dd6a96c1692f2f716/2ti_1.jpg" /> <img width="1500" height="2124" width_o="1500" height_o="2124" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a6af6c9c0c27621d96c939871d11a6ffc19d445428eaa7e75d05964167d7d08c/CB2jas.jpg" data-mid="234290146" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a6af6c9c0c27621d96c939871d11a6ffc19d445428eaa7e75d05964167d7d08c/CB2jas.jpg" /> <img width="1500" height="2124" width_o="1500" height_o="2124" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/aec474ce78d9e9d4d90e6c17d42fc50004d3fe6454b024028766929e147cb814/CB11jas.jpg" data-mid="234290151" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/aec474ce78d9e9d4d90e6c17d42fc50004d3fe6454b024028766929e147cb814/CB11jas.jpg" /> I’ve spoken a little in my last two posts about what came next in my work. It’s a thread I followed for a long time, so this one will be about everything I did from 2015 up to the pandemic, and it’s going to be long. It’s a reflection written with the benefit of distance. It’s taken a long time to reach this point, and I want to tell it properly, so... buckle up, I guess. --- I was really into Father John Misty at the start of the 2010s. The album Fear Fun was lush, absurd and self-aware. I liked how Josh Tillman spoke in Interview magazine. For context, it’s about the idea of alter-ego and the difference between his older solo work, under the name J. Tillman, and his new Father John Misty name. It’s basically the mask quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray for the Pitchfork generation, a knowingly artificial persona that somehow made space for deeper honesty. “It’s a mask. I know that’s a loaded word for people and it implies that I’m lying, but I’m trying to be forthright about the fact that these personas give me a foil. Here’s this bizarre mask. Now I’m going to give you everything about me.” I have always felt that I live one step removed from the person I am inside my own head, like a puppeteer operating a marionette around the workplace and the supermarket and the pub. I know now that this behaviour is literally called masking, and it’s a survival tactic, one that has allowed me to fly under the radar. It’s the reason I’ve always felt like a secret agent reporting my observations back to the head office inside my brain. It’s the eye that observes the people around me and copies them. It’s the way I code-switch depending on who I’m speaking to. It’s how much I choose to let my estuary accent come through. It’s the constant inner voice that coaches me through every interaction. We have to make eye contact now. No, that’s too much. Don’t answer ‘how are you?’ honestly, remember - it’s a script, not a question. Don’t forget to ask questions back. Try to say something funny but don’t try too hard. Oh, shit, they’ve said something sad. Do the sad face. Fuck, am I doing it right? When I get it wrong, I can feel the red subtraction symbols appearing above my head like a Sim. Of course I was drawn to the idea of telling the truth through a mask - it made intuitive sense to me. As I built my ~*~Instagram identity~*~, the barricade between me and the comments and likes, it struck me that, actually, it was the most honest thing I could do. A lot was said, at the time, about the dangerous artifice of social media, but I felt it was only as fake as the construction of identity in the ‘real’ world already was. Why keep trying to be ‘myself’, when that self was only ever an echo anyway, a reactive reflection of whatever space I occupied? Why not step into the mirror and embrace the hollow flatness of objecthood? Its honesty was in its inauthenticity, because I felt like an inauthentic empty vessel all the time anyway. <img width="1000" height="1000" width_o="1000" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/690322755ed962c4418e4da2d3d184165962c7a3275d54f14678a72c048b08b3/IMG_7113.JPG" data-mid="234295112" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/690322755ed962c4418e4da2d3d184165962c7a3275d54f14678a72c048b08b3/IMG_7113.JPG" /> <img width="960" height="960" width_o="960" height_o="960" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/77b5376da9abbef54a9848380b9fb41df5845c06231ea4a5c5241d402fb5601d/SFBL9774.JPG" data-mid="234295115" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/960/i/77b5376da9abbef54a9848380b9fb41df5845c06231ea4a5c5241d402fb5601d/SFBL9774.JPG" /> <img width="922" height="922" width_o="922" height_o="922" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1fca8baf8015090c06ff3577206b5db66e76d38967c4b6ba8ddacd72cbf1b15f/CDSF0336.JPG" data-mid="234295113" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/922/i/1fca8baf8015090c06ff3577206b5db66e76d38967c4b6ba8ddacd72cbf1b15f/CDSF0336.JPG" /> One of my favourite pieces of writing on this subject - Hito Steyerl’s A Thing Like You and Me, became a core point of reference for the work I started to develop. It became about a kind of voluntary objecthood. I called it ‘responding to the predicament of being seen’. I read Baudrillard and Goffman and&nbsp;Haraway and Braidotti and more in between. I referred back to this interview with Kate Durbin and this conversation between Jesse Darling, Molly Soda and Rosemary Kirton. I chose ways to contextualise what I was doing, but I still struggled to pin down my own position. Which target was I aiming for? I do like theory and thinking about things, but often it felt a bit forced. I wanted to leave all the questions open. I didn’t necessarily want clarity of purpose. I had an inkling then that art degrees - so often seen as indulgent or unnecessary because they rarely lead to lucrative careers - are expected to justify themselves academically this way, find ways to prove it’s a valid discipline, worthy of a place in institutions increasingly biased toward STEM subjects. Learning that language was another form of masking, a way to pass. The work got questioned in relation to feminism a lot, of course it did. That was an important critical lens to view it through. It was a conversation I couldn’t detach the work from, because of who I am and the body I inhabit… but I didn’t have easy answers to questions about whether the work was feminist or not, or if auto-objectification - mimicking the Big Bad Thing - was damaging to women. I wasn’t even sure I felt like a human being. I was taking the things I had learned to use to perform personhood and making them look as uncomfortable as they had always felt. That discomfort was already in conversation with systems of gender performance in many ways, but I wasn’t trying to make a feminist stand. I was only trying to visualise the fragmentation I felt. The questions that came out of that were just signs the work provoked discussion. That felt like enough. --- 2015 The first images I made and posted to Instagram that felt like ‘pieces’ that could stand alone, instead of only working as part of a continuous feed, were the three below. Probably because this was the first time I used body paint. It didn’t feel like a picture of me. These were posted to Instagram but they also became prints, bringing them back into the physical plane. I liked to send images on a journey into the virtual and back again, flickering between presences. <img width="3365" height="3365" width_o="3365" height_o="3365" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/35ce0610f77d7e8b82f7598741f781371f389bcc47d0cf0eb3baadaff1a457a3/hmdwm_2.jpg" data-mid="234290258" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/35ce0610f77d7e8b82f7598741f781371f389bcc47d0cf0eb3baadaff1a457a3/hmdwm_2.jpg" /> <img width="3681" height="3681" width_o="3681" height_o="3681" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2c54e8cc4f579d18387f143a271d05e05924b16bd92046f8f692374da14c27c5/greeeeeeeen.jpg" data-mid="234290257" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2c54e8cc4f579d18387f143a271d05e05924b16bd92046f8f692374da14c27c5/greeeeeeeen.jpg" /> <img width="3365" height="3365" width_o="3365" height_o="3365" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e3fa9eb347f19db02a2d21740cbe35353a7d26385e87e3d2c4410ab5bbc120c2/bloo3.jpg" data-mid="234290259" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e3fa9eb347f19db02a2d21740cbe35353a7d26385e87e3d2c4410ab5bbc120c2/bloo3.jpg" /> Josh Tillman again: “Part of the problem with searching for realness, and there is some searching involved, is that you have to just end up back where you started. There’s no glory. You think you’re going to be a conquering hero or something, but you just have to be able to live with the cosmic joke that, at the end of it, you just get to be yourself.” <img width="2560" height="1440" width_o="2560" height_o="1440" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/71b060a32a9ad7d000a53a8557c315287efee412277958199c7ebf105bf02730/twisthead_2560.jpg" data-mid="234311785" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/71b060a32a9ad7d000a53a8557c315287efee412277958199c7ebf105bf02730/twisthead_2560.jpg" /> I liked exploring the idea of the ‘loop’ in relation to all this too, having previously been a very serious teenager who listened to Okkervil River and read The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I thought about circularity and return so much that I got a circle tattooed on my arm. It seemed to sum up the whole mess of life. The heaviest weight, the clumsiest shape. The stuckness of the loading-wheel between free will and fate, never quite becoming one thing or another. This thinking led to incorporating elements of repeated movement in the images, so they existed as seconds-long videos with still and moving parts - like cinemagraphs - that played on loop. I took my face and mapped it onto a Cinema 4D generated metaball to make this video, which was shown in The New Flesh at VIVO Media Arts Centre in Vancouver, part of 2015’s The Wrong Biennale. <img width="681" height="1024" width_o="681" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/04445969092297149b45316c4b9c71c6f829e44610c84c14830b210a47f13ebf/New-Flesh-20151114-56-681x1024.jpg" data-mid="234290660" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/681/i/04445969092297149b45316c4b9c71c6f829e44610c84c14830b210a47f13ebf/New-Flesh-20151114-56-681x1024.jpg" /> <img width="681" height="1024" width_o="681" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/37372d9ce916cc4d95cebe114e62ea3a1743518dd25d9107b8e7d0c7fbc6be4d/New-Flesh-20151114-81-681x1024.jpg" data-mid="234290661" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/681/i/37372d9ce916cc4d95cebe114e62ea3a1743518dd25d9107b8e7d0c7fbc6be4d/New-Flesh-20151114-81-681x1024.jpg" /> I also started to play with livestreaming around this time, all facilitated through the connections I’d made with other artists online. It’s rough, sketchy, studenty stuff, but it was a phase worth mentioning. They were erratic experiments fuelled by a deep need to stay visible. The first was an overnight live show I did from my living room in Manchester in front of a green screen curtain, where I made a sponge cake and some blob sculptures on camera. Psychedelic live backgrounds were provided by Fever Dream Interactive, and this feed was projected onto a white dome cake at an event at The Moon&nbsp;in Grand Rapids, Michigan, so I could be consumed, too. <img width="2026" height="2026" width_o="2026" height_o="2026" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/67df103306dbee1e46f882deb9cb59ef21f84c1e40560094f42107d896b7da46/IMG_0127.JPG" data-mid="234291362" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/67df103306dbee1e46f882deb9cb59ef21f84c1e40560094f42107d896b7da46/IMG_0127.JPG" /> <img width="2448" height="2448" width_o="2448" height_o="2448" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3bdc06dc29111949f6abb90c1b536949e0ccfa04fb868e440aa844e82c002bb1/IMG_0078.JPG" data-mid="234291363" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3bdc06dc29111949f6abb90c1b536949e0ccfa04fb868e440aa844e82c002bb1/IMG_0078.JPG" /> <img width="853" height="640" width_o="853" height_o="640" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/793f8689a1745e8527147c94100c77039ca9b95ab34954267a0991558a70b984/IMG_0105.JPG" data-mid="234295041" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/853/i/793f8689a1745e8527147c94100c77039ca9b95ab34954267a0991558a70b984/IMG_0105.JPG" /> <img width="720" height="720" width_o="720" height_o="720" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0585dd58f566bc9f1b4f0aa2babfac8830a03745673867f7d301bb95db90a0e0/12341639_10207494635467091_5413175358201057516_n.jpg" data-mid="234295043" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/720/i/0585dd58f566bc9f1b4f0aa2babfac8830a03745673867f7d301bb95db90a0e0/12341639_10207494635467091_5413175358201057516_n.jpg" /> <img width="387" height="284" width_o="387" height_o="284" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/739d77631950ca7b30b3ca85c92fd8b53e0adddcfe1a6f412add2665d1f135ed/Screenshot-2015-11-30-09.26.41.png" data-mid="234295042" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/387/i/739d77631950ca7b30b3ca85c92fd8b53e0adddcfe1a6f412add2665d1f135ed/Screenshot-2015-11-30-09.26.41.png" /> There was also a short-lived stint I did with a collective - ROBOTGIRL.TV, formed by internet legend Ana Voog, along with artists Raquelle Jac and Brooke Kelty. I’d applied to work with Dean Brierley of Caustic Coastal through a university programme in early 2016, and he curated a show of student work from successful applicants in a hotel room at the Manchester Britannia. ROBOTGIRL.TV streamed a Google Hangout - entitled ‘Room Service’ - &nbsp;from our respective homes to the TV in the room, and we invited people to call us on my phone. I’d been reading Theresa Senft and looking at work by people like Leah Schrager. I was thinking about erotic labour, about what camgirls do. What people do in hotel rooms. I was wearing a black dress in the bath. I didn’t yet have the tools to handle the vulnerability it demanded. I panicked immediately after, overwhelmed and humiliated in cold bathwater, ruminating all the mistakes, as if every minor stumble was a public failure, as if every misstep was The End. <img width="992" height="995" width_o="992" height_o="995" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/58c7366297d3cb4d42cb0b47d5ff91eb91b6289189fd56992ca6420f67bd9d58/DSC_0092.jpg" data-mid="234295033" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/992/i/58c7366297d3cb4d42cb0b47d5ff91eb91b6289189fd56992ca6420f67bd9d58/DSC_0092.jpg" /> <img width="600" height="338" width_o="600" height_o="338" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/78451aef486c52af58d376185497b6324171567cb7186e4aace76d7852598ade/efbilf.gif" data-mid="234294978" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/600/i/78451aef486c52af58d376185497b6324171567cb7186e4aace76d7852598ade/efbilf.gif" /> <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c7593542b2e36edcbcca781f3527682649d20338d8a44432499efedd5657f332/28430671_346551572498058_1444086541717602304_n.jpg" data-mid="234295040" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c7593542b2e36edcbcca781f3527682649d20338d8a44432499efedd5657f332/28430671_346551572498058_1444086541717602304_n.jpg" /> --- 2016I took @bexilsley to Madrid with my student loan, inspired by Juno Calypso’s body of work The Honeymoon, which I adored. I stayed overnight in the Silken Puerta America hotel and took pictures of myself on the floors designed by Zaha Hadid and Plasma Studio, wearing LED wings. I wanted to look like the past’s dream of a lonely and sterile future, some spirit left over after the mass-upload, still plugged into the hub. <img width="5000" height="3333" width_o="5000" height_o="3333" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e106c950b873e1cd6bca2aab229ce15289c12f384aae528694a73b92dd69d994/IMG_0099_o.jpg" data-mid="234290734" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e106c950b873e1cd6bca2aab229ce15289c12f384aae528694a73b92dd69d994/IMG_0099_o.jpg" /> <img width="5000" height="3333" width_o="5000" height_o="3333" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/03ee6d7199d85e622f5dba78eb40d48c90590228a9ea1887b619fae74eac585e/0A4A3943_o.jpg" data-mid="234290741" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/03ee6d7199d85e622f5dba78eb40d48c90590228a9ea1887b619fae74eac585e/0A4A3943_o.jpg" /> <img width="5000" height="3333" width_o="5000" height_o="3333" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4016497726878943bd7e8ec95e31e67be115ffa5bea4561f181b174ca346945f/0A4A4033_o.jpg" data-mid="234290742" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4016497726878943bd7e8ec95e31e67be115ffa5bea4561f181b174ca346945f/0A4A4033_o.jpg" /> <img width="5000" height="3333" width_o="5000" height_o="3333" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5cb951c265ae8a5744e2e0b958a1ac6e520a9c7c5f83288b3e51228699330df4/0A4A4135_o.jpg" data-mid="234290740" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5cb951c265ae8a5744e2e0b958a1ac6e520a9c7c5f83288b3e51228699330df4/0A4A4135_o.jpg" /> Before the end of my third year at art school, I was invited by my friend, professor Natalie Wetzel, to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to work with students at KCAD, give a talk, and collab on a video (based on an illustration from Luigi Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus)&nbsp;with Bokeh Monster and the art students there. I met Natalie through the Flaming Lips extended universe. This was such an amazing opportunity, I couldn’t believe I was being paid to do something like that when I was still a student myself. I still think back on it as one of the best weeks of my life. I remember being quizzed on arrival in the USA by a border officer about why I was travelling. He googled me during the interview and asked me what my parents thought of me being topless on the internet. I told him I didn’t care. Moments like that reminded me how thin the line between empowerment and subjugation can be. It turns out my skin was a bit thinner outside the art school bubble. It’s easy to #freethenipple when you’re just posting, when you’re among friends.With that in mind - I know most people would not happily lie around naked in front of a bunch of people, but at the time I was making this work, I felt almost entirely seperate from my body. It was just a medium. It was a ship I was piloting and the thing that was really ‘me’ was the crew of Beano Numskulls crawling around my brain. It was just... nothing to do with me. At least not in the moment. I think that’s what I did to cope with my insecurities. I just floated away from my physical self until I saw it as nothing but meat. I do remember being asked by somebody during this shoot if I’d ever thought about hitting the gym and toning up. Thanks dude, very cool. &nbsp; <img width="1024" height="683" width_o="1024" height_o="683" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c51dfbfd6d68b32f4cfabeec35cc18d17d5247ec562da4904b0fbb74bdb22fdb/160407__MG_9959-XL.jpg" data-mid="234290842" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c51dfbfd6d68b32f4cfabeec35cc18d17d5247ec562da4904b0fbb74bdb22fdb/160407__MG_9959-XL.jpg" /> <img width="1024" height="683" width_o="1024" height_o="683" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/62626a7e7061a95a0444cfdf6e63c9da05c225572e6151520eb3c271c368e053/160407__MG_9898-XL.jpg" data-mid="234295045" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/62626a7e7061a95a0444cfdf6e63c9da05c225572e6151520eb3c271c368e053/160407__MG_9898-XL.jpg" /> <img width="1024" height="683" width_o="1024" height_o="683" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7cd61d71821a041c01f724af63a3f967a7482fa1c6619bf63fc2e64a10ebb3da/160407__MG_9931-XL.jpg" data-mid="234295046" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7cd61d71821a041c01f724af63a3f967a7482fa1c6619bf63fc2e64a10ebb3da/160407__MG_9931-XL.jpg" /> <img width="1920" height="1080" width_o="1920" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5ababbeb8e8e5894207ff4a5e921495931946b75ee666a58af35fb26c6aa0dd4/codex4.jpg" data-mid="234290844" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5ababbeb8e8e5894207ff4a5e921495931946b75ee666a58af35fb26c6aa0dd4/codex4.jpg" /> <img width="1920" height="1080" width_o="1920" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/11cf08b9d60f016ea13bec9b48bfc5ad3dd6d586ed69eae0310e5e4a527f9d74/codex3.jpg" data-mid="234290845" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/11cf08b9d60f016ea13bec9b48bfc5ad3dd6d586ed69eae0310e5e4a527f9d74/codex3.jpg" /> <img width="1920" height="1080" width_o="1920" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/efe13b2b5d93ddd2dc97efe55e872b989441ac0ebf1a335c2ee8c45938866c06/codex5.jpg" data-mid="234290841" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/efe13b2b5d93ddd2dc97efe55e872b989441ac0ebf1a335c2ee8c45938866c06/codex5.jpg" /> At KCAD, I had the opportunity to have my head captured in three dimensions with an Artec Eva 3D light scanner, because Natalie liked to create busts of every visiting artist. I went home with a digital 3D copy of myself. I used Meshmixer to carve up the .obj file and turn it into a proper mask of my own face, which I then had 3D printed at MMU. I mounted it on an acrylic disc with floating hemispheres which could be hair, or ears, or something else. <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e8180cbbf84056d9f99bc811c06b95163458b6ceb0d3c364a7f479a0d99788b8/39953299_2129423513974546_8862732712570519552_n.jpg" data-mid="234295108" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e8180cbbf84056d9f99bc811c06b95163458b6ceb0d3c364a7f479a0d99788b8/39953299_2129423513974546_8862732712570519552_n.jpg" /> <img width="3024" height="3024" width_o="3024" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/da11fb95d3fac4eb565a02d2767995432ffe79359f990fe1337baf0b2889b25b/IMG_5270.JPG" data-mid="234295110" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/da11fb95d3fac4eb565a02d2767995432ffe79359f990fe1337baf0b2889b25b/IMG_5270.JPG" /> <img width="3024" height="3024" width_o="3024" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ba361812840cfad2e02ab9aaf08264a17a6dcc1075763ef5b98f464e5ea3207d/IMG_5278.jpg" data-mid="234291039" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ba361812840cfad2e02ab9aaf08264a17a6dcc1075763ef5b98f464e5ea3207d/IMG_5278.jpg" /> I used this piece for my degree show, marking the end of my time at university. I created a VR environment in Unity using the same mask file. The final piece was this virtual-reality space, viewed on a phone with a Gear VR headset, and the wall-mounted mask piece, accented by neon strip lights. <img width="1358" height="620" width_o="1358" height_o="620" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/58e78c45c55974b562b617327cdba6ad3dc925cbcd8ad1c00b6da8479ffc1309/22.png" data-mid="234295186" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/58e78c45c55974b562b617327cdba6ad3dc925cbcd8ad1c00b6da8479ffc1309/22.png" /> <img width="1363" height="627" width_o="1363" height_o="627" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/56fdfac76b0fdc5a3f136719c76efa474c025db698add1fc7d6ae546afb700e6/11.png" data-mid="234295188" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/56fdfac76b0fdc5a3f136719c76efa474c025db698add1fc7d6ae546afb700e6/11.png" /> <img width="5000" height="2813" width_o="5000" height_o="2813" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/165aa5e3f4187e221b055fd63caab772184583ba6f0cb6c79e146b627b2116b0/_1000141_o.jpg" data-mid="234295190" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/165aa5e3f4187e221b055fd63caab772184583ba6f0cb6c79e146b627b2116b0/_1000141_o.jpg" /> <img width="640" height="640" width_o="640" height_o="640" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bfcb9cabf58a4a0b60ae4ade8615ad0e56e53d3f9e0352fa01209aec15ac639d/IMG_5813.JPG" data-mid="234295220" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/bfcb9cabf58a4a0b60ae4ade8615ad0e56e53d3f9e0352fa01209aec15ac639d/IMG_5813.JPG" /> <img width="900" height="1200" width_o="900" height_o="1200" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/787860f0a84e1d5f2db3d617fae8156d162144befc5e8020fc8326ca8c197233/ycwsf_5.jpg" data-mid="234295189" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/900/i/787860f0a84e1d5f2db3d617fae8156d162144befc5e8020fc8326ca8c197233/ycwsf_5.jpg" /> <img width="1100" height="1100" width_o="1100" height_o="1100" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/93085972eb555cda00c4f33f5070a6d5c3ba00d54ed674ab4113ba831f5682b2/IMG_5816.JPG" data-mid="234295221" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/93085972eb555cda00c4f33f5070a6d5c3ba00d54ed674ab4113ba831f5682b2/IMG_5816.JPG" /> &nbsp; I submitted this to the Woon Prize in 2016, along with the Telepresences videos and prints from the hotel photos. To my astonishment, I was shortlisted and I came third. I won £6000 and spent some of it on a new top-of-the-range camera, lenses and tripod, since I wouldn’t have access to those through uni anymore. The rest went on new work, rent, and living costs. Christine Borland, who was on the judging panel that year, commented that she saw my work as sculptural, because I had made myself the sculptural object. That - as well as seeing one of my best friends win the first prize fellowship on the same night - made me so happy during a time that things in my life outside of artmaking were pretty much all tumultuous and horrid. It might feel like a tonal pivot to dip back into the darker parts here, but in the few years after university, I was struggling and dysregulated, a state that shaped how I moved through the world, both socially and professionally. I was burnt out but still trying to commit to every show and submit lots of applications, because it was all I felt I had. I was abysmally skint and my living situation was less than ideal. I was in a constant state of terror and urgency, back and forth between the South, the North and the Midlands, flailing with family problems, self-esteem issues and no permanent address. I had to think of ways to keep going, despite it all, out in the real world. In the summer of 2016 after I graduated, I moved to Liverpool and started working at a jeweller, up in the cash office. I was invited to make something for Platform Projects’ Recent Graduates booths at the Affordable Art Fair in London. We had some meetings. They liked the performance-related aspects of my practice, and we agreed I’d stage a live-streamed performance from my box room in a 9-bed shared house in Toxteth to a booth at the fair in Battersea.We were plagued by logistical difficulties, problems with equipment rental, all compounded by me being so far from the site and not being able to travel easily (work, money). My stream was projected into the booth and there was an iPad so people could message me directly through Facebook messenger. I’d type back and react on screen to whatever they said. I said I would talk to anyone about anything they wanted. I streamed for 37.5 hours across 5 days, only breaking to go to the toilet. It was a lot. The concept came together very quickly, and wasn’t as sharp as I’d hoped, but I was so, so afraid to lose momentum, let people down, or squander these great post-university opportunities I’d been offered. I constantly pushed myself beyond my capacity, then crumbled in private. I thought that’s what it took to succeed.&nbsp; <img width="1277" height="660" width_o="1277" height_o="660" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bb7e87c3f64e3e46b88c1716408c0fdd996a1c87b308d6a67c25a3cb1810de50/fs2.jpg" data-mid="234295455" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/bb7e87c3f64e3e46b88c1716408c0fdd996a1c87b308d6a67c25a3cb1810de50/fs2.jpg" /> <img width="1357" height="800" width_o="1357" height_o="800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0e800854cd9651903187c25fac6b522a806968a9f8409e673c8932f0dc38801a/aafchat.jpg" data-mid="234295286" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0e800854cd9651903187c25fac6b522a806968a9f8409e673c8932f0dc38801a/aafchat.jpg" /> --- 2017 ROBOTGIRL.TV streamed together once more - a 2-hour conversation shown live at the launch for the first issue of isthisit? magazine. It was just an honest conversation between friends, a public catch-up, not a performance. I think, for me, it was about what it could be like to live in public, as my collaborator Ana Voog had done in the past with Anacam. What would it feel like to put everything out there without any shame? I was in my dad’s living room, having moved back to my birthplace in Kent from Liverpool in the wake of a traumatic break-up. I was in a very fragile state, following a year of emotional abuse from an ex-partner. The effect this had on me can’t be overstated. I was genuinely traumatised. Some shame wouldn’t have gone amiss, looking back now. Perhaps I wish I’d had a clearer sense of when I was performing and when I was just exposing things I’d regret saying. Being open wasn’t the same as being fearless, and I blurred the lines too much, letting all my problems leak out. Not every idea was a winner. <img width="521" height="395" width_o="521" height_o="395" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/400690a6916b87aed66a84311732b2ac9046d5e82df600057f6ad5eba7608a21/25d9ea_ec8bcf29fc30464ebb66044b7ba7bfc4mv2_d_1738_1319_s_2-copy.jpg" data-mid="234295467" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/521/i/400690a6916b87aed66a84311732b2ac9046d5e82df600057f6ad5eba7608a21/25d9ea_ec8bcf29fc30464ebb66044b7ba7bfc4mv2_d_1738_1319_s_2-copy.jpg" /> I was unable to find work in Gravesend that would have allowed me to move out of my Dad’s flat and live anywhere near my hometown, so in May of 2017, I went back to Manchester and took a friend’s spare room. I got a job working for a wholesale handbag company in Cheetham Hill. I had to come up with female names for each handbag style, so I bought a book of baby name ideas from Amazon. I joked that it was the most spinstery thing I’d ever done. I’d been offered my first solo show - I called it ‘Emotional Processing’ - in Warrington. I had two months to make something for it. While I was in Kent, I’d been making Y2K / rave flyer inspired 3D worlds (one was with Neon Saltwater, whose work I love so much). They were all acid gradients and plastic gloss... <img width="1920" height="1080" width_o="1920" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/dde01b6d39813c920984a8eb51713265298070f5f69697e17322a486f536da6c/nswb3.jpg" data-mid="234295470" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/dde01b6d39813c920984a8eb51713265298070f5f69697e17322a486f536da6c/nswb3.jpg" /> <img width="4096" height="2304" width_o="4096" height_o="2304" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f21141c186204ed773af0a1806599d5013f10147a6c17d2e0b17ac26866ebe14/pas11.jpg" data-mid="234295564" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f21141c186204ed773af0a1806599d5013f10147a6c17d2e0b17ac26866ebe14/pas11.jpg" /> <img width="5000" height="2812" width_o="5000" height_o="2812" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a114e2993a4738790cb6d8a6acf306d37cb1baf80a5e78751a6c24384d03a8f5/pyraur_o.jpg" data-mid="234295471" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a114e2993a4738790cb6d8a6acf306d37cb1baf80a5e78751a6c24384d03a8f5/pyraur_o.jpg" /> <img width="5000" height="2812" width_o="5000" height_o="2812" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/aa0fa2304d422ca70db16b69623bdd55476d7faf99ed6c0f4ee8e027ea57fde3/02bg_3_o.jpg" data-mid="234295563" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/aa0fa2304d422ca70db16b69623bdd55476d7faf99ed6c0f4ee8e027ea57fde3/02bg_3_o.jpg" /> ...but I missed working with physical things, so I did what any totally sane person would do, and I wrote to someone on the board of directors of a property development firm, on pastel children’s stationery. I introduced myself and asked if there were any unused spaces under development that I could move into for a couple of months to make artworks. Somehow, this worked, and I gained access to an entire empty railway arch in what would become Depot Mayfield. <img width="750" height="1334" width_o="750" height_o="1334" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1e0356ccc702794a6f9ca6fe0ade37a3d0711fbda7267a9d0d12f679286fc98a/IMG_2703.PNG" data-mid="234317481" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/750/i/1e0356ccc702794a6f9ca6fe0ade37a3d0711fbda7267a9d0d12f679286fc98a/IMG_2703.PNG" /> <img width="3024" height="1830" width_o="3024" height_o="1830" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bdcf3b736d3251e2de84884ce765c254b701d2b999133dbcb3cbe6fdecad87c2/IMG_3051.JPG" data-mid="234317482" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/bdcf3b736d3251e2de84884ce765c254b701d2b999133dbcb3cbe6fdecad87c2/IMG_3051.JPG" /> <img width="1170" height="1160" width_o="1170" height_o="1160" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f606239cadb2a8a4fc8d00aa939daca38e7655087cd5e71fb9088426754b8dd4/IMG_8947.PNG" data-mid="234317497" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f606239cadb2a8a4fc8d00aa939daca38e7655087cd5e71fb9088426754b8dd4/IMG_8947.PNG" /> <img width="750" height="530" width_o="750" height_o="530" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/925091bfa7fd721d1126c03ed3cde4f3c800e25b3979d622dbe89ff4609bde42/IMG_3370.PNG" data-mid="234317496" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/750/i/925091bfa7fd721d1126c03ed3cde4f3c800e25b3979d622dbe89ff4609bde42/IMG_3370.PNG" /> <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8636103439db2fc825791d12b83f4685f003727afb5d519a1e75114415b38877/IMG_8891.JPG" data-mid="234318496" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8636103439db2fc825791d12b83f4685f003727afb5d519a1e75114415b38877/IMG_8891.JPG" /> <img width="1536" height="2048" width_o="1536" height_o="2048" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6ca1b23b3a2ee568993d32a0e0ec807a48d926f598bbf1dcad879e8a3975b12f/IMG_8923.jpeg" data-mid="234318087" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6ca1b23b3a2ee568993d32a0e0ec807a48d926f598bbf1dcad879e8a3975b12f/IMG_8923.jpeg" /> <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/47b6e86d07d04aa64ba3d2fbf6b7ec712dcb203727e583bf04bd25f8cb3a7ffa/20170718_182500.jpg" data-mid="234318490" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/47b6e86d07d04aa64ba3d2fbf6b7ec712dcb203727e583bf04bd25f8cb3a7ffa/20170718_182500.jpg" /> I made video works and displayed them on screens that were part of larger pieces assembled from various existing objects and custom-made parts. The response from visitors was lukewarm, but I understood why. Perhaps I hadn’t fully considered how it might land in that space. Even partial readymades are still a hard sell.&nbsp; I still like two of the four. <img width="1447" height="2048" width_o="1447" height_o="2048" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/af9215ef920ca165d80dce0063e6f2424de641802f7d92d34e9921ff68fca329/unnamed.jpg" data-mid="234318655" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/af9215ef920ca165d80dce0063e6f2424de641802f7d92d34e9921ff68fca329/unnamed.jpg" /> <img width="2000" height="3000" width_o="2000" height_o="3000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b8a1c62d487618e6db4a1eb688fd0997fb2005a002b78c065b247ed6097bf237/cb11s_6.jpg" data-mid="234317529" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b8a1c62d487618e6db4a1eb688fd0997fb2005a002b78c065b247ed6097bf237/cb11s_6.jpg" /> <img width="720" height="720" width_o="720" height_o="720" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a35f2c4dd5ac995349c75319059a9fd2b54e1fe2661069e861fdc121d0e88d5a/cbvid.gif" data-mid="234318376" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/720/i/a35f2c4dd5ac995349c75319059a9fd2b54e1fe2661069e861fdc121d0e88d5a/cbvid.gif" /> <img width="960" height="960" width_o="960" height_o="960" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c3b1632879e4c87f64814684a9c250915a359c3bcf9b5c72a0ac0f0d6f39306a/IMG_8943.jpeg" data-mid="234318706" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/960/i/c3b1632879e4c87f64814684a9c250915a359c3bcf9b5c72a0ac0f0d6f39306a/IMG_8943.jpeg" /> ‘Character Building’, above, began with an MDF base and two bent metal tubes I designed to mimic a ladder from a type of playground climbing frame. I added mannequin legs and a TV with a built-in DVD player, which showed a looped video of the same mask from the 2016 degree show piece. <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c4027e92df6f636b169153537fdcc37fda466e5bf8a77271bf6885e56489a1e9/49616194_772282926460797_9275925317118462_n.jpg" data-mid="234318292" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c4027e92df6f636b169153537fdcc37fda466e5bf8a77271bf6885e56489a1e9/49616194_772282926460797_9275925317118462_n.jpg" /> <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0882ee023145f0c19ff9873a335c402b17439f147cfa29ff228d3dc893843dcb/50943487_237607713783599_8889246978734513376_n.jpg" data-mid="234318293" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0882ee023145f0c19ff9873a335c402b17439f147cfa29ff228d3dc893843dcb/50943487_237607713783599_8889246978734513376_n.jpg" /> <img width="2432" height="2432" width_o="2432" height_o="2432" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/abffd53dad6ebd3c0034f5c24f9c0bfda0b8d7291e96b5cdcb7fdeb200ac2569/EM1.jpg" data-mid="234318500" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/abffd53dad6ebd3c0034f5c24f9c0bfda0b8d7291e96b5cdcb7fdeb200ac2569/EM1.jpg" /> <img width="720" height="720" width_o="720" height_o="720" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3fe81649a4d6d4c567c2cb7125e84aa7226fc09f9ef162e624b725de40c200fb/EM2.jpg" data-mid="234318577" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/720/i/3fe81649a4d6d4c567c2cb7125e84aa7226fc09f9ef162e624b725de40c200fb/EM2.jpg" /> <img width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a4e24b666e21eaf4bccd6576592d83f865c8f3ff32c3e3f43047a228ea787343/hweight.gif" data-mid="234318477" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/600/i/a4e24b666e21eaf4bccd6576592d83f865c8f3ff32c3e3f43047a228ea787343/hweight.gif" /> ‘The Heaviest Weight’ was a wall-based piece consisting of print I’d made from an old photo of ink, oil, and milk, affixed to a Perspex disc. I attached a painted mannequin arm to that, which could hold an iPad playing a video of my face, as if I was trapped in the device. A kids’ hula hoop acted as a frame, along with a painted model of serotonin’s molecular structure. I also ripped out the bed of a trampoline and replaced it with a mirror. I mounted a nail technician’s training hand on the handlebar to hold a selfie stick, which cradled a phone playing another face video. I made a table by painting a plinth and placing a lazy susan on top of it, with a novelty stress ball in the shape of a tit and a pipe with an eyeball attached to it. Not my favourite, but I liked its spinny absurdity. I’d still use it as a table. &nbsp; <img width="852" height="1136" width_o="852" height_o="1136" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2bfd3e4f5c6010b624f2560e5197fba233a93ff08fe6c49c0807e58688464d30/IMG_9958.JPG" data-mid="234318512" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/852/i/2bfd3e4f5c6010b624f2560e5197fba233a93ff08fe6c49c0807e58688464d30/IMG_9958.JPG" /> <img width="720" height="960" width_o="720" height_o="960" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1adb4caed5bef385e64f03ea8c6f2054ac87064327bdfa1ea2000a379afc89f4/IMG_8924.jpeg" data-mid="234318571" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/720/i/1adb4caed5bef385e64f03ea8c6f2054ac87064327bdfa1ea2000a379afc89f4/IMG_8924.jpeg" /> <img width="720" height="960" width_o="720" height_o="960" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/41eea92f01602d251c71210d2c18fcd518d551329e2d15fd2cb279653d1874f8/2b.jpg" data-mid="234318508" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/720/i/41eea92f01602d251c71210d2c18fcd518d551329e2d15fd2cb279653d1874f8/2b.jpg" /> <img width="720" height="960" width_o="720" height_o="960" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ffe2fa391a94f29627709ea080fb7ddbf6946a32d1d9fe63bbad82364afdb785/IMG_8929.jpeg" data-mid="234318600" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/720/i/ffe2fa391a94f29627709ea080fb7ddbf6946a32d1d9fe63bbad82364afdb785/IMG_8929.jpeg" /> <img width="720" height="960" width_o="720" height_o="960" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/eacc5401c075b1ef64e885a76ecea3531b818d29049ad5efca60b58310f2960c/2a.jpg" data-mid="234318507" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/720/i/eacc5401c075b1ef64e885a76ecea3531b818d29049ad5efca60b58310f2960c/2a.jpg" /> <img width="960" height="960" width_o="960" height_o="960" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4d1d9da95fd4e7d25c37b41e09fbba64fddfc1de25796704e4bf3bed2290f787/1b.jpg" data-mid="234318504" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/960/i/4d1d9da95fd4e7d25c37b41e09fbba64fddfc1de25796704e4bf3bed2290f787/1b.jpg" /> I tried to frame it all with an overwritten statement, of course. At the time, I said this: ‘Emotional Processing’ refers to processing as a computing term, a nod to our lives as data, the mediation of intimacy, vulnerability within a superficial feedback loop. It also refers to watching my own internal responses to trauma and anxiety. It’s the body torn up and mangled by commodification, commercial colour palettes, screens and mirrors, self-conscious looking. I use looped video and circles because the search for personhood feels, to me, circular. Some of the playfulness refers to a temptation towards regression. We live in a simulated, simplified world. Perhaps debates about authenticity are useless now. What parts of us are new, and what parts have always been? Which cycles can be broken? --- By August 2017, I was living in a tiny room near Strangeways prison that only locked from the outside, with a creepy landlord who wrote me unsettling poems when I helped him edit pictures of workwear for his website. When I viewed the place, there were several people living there. A week later, they had all mysteriously vanished so it was just me and this one guy who owned the house. I didn’t feel safe there. Then, there was a death in my family, which was my breaking point. I couldn’t outrun fear and burnout layered with grief. I packed everything in and went to live in Leamington Spa with my mum. Yet another new start. --- 2018 I started a temp job at Warwickshire County Council, scanning old social services files (amazing job for the nosy) and I finally had enough income to rent a proper studio space at Meter Room in Coventry. I began working towards my second solo show -&nbsp;boom + bust - at Goldtapped in Newcastle’s Newbridge Project. <img width="3425" height="4837" width_o="3425" height_o="4837" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0e2865359de410e608511cca468a25ac7b0eedcafd25f6699302ae8441302f9f/Boom-and-Bust-Talk-TBC-white-ace-logo.png" data-mid="234318666" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0e2865359de410e608511cca468a25ac7b0eedcafd25f6699302ae8441302f9f/Boom-and-Bust-Talk-TBC-white-ace-logo.png" /> Being back at my mum’s house in my twenties, spending more time with family (my young half-sister in particular), started to raise questions for me about why things had gone the way they had. I drew comparisons between the inevitability of generational trauma, inherited through genetic code, and, as Mark Fisher described in Capitalist Realism,&nbsp;the widespread belief that capitalism is the only viable economic system in a cultural atmosphere so saturated by neoliberalism that even imagining an alternative feels futile. I thought about living in a world where we’ve internalised the idea that change isn’t possible, where any meaningful sense of agency has been reduced to regressive aesthetic gestures. I pictured an unbroken, fluctuating wave through time - unstoppable turbulence I felt powerless against. I painted a red line on the gallery walls like a sine wave. It was a way of saying that emotional volatility can feel as inevitable as the rises and crashes of the markets, and equally outside our control. <img width="2000" height="1326" width_o="2000" height_o="1326" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0fe8b27ddeed6896f619e68f5730005e616a00939edd3776807051a250e7e3d3/6I0A3143_o.jpg" data-mid="234318685" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0fe8b27ddeed6896f619e68f5730005e616a00939edd3776807051a250e7e3d3/6I0A3143_o.jpg" /> I’d also gone down a deep Youtube rabbit-hole of so-called ‘Elsagate’ videos, off the back of James Bridle’s essay&nbsp;Something is wrong on the internet. It describes how YouTube’s kids' content ecosystem had become a grotesque feedback loop, churning out thousands of disturbing, nonsensical nursery-rhyme videos, many of them detached from intention or authorship. Bridle's point was about the systems that facilitated this flood of weird and inappropriate YouTube-sweatshop-generated content. How algorithms produce monetised slop at scale, designed to keep children watching, regurgitating our worst tendencies, and flattening everything into marketable fragments. He called it “infrastructural violence”. <img width="1366" height="768" width_o="1366" height_o="768" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0b0bf9d29d5bf91dceaef37c465fbfd17a1169f450fac7b7e266d065e81a682a/IMG_8919.jpeg" data-mid="234318696" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0b0bf9d29d5bf91dceaef37c465fbfd17a1169f450fac7b7e266d065e81a682a/IMG_8919.jpeg" /> I made my own ‘Finger Family’ video. It’s me in a latex bodysuit with inflated cartoonish breasts, each fingertip replaced with a miniature version of my own head. It wasn’t satire so much as a weary surrender to the pile, a replication of the genre, a gesture towards collapse. Bridle: “This is content production in the age of algorithmic discovery - even if you’re a human, you have to end up impersonating the machine.” I also made lightbox portraits of myself as this character, and of my ten year old sister, wearing the same outfit. It’s one of those pieces I’m still not sure if I’m comfortable with because it could so easily be mistaken for endorsement. So, if her image disturbs you, you must understand that was the point. Where are the lines between mimicry and complicity? What are we doing to innocent young brains when we give them iPads? I’d been thinking about that since I saw her try to scroll down on a paperback with her finger at age two. <img width="2339" height="3311" width_o="2339" height_o="3311" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/541fde49461749a0205294f910f76a985745b71aa1123e7a7adb3ac18898b593/f1_3.jpg" data-mid="234318754" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/541fde49461749a0205294f910f76a985745b71aa1123e7a7adb3ac18898b593/f1_3.jpg" /> <img width="1600" height="2265" width_o="1600" height_o="2265" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/121cbb05e529ff7b3da964533d395d0c494d57856ab4e36123368d04ba75c8cf/f2s_4.jpg" data-mid="234318751" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/121cbb05e529ff7b3da964533d395d0c494d57856ab4e36123368d04ba75c8cf/f2s_4.jpg" /> The centrepiece was a playground swing I’d made -&nbsp;Mood Swing. I replaced the seat with a mirrored metal sphere on a chain. It was a half-nod back to Miley’s wrecking ball, a joke about our old connection, but she was also a woman mid-meltdown who got aestheticised into a meme. <img width="2000" height="1326" width_o="2000" height_o="1326" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6ea44b89990b9de5b6677551632a54ad80c6f9a3cd942bf5211102d644cecc95/6I0A3209-copy_o.jpg" data-mid="234318686" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6ea44b89990b9de5b6677551632a54ad80c6f9a3cd942bf5211102d644cecc95/6I0A3209-copy_o.jpg" /> <img width="5476" height="3681" width_o="5476" height_o="3681" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6c14eb91f2553392ddbfd116af984ea8f78d3066ba7372e94ac3dad4ef300fa8/6I0A3043-1-1.jpg" data-mid="234318784" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6c14eb91f2553392ddbfd116af984ea8f78d3066ba7372e94ac3dad4ef300fa8/6I0A3043-1-1.jpg" /> <img width="539" height="960" width_o="539" height_o="960" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4c05f217848244b87e960fc47cca970e25437ac6d1ab3ad34fe59081e6159292/IMG_7945_539.JPG" data-mid="234362696" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/539/i/4c05f217848244b87e960fc47cca970e25437ac6d1ab3ad34fe59081e6159292/IMG_7945_539.JPG" /> <img width="670" height="893" width_o="670" height_o="893" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/18d0d8fe0c847aa392c98d320937c0ecee7022e84aabc8c776ff653a8b1d4e62/IMG_7946_670.JPG" data-mid="234362697" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/670/i/18d0d8fe0c847aa392c98d320937c0ecee7022e84aabc8c776ff653a8b1d4e62/IMG_7946_670.JPG" /> <img width="540" height="960" width_o="540" height_o="960" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6f811c108d41b1571b1f42763e9a2560c8121df06aa31c07c13aed5e0b814af7/IMG_7944_540.JPG" data-mid="234362695" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/540/i/6f811c108d41b1571b1f42763e9a2560c8121df06aa31c07c13aed5e0b814af7/IMG_7944_540.JPG" /> <img width="670" height="893" width_o="670" height_o="893" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a91bae16fffcc493d6d6e7b599e2d2cba4a1fe0049a5e7d63455fadc7e64b839/IMG_7947_670.JPG" data-mid="234362694" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/670/i/a91bae16fffcc493d6d6e7b599e2d2cba4a1fe0049a5e7d63455fadc7e64b839/IMG_7947_670.JPG" /> --- 2019 I stayed temping at the local council and making work at Meter Room when I could. I moved out of my mum’s place. I joined Birmingham’s Black Hole Club at Vivid Projects so I could find fresh creative connections in a different scene. I participated in 2019’s Coventry Biennial. All of this was still difficult in places, I still had time and energy constraints, but life was stabilising. My third solo show - SPLITS - at Odox, Birmingham, was scheduled for June. <img width="1440" height="1440" width_o="1440" height_o="1440" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5cfb9709bf1e0ac0bf5571cb1b4065188c327f960c966766900094bfc507348c/61268786_194816261505178_1899848681878601805_n.jpg" data-mid="234409264" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5cfb9709bf1e0ac0bf5571cb1b4065188c327f960c966766900094bfc507348c/61268786_194816261505178_1899848681878601805_n.jpg" /> <img width="750" height="1067" width_o="750" height_o="1067" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6b90a620d491da7baac3b92b581c1c582d455427c93c0bcf69b9592246f37345/poster2splits.jpg" data-mid="234409319" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/750/i/6b90a620d491da7baac3b92b581c1c582d455427c93c0bcf69b9592246f37345/poster2splits.jpg" /> The first thing I made was this image (below left), splitting myself into colourful facets - self-mythology as parts of a whole. I saw them like a warped team of post-transformation magical girls from a mahou shoujo manga, like if the Sailor Senshi were all phone-addicted. Sailor Moon (right) was one of my first hardcore special interests, at age 11. I spent my lunchtimes at primary school copying Naoko Takeuchi’s drawings and teaching myself Japanese instead of playing outside with other kids. This one got printed up onto fabric, something like a wall hanging in a fan’s bedroom, like something I would have worshipped as a kid. <img width="750" height="1061" width_o="750" height_o="1061" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/20b22036ae5e078020bd780da9eddc29d8205e772ba99b6dd2592ec6f436708a/512.jpg" data-mid="234409255" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/750/i/20b22036ae5e078020bd780da9eddc29d8205e772ba99b6dd2592ec6f436708a/512.jpg" /> <img width="1184" height="1734" width_o="1184" height_o="1734" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/18a8dcfcfda778c0bd1f1e03929137102855abbec2badb9ca122256740ea6d7f/sailormoon-artbook-1-38.jpg" data-mid="234323844" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/18a8dcfcfda778c0bd1f1e03929137102855abbec2badb9ca122256740ea6d7f/sailormoon-artbook-1-38.jpg" /> I made a video called Compassionate Other. The audio track was an AI voice reading the transcript of a bizarre CFT exercise I had to do in therapy (recorded in secret). I thought the exercise was a bit silly at the time, but, I also recognised that I had been othering myself to process things for... well, quite some time. I thought about the potential there was for artificial intelligences to become a form of therapist in the near future, and whether that felt unnerving or not. It brushed up against my own attempts to turn myself into a cipher, a space for service. Can AI help shame-filled people to love themselves? <img width="1920" height="1080" width_o="1920" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9d91ecb89d9fdb7da37e3e1037225a29dfc4c94ec70beec6a996d30ab7bf10a1/Untitled-3.jpg" data-mid="234383892" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9d91ecb89d9fdb7da37e3e1037225a29dfc4c94ec70beec6a996d30ab7bf10a1/Untitled-3.jpg" /> <img width="1920" height="1080" width_o="1920" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4846d0230800292cd03a70656d5064b196912b2b738076fb1a66488cbf8fe53f/Untitled-1.jpg" data-mid="234383891" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4846d0230800292cd03a70656d5064b196912b2b738076fb1a66488cbf8fe53f/Untitled-1.jpg" /> I made some more loops to be shown on screens, and some more body objects. I named the ball-jointed doll legs in the birdcage ‘Hansel’, just for myself, after a stunningly 1980s clock tower in my childhood home town which used to play a disturbing mechanical Hansel and Gretel show every hour back in the 90s. The Hansel figure would sit with his legs dangling out of a cage much like this one, while Gretel pushed the witch into a tiny oven in one jerky, robotic lurch. You could see the witch’s little feet kicking. I loved that fucking clock. <img width="700" height="394" width_o="700" height_o="394" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/dee7e6ce1bcf8f394169e43ecb6cf119ba10512de16e097ae193d904299d9987/seedloop.gif" data-mid="234382803" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/700/i/dee7e6ce1bcf8f394169e43ecb6cf119ba10512de16e097ae193d904299d9987/seedloop.gif" /> <img width="1920" height="1080" width_o="1920" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/71d47b839a9b04ceef298b3815fe8a25991d700b32c4f895b4bb1b3718523acc/Untitled-2.jpg" data-mid="234470667" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/71d47b839a9b04ceef298b3815fe8a25991d700b32c4f895b4bb1b3718523acc/Untitled-2.jpg" /> <img width="3000" height="2000" width_o="3000" height_o="2000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4e1c21c6ab1161fa236b07801e21198f220668c370cf734cf216a0126069c212/h11.jpg" data-mid="234323110" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4e1c21c6ab1161fa236b07801e21198f220668c370cf734cf216a0126069c212/h11.jpg" /> <img width="3000" height="2000" width_o="3000" height_o="2000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c901eaa3f6720553d277dff6947845800046cddb981ef344eb6d43d412d896c8/h22.jpg" data-mid="234323109" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c901eaa3f6720553d277dff6947845800046cddb981ef344eb6d43d412d896c8/h22.jpg" /> <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ee51b8910394c7e357cc84c52e7831a82af1691b6a3ce1746dde5f5b8366bb38/Photo-Feb-28--5-05-52-PM-2.jpg" data-mid="234323112" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ee51b8910394c7e357cc84c52e7831a82af1691b6a3ce1746dde5f5b8366bb38/Photo-Feb-28--5-05-52-PM-2.jpg" /> <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c1f67ff2f7e73f15b2f8311a53b3812676daa03817664db3c57bd46ae5aaa556/Photo-Feb-28--5-05-52-PM.jpg" data-mid="234323111" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c1f67ff2f7e73f15b2f8311a53b3812676daa03817664db3c57bd46ae5aaa556/Photo-Feb-28--5-05-52-PM.jpg" /> <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fbe536e92882ca140ae2c44b6d240c4deeac9748c7dc2044b5db4ff84b0a63e2/Photo-Feb-28--5-05-52-PM-1.jpg" data-mid="234385191" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fbe536e92882ca140ae2c44b6d240c4deeac9748c7dc2044b5db4ff84b0a63e2/Photo-Feb-28--5-05-52-PM-1.jpg" /> The piece I liked the most (by far) was a touchscreen-interactive video I made with the help of a relative in the games industry. I’d filmed a video of myself (4 minutes, 44 seconds) as one of these character facets. Over the course of the video, I smile, I dance, I wave, I check you’re still watching, I tap on the glass, I grow more desperate, I hit myself in the head and I scream and I fall to the floor. The soundtrack is a layered cacophony of retro midi music and arcade coin sounds. The video was split into many seconds-long clips. The only way you could watch the full video in one smooth sequence, without it glitching out and going back to the start (a ‘press play’ prompt screen), was by repeatedly tapping a big heart-shaped ‘like’ button as fast as you could. The repetitive tapping was meant to start aching by the end of the sequence. It’s a familiar&nbsp;statement about social media, but I really loved how I’d made it. I still do! I bought a 23” Iiyama touch monitor to show it on. The work was compiled onto a single connected computer. I called it ‘Are You Still Watching?’, like the message you see when you binge too many episodes on Netflix. <img width="937" height="937" width_o="937" height_o="937" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/87664a4f9297de499ac9430a7f0e17a732417baa3191dc82129d9768a2161983/LOVE.png" data-mid="234385882" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/937/i/87664a4f9297de499ac9430a7f0e17a732417baa3191dc82129d9768a2161983/LOVE.png" /> <img width="709" height="214" width_o="709" height_o="214" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9f23e9214cf8dd875410177dcfeb4ffeca839d20418468f72afe5c08548d4af9/PLAY.gif" data-mid="234384114" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/709/i/9f23e9214cf8dd875410177dcfeb4ffeca839d20418468f72afe5c08548d4af9/PLAY.gif" /> <img width="937" height="937" width_o="937" height_o="937" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/87664a4f9297de499ac9430a7f0e17a732417baa3191dc82129d9768a2161983/LOVE.png" data-mid="234385882" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/937/i/87664a4f9297de499ac9430a7f0e17a732417baa3191dc82129d9768a2161983/LOVE.png" /> <img width="250" height="444" width_o="250" height_o="444" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/64f5f2655b4b100434e75306baeaa8389cd9a1d157d87c52c35f231fb84d1ba2/start_4.gif" data-mid="234384042" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/250/i/64f5f2655b4b100434e75306baeaa8389cd9a1d157d87c52c35f231fb84d1ba2/start_4.gif" /> <img width="250" height="444" width_o="250" height_o="444" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/87f25c35e55ab3dfc4b6e23067b80eb59a5a53e2d71812d46223c1f017958e0d/ezgif-6-034d3532bbf1.gif" data-mid="234384031" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/250/i/87f25c35e55ab3dfc4b6e23067b80eb59a5a53e2d71812d46223c1f017958e0d/ezgif-6-034d3532bbf1.gif" /> <img width="250" height="444" width_o="250" height_o="444" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/574bb8ffe9122a6adfff558158a28d08b0fd95c4ade2617df8a1ce2305ad22a8/ezgif-6-c9b88afa4ca5.gif" data-mid="234383994" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/250/i/574bb8ffe9122a6adfff558158a28d08b0fd95c4ade2617df8a1ce2305ad22a8/ezgif-6-c9b88afa4ca5.gif" /> <img width="250" height="444" width_o="250" height_o="444" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/be330e6599ea0569486a521c5e10aa64ac4d796c675e10f69de2939e962d8d21/end_3.gif" data-mid="234383944" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/250/i/be330e6599ea0569486a521c5e10aa64ac4d796c675e10f69de2939e962d8d21/end_3.gif" /> <img width="540" height="540" width_o="540" height_o="540" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7bdf658a007c4bde169896b89da2a64baf11c4360934d08b3c9f7ad790750541/demo1.gif" data-mid="234386864" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/540/i/7bdf658a007c4bde169896b89da2a64baf11c4360934d08b3c9f7ad790750541/demo1.gif" /> <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/455553e710315e20710eb0231a952be641d24605b595bde0ebe49e7def8eee51/s.jpg" data-mid="234385901" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/455553e710315e20710eb0231a952be641d24605b595bde0ebe49e7def8eee51/s.jpg" /> <img width="300" height="300" width_o="300" height_o="300" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/195668aec37f34fa704b1f732807009c12338b84477d9ca7811e76f8d509e670/demo2.gif" data-mid="234386865" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/300/i/195668aec37f34fa704b1f732807009c12338b84477d9ca7811e76f8d509e670/demo2.gif" /> --- 2020&nbsp; Do you have a favourite art gallery? I do. Annka Kultys Gallery shows work I really, really love. I am such a big Signe Pierce fan. It was the first place I saw Molly Soda’s work in a real-life setting. AKG has always supported the kind of forward-thinking, technology-focused work that really resonates with someone like me. When I was offered a week-long show at Annka Kultys Gallery as part of CACOTOPIA 04, it felt like an arrival at the apex, like the climax of the story, because secretly, showing there was my ultimate goal, like, the fantasy goal. It had been for years. It would be a proper sign I had Made It. I used to dream the same about one day living in a semi-detached house with a round window when I was a kid (so I could pretend I was on a boat). Now it was happening. It happened. I was thrilled. <img width="768" height="1152" width_o="768" height_o="1152" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/70f52fa3d3cb525cd7edfbc080300a038bdc085583f820a03d2bb021866b785a/Bex_Ilsley_001_SPLITS_156x111cm2019_web.jpg" data-mid="234387506" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/768/i/70f52fa3d3cb525cd7edfbc080300a038bdc085583f820a03d2bb021866b785a/Bex_Ilsley_001_SPLITS_156x111cm2019_web.jpg" /> <img width="1200" height="800" width_o="1200" height_o="800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/68d85553ca317df56f908a270cdbe895ca5e7d2fa8494c5afb4586d174437b45/Installation_View_2020_Bex_Ilsley_CACOTOPIA_04_Annka_Kultys_web_2.jpg" data-mid="234387538" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/68d85553ca317df56f908a270cdbe895ca5e7d2fa8494c5afb4586d174437b45/Installation_View_2020_Bex_Ilsley_CACOTOPIA_04_Annka_Kultys_web_2.jpg" /> <img width="1200" height="800" width_o="1200" height_o="800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ece93a899a5750f4fc16b94a05dfde5111071917067ee45bb38e4bae5c3c4c48/akg2.jpg" data-mid="234387700" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ece93a899a5750f4fc16b94a05dfde5111071917067ee45bb38e4bae5c3c4c48/akg2.jpg" /> <img width="800" height="1200" width_o="800" height_o="1200" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e14232a72a6b54d325aed018a9933d1e048c9490613df28feb129d13d43d2322/akg3.jpg" data-mid="234387729" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/800/i/e14232a72a6b54d325aed018a9933d1e048c9490613df28feb129d13d43d2322/akg3.jpg" /> <img width="800" height="1200" width_o="800" height_o="1200" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/11f7c8c6156bec33af5c81494272af588040e44777b7187f7742c1fb18b6f5a2/Installation_View_2020_Bex_Ilsley_CACOTOPIA_04_Annka_Kultys_web_9.jpg" data-mid="234387539" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/800/i/11f7c8c6156bec33af5c81494272af588040e44777b7187f7742c1fb18b6f5a2/Installation_View_2020_Bex_Ilsley_CACOTOPIA_04_Annka_Kultys_web_9.jpg" /> <img width="1200" height="800" width_o="1200" height_o="800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/52a63026eac7b1f8c751cd7d423cb6781b8f617d6ca4b133469041c171040196/Installation_View_2020_Bex_Ilsley_CACOTOPIA_04_Annka_Kultys_web_7.jpg" data-mid="234387507" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/52a63026eac7b1f8c751cd7d423cb6781b8f617d6ca4b133469041c171040196/Installation_View_2020_Bex_Ilsley_CACOTOPIA_04_Annka_Kultys_web_7.jpg" /> Because life is life, I fell over in the shower and broke my arm, so I couldn’t go to the opening. <img width="960" height="540" width_o="960" height_o="540" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4e3036e44961f6d7875933b35132bb499ede9ea409b742a7cc5701cb136e6420/IMG_9011.jpeg" data-mid="234388503" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/960/i/4e3036e44961f6d7875933b35132bb499ede9ea409b742a7cc5701cb136e6420/IMG_9011.jpeg" /> --- The End When I came out of surgery with bones bolted together and my arm in a cast, I went down to AKG to see my show and pick up some unused work. I arrived to find that the only existing build of ‘Are You Still Watching?’ was no more. Something had happened to the computer, and it wouldn’t turn on. The screen was black and a single red light blinked at me from the tower. Since it wasn’t even my computer, I wasn’t sure what to do, so I hauled it home to Leamington and left it with the relative who owned it to take it over to a repair shop and get it assessed. That was February 2020. Guess what happened next?&nbsp;Lockdown measures meant I couldn’t access the computer while it was at somebody else’s house, and that it wasn’t too easy to find a way to get the computer looked at by a professional. Time passed. I wanted to know what we were dealing with before I said anything. The pandemic wasn’t over as soon as any of us would have liked. Eventually, it felt like too much time had passed to ask AKG about the loss of my work. Much later, I learned it was probably a power surge, so that was a lesson learned for me about surge protector bars. I may still try to recreate that piece one day, perhaps as an app, but it doesn’t feel quite as relevant as it used to anymore, so maybe I won’t. I’ve always had this weird thing where, if I lose the last piece of work that felt valuable to me, it’s like someone has come along with scissors and cut the thread I was holding onto, so I can’t find my way back in the dark. The last time this happened to me was when I couldn’t collect two giant paintings from Warwickshire College after my foundation year (2008) due to lack of transport, so they destroyed them. It took me four years to make anything after that. Losing the touchscreen piece felt like being cut off from my own practice. I can’t really explain why. Nevertheless, there are silver linings to these things. Losing it, coupled with living through Covid, forced me to stop and take a break. I had one show lined up for 2020, but it was cancelled. I’d already made it to the walls of my dream gallery anyway, where else to go next, but bed? Taking five years out has been really restorative for me. I desperately needed it. I stepped away from the constant pressure to produce and worked on laying the foundations I should have had in place before I’d tried to build upwards. I started getting paid to maintain websites. I went to Glastonbury Festival. I went to Yellowstone. I played 935 blissed-out hours of Baldur’s Gate 3. I got married! We converted our upstairs spare room into a studio for me, a place to house my old things. My husband made a sign for the door. <img width="1024" height="768" width_o="1024" height_o="768" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4dc09ac06b3a6b09190bcfd536c22efcf78a13ee997277ce7eea39aa976a9cad/291834354_10166403888380023_8331367009805429528_n.jpg" data-mid="234407409" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4dc09ac06b3a6b09190bcfd536c22efcf78a13ee997277ce7eea39aa976a9cad/291834354_10166403888380023_8331367009805429528_n.jpg" /> <img width="2048" height="1536" width_o="2048" height_o="1536" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3fd1d141f136f0a73f6551464c103f638d618f3c1d38029aec66e85b7c4d9fc5/IMG_9012.jpeg" data-mid="234388592" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3fd1d141f136f0a73f6551464c103f638d618f3c1d38029aec66e85b7c4d9fc5/IMG_9012.jpeg" /> <img width="1536" height="1536" width_o="1536" height_o="1536" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5cb563dc63d86ca18fd24f2849dbfea4ebd1be6f6eedc386210c97b879d53475/459342631_10169287613070023_6042917328709151138_n.jpg" data-mid="234407407" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5cb563dc63d86ca18fd24f2849dbfea4ebd1be6f6eedc386210c97b879d53475/459342631_10169287613070023_6042917328709151138_n.jpg" /> <img width="3024" height="3024" width_o="3024" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ee39ccc155c4f045b1a31ce00449c502281c84895c45409cd979865a11855a1d/studio.jpg" data-mid="234407413" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ee39ccc155c4f045b1a31ce00449c502281c84895c45409cd979865a11855a1d/studio.jpg" /> --- Onward I will write about the future next time, but I believe that this body of work has run its course. The only thing left to do now, in a world that only got faster and more fractured while I was resting, is to make slow work, not terminally-online work. I can’t respond any more to a world that has already moved on by the time I’ve opened Adobe Creative Cloud. I don’t want to think about microtrends, or generative AI, or TikTok auto-scroll (okay, maybe a little, when I’m doing the washing up). That’s the reason I’m making a sequel to a 34 year old game in a forgotten language for an obsolete platform (more on that later). No deadline. It’s the reason I am fucking blogging right now. I had to exorcise all this first though. Not for pity - it’s cathartic, yes - but more than that, I want to show the truth of what it meant to be a promising young artist in the 2010s who left university with plenty of momentum, but no foundation, savings or safety net. I was trying so hard to ‘emerge’ in the right way despite that, in the right spaces, without ever faltering. It’s not easy. If you’re in that space now - broke and exhausted and trying to make something real from it - I want you to know: It’s not you. The system is rigged. It’s gatekept and the odds are stacked against us. You should keep fighting, but you should remember to rest when you need to. The world will still be here when you wake up. I promise it will. If you knew me back in the dark years, I might have seemed unreliable and erratic. Hard to pin down. I know there were things I promised to do I pulled out of at the last minute. There were social situations I fumbled horribly. I want to be honest about that. I don’t need absolution. I’m aiming for context. I had survived things I didn’t yet have language for, trying to work secretly in shared houses where I didn’t feel comfortable enough in my own skin to even prepare food in front of other people, so I went to sleep for dinner instead - a quiet workaround for poverty and something I couldn’t yet name. I want to go back and hug that version of me. I want to help her carry her bag. I want to tell her she’s doing great. I want to tell her that she will get out and discover a safe and stable life again.&nbsp; I think about how many talented people must fall through the cracks because they are not born into networks that teach them to believe they can belong. I think about how mental health language is weaponised. I think about how the line between ‘visionary’ and ‘liability’ is so often a question of class. I think about how we reward resilience only after it becomes palatable, when it can be folded into a good story. I think about how many people will never be given the grace to become a good story.You could just write your own. B <img width="720" height="960" width_o="720" height_o="960" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/02b0b6f18bf7aa25a02dcdc41ed3737fb2bd516d392c7fb9473a83b4f92c3355/IMG_8725.JPG" data-mid="234406363" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/720/i/02b0b6f18bf7aa25a02dcdc41ed3737fb2bd516d392c7fb9473a83b4f92c3355/IMG_8725.JPG" /> <img width="300" height="400" width_o="300" height_o="400" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0dfc5ebc9fb6b7e710b46a93bb4c23cc262b4827b6eec21ed67a2813b9192dd6/IMG_2269.JPG" data-mid="234406374" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/300/i/0dfc5ebc9fb6b7e710b46a93bb4c23cc262b4827b6eec21ed67a2813b9192dd6/IMG_2269.JPG" /> <img width="1080" height="1417" width_o="1080" height_o="1417" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/551fb8e702187a8d0252bae4f70f99d0946be636a60ec098160e434c8bd56f78/IMG_1485.JPG" data-mid="234406487" border="0" 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data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b0c0b3b79a1a38ed23c0fa17a717f06670e30a9ad488b2c566be23a9cf3af6cd/IMG_9357.JPG" data-mid="234406364" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b0c0b3b79a1a38ed23c0fa17a717f06670e30a9ad488b2c566be23a9cf3af6cd/IMG_9357.JPG" /> <img width="1000" height="1390" width_o="1000" height_o="1390" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ac27f8cfcf8fdcd919794e614fc7226cfc1be63c87b33c7c23dd1c3477c9e441/IMG_7493.JPG" data-mid="234406360" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ac27f8cfcf8fdcd919794e614fc7226cfc1be63c87b33c7c23dd1c3477c9e441/IMG_7493.JPG" /> <img width="720" height="960" width_o="720" height_o="960" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/97dad1a4817b500b06f7134917584d48e6b14a43d0d7fc946046560d9571e3e2/49801161_10161257856200023_2111027355706195968_n.jpg" data-mid="234407408" border="0" 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data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0b7cbb6230adabfb4e52c4725b2837708e7620078d95398e4986cce1d6c2e2ff/ab193d08-a5ad-4b34-8d81-77b7d22141bf.jpg" data-mid="234472848" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0b7cbb6230adabfb4e52c4725b2837708e7620078d95398e4986cce1d6c2e2ff/ab193d08-a5ad-4b34-8d81-77b7d22141bf.jpg" /> <img width="1263" height="1263" width_o="1263" height_o="1263" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ef402fe3637ee88551883a078346220324358d381ca244a73fd369e9b3a9aac8/IMG_1752.JPG" data-mid="234406368" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ef402fe3637ee88551883a078346220324358d381ca244a73fd369e9b3a9aac8/IMG_1752.JPG" /> <img width="960" height="720" width_o="960" height_o="720" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/100aad95d3bc763f2fb489102150962a412cc0036d41297f3f16136ef53139d9/471818961_10170354524385023_5010071111471278206_n.jpg" data-mid="234407410" border="0" 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data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f85104d7d08317d332cc90a556ead7ae350e55670ec579314f207789ea51b597/IMG_9085.JPG" data-mid="234406371" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/720/i/f85104d7d08317d332cc90a556ead7ae350e55670ec579314f207789ea51b597/IMG_9085.JPG" /> <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/586586dd1c015a217f19e2f6ca930d6c382f71fd3b764bb23b9a92eaf0bdcea0/IMG_2246.JPG" data-mid="234406373" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/586586dd1c015a217f19e2f6ca930d6c382f71fd3b764bb23b9a92eaf0bdcea0/IMG_2246.JPG" /> <img width="750" height="882" width_o="750" height_o="882" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/56db94b3d4edab3fd1b0dd8f8f97a17469767cb0ba022154792b97e31d6d3af5/IMG_3626.JPG" data-mid="234406392" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/750/i/56db94b3d4edab3fd1b0dd8f8f97a17469767cb0ba022154792b97e31d6d3af5/IMG_3626.JPG" /> <img width="1080" height="1440" width_o="1080" height_o="1440" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9012aa46f32f5b38d60c98b211b004ab67fa14dee22a8d2598cb362be146099c/IMG_3565.jpg" data-mid="234406409" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9012aa46f32f5b38d60c98b211b004ab67fa14dee22a8d2598cb362be146099c/IMG_3565.jpg" /> <img width="768" height="1024" width_o="768" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e8165bf95de143e3d55981d4419521b66d0c1b2a74394ff257e64bbf33a48191/IMG_1239.JPG" data-mid="234406366" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/768/i/e8165bf95de143e3d55981d4419521b66d0c1b2a74394ff257e64bbf33a48191/IMG_1239.JPG" /> <img width="542" height="908" width_o="542" height_o="908" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/945ba776ab34b028a911c9fb1d759cf2ccd26639fb0d3e9666c8c21e8218177c/IMG_3811.PNG" data-mid="234406393" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/542/i/945ba776ab34b028a911c9fb1d759cf2ccd26639fb0d3e9666c8c21e8218177c/IMG_3811.PNG" /> <img width="2947" height="2947" width_o="2947" height_o="2947" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/42e533ae46f8ad9e246527e2477984627b3933bbada6363fd22a087ef10ceab5/IMG_7410.JPG" data-mid="234407196" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/42e533ae46f8ad9e246527e2477984627b3933bbada6363fd22a087ef10ceab5/IMG_7410.JPG" /> <img width="1000" height="1500" width_o="1000" height_o="1500" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/93a5c3c821159d5e7cbe8edab15e60418aed6ab24dd7f18de0f9b8ccb8f843e7/GJ5A1907.jpg" data-mid="234415992" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/93a5c3c821159d5e7cbe8edab15e60418aed6ab24dd7f18de0f9b8ccb8f843e7/GJ5A1907.jpg" /> <img width="2320" height="3088" width_o="2320" height_o="3088" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bcfe2b5125574a3398357ed4ccbcc7a4107a9ef4e67f7a2958ae6ec27067957f/IMG_2356.JPG" data-mid="234406550" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/bcfe2b5125574a3398357ed4ccbcc7a4107a9ef4e67f7a2958ae6ec27067957f/IMG_2356.JPG" /> https://bexilsley.com/Blobshop-2 Wed, 04 Jun 2025 18:21:45 +0000 Bex Ilsley https://bexilsley.com/Blobshop-2 Blobshop (Pt.2) 2015 <img width="884" height="884" width_o="884" height_o="884" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a0188e0bfe8c005b793c76eaf52103d923504897809daf8437777ac8314be47e/IMG_0104.JPG" data-mid="234179115" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/884/i/a0188e0bfe8c005b793c76eaf52103d923504897809daf8437777ac8314be47e/IMG_0104.JPG" /> <img width="1536" height="2048" width_o="1536" height_o="2048" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fb0d8c9fc2dc70188fedbff3f95826b4acd7a17f2f92f1139202208edd8e5635/IMG_0506.JPG" data-mid="234179201" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fb0d8c9fc2dc70188fedbff3f95826b4acd7a17f2f92f1139202208edd8e5635/IMG_0506.JPG" /> <img width="640" height="640" width_o="640" height_o="640" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1d1e6d506418468a2e32a7be90890ef7e8e02a28bc689cf91c37b52b246374b2/IMG_0503.JPG" data-mid="234179525" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/1d1e6d506418468a2e32a7be90890ef7e8e02a28bc689cf91c37b52b246374b2/IMG_0503.JPG" /> Read Part 1 here (you’ll need context!) I’ve been looking at my files so I could follow up my last post with some behind-the-scenes pictures from the blob era. Unretouched ones I didn’t post back then. I never deleted a single thing. That gives me an incredible archive to draw from, but it also means I have to sift through screenshots of every direct message that made me uncomfortable and every mean comment I was too thin-skinned to ignore. It reminded me of the times I got in my own way, the things I could have handled better if I’d thought them through. It’s a funny thing, revisiting the past. There is no escaping the fact that I may well live in many other people’s minds, forever, as a version of myself I wouldn’t choose now. Art school is meant to be a time for fucking up, trying out things that don’t work, and learning. It isn’t meant to be time for opportunity to arrive suddenly, like a taxi with the engine running. I had to make the most of it even if I was underprepared. What if the window closed, never to be opened again? I’d said no to Miley and I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. At its peak, my follower count reached around 35000 people. That number doesn’t sound huge now, but in 2015, the feed was chronological and followers actually saw what you posted. We didn’t have reels, there were no suggested posts and none of that algorithmic churn. Instagram wasn’t optimised as a growth machine yet, but it encouraged me to become one myself. Every time I shared something, it felt like speaking to a stadium. What I didn’t share, of course, is that I’d started to fall apart. Bex Ilsley, the human, was broke and not feeling well, but that didn’t matter one bit, because @bexilsley was built to be an unstoppable machine! 💪 I promised myself I would say yes to every single opportunity I was offered in the future, like I was Danny Wallace in fucking Yes Man. No matter how mismatched, big, or messy, no matter how hard it was to follow through. I actively sought out open calls, competitions and collaborations. I started doing promotions for brands and other creators. The goal was to build up a long CV for credibility at-a-glance, and I thought if I wasn’t everywhere all the time, I’d vanish. I told myself it was performance art. I was ironically playing at being an influencer. A fake influencer. A spy. I said yes to it all because that was content. Content gave me attention. Attention gave me value. One photo of me in a wig wasn’t art, but a hundred was. I didn’t even care if I liked the clothes I was sent, @bexilsley says yes and always takes the brand deal. Please like and share!! <img width="1166" height="1166" width_o="1166" height_o="1166" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e47ac062e67461041d86f2f1b8364365a9bdbd703e2f04fa723203a2d1289092/IMG_7601.JPG" data-mid="234181137" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e47ac062e67461041d86f2f1b8364365a9bdbd703e2f04fa723203a2d1289092/IMG_7601.JPG" /> <img width="640" height="640" width_o="640" height_o="640" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/155af0f51006e9daa1e262c42f705cd62d321b8354c4e3e6ee93547e6453fdd2/IMG_7603.JPG" data-mid="234181149" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/155af0f51006e9daa1e262c42f705cd62d321b8354c4e3e6ee93547e6453fdd2/IMG_7603.JPG" /> <img width="1124" height="1124" width_o="1124" height_o="1124" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f7a262c9b4014307fe6c4d89326550bccd1b11c4bfa7e77aeaadd06d2558b03b/pr.jpg" data-mid="234181151" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f7a262c9b4014307fe6c4d89326550bccd1b11c4bfa7e77aeaadd06d2558b03b/pr.jpg" /> You might be thinking that this is insane behaviour. If I had no money and was feeling overwhelmed and unwell, I should probably have taken care of that before I committed to exhibitions and commissions, because surely the work is going to suffer? And you’d be totally right. I write this not to whinge or pity myself, but just to illustrate the cultural moment this story came from. The hyper-accelerated ecosystem I was in, powered by validation metrics, didn’t reward actual self-care, even if it claimed it did. What was rewarded was constant visibility and performance. I had this poisonous grindset mentality. I saved memes in my phone that said things like ‘if you can’t stop thinking about it, don’t stop working for it’ and took that as literally as possible. If I stayed up all night hyper-fixating on a project, if I cried myself breathless, it just meant I was dedicated to my craft. If things felt unmanageable, it’s because I wasn’t manifesting hard enough. If I started to feel like I was losing my mind, I just needed to ‘trust the process’. Peace and positive vibes! 🌈☀️🌴✌️ I stopped eating because all I could think about was work. One of my tutors commented on my weight loss when I came back for my third year in September 2015. I took it as a win. It meant I was in control. I thought it was probably better for engagement. I thought maybe I won’t have to agonise over every photo of myself online, if I’m skinny. I could be a statue, a tower, a cyborg, a thing. Maybe the Miley kids will stop commenting that I’m ugly. The thoughts were gross and insidious and decidedly un-feminist. It’s hard to look back at it. <img width="1972" height="1972" width_o="1972" height_o="1972" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9b0a2dd0e4a25613d16c3de16f19f5f1d75757d1f99d5295f9ffe5d9d4d15c09/IMG_3587.JPG" data-mid="234179271" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9b0a2dd0e4a25613d16c3de16f19f5f1d75757d1f99d5295f9ffe5d9d4d15c09/IMG_3587.JPG" /> --- Sometime in early 2015, Wayne Coyne commented on one of my posts and suggested he wanted me to come to Oklahoma City and pour a blob on his roof. He had some existing metal domes with some melted-looking elements dripping down the side, but that they simply weren’t blobby enough for him. I could see what he meant. The idea was so exciting. I wanted to do it so much. There wasn’t a plan, there were no real parameters. It was just ‘do what you do, but come do it here‘. Enthusiasm is a wonderful thing, but I’m fuelled by anxiety. I remember thinking okay - how do you pour a sculpture on someone’s roof? What if it goes wrong? What if it’s not weather-proof? Isn’t that like, tornado country? What if I fuck up his house?? <img width="640" height="1173" width_o="640" height_o="1173" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/83f9dabd407f1eb2a0c07b78cc7787df221683e9fe5889a783605fc66f41f522/IMG_3002.PNG" data-mid="234179193" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/83f9dabd407f1eb2a0c07b78cc7787df221683e9fe5889a783605fc66f41f522/IMG_3002.PNG" /> I told him I didn’t want to commit without testing it at home first, so I proposed making a trial version with a view to repeating the process onsite once I was sure I’d get it right. He told me the real thing was six feet wide. I made one as big as I could, using what I had, to make sure I was on the right track. Wayne invited me to Sound City festival in Liverpool where the Flaming Lips were headlining that May, to talk about it more. It was an amazing day, getting to see how the shows work behind the scenes. <img width="640" height="633" width_o="640" height_o="633" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6b03303905913efa8cdcc935a63bb67bea6e756eca47cba61a3adf6cd61a58e8/IMG_3005.PNG" data-mid="234178263" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/6b03303905913efa8cdcc935a63bb67bea6e756eca47cba61a3adf6cd61a58e8/IMG_3005.PNG" /> <img width="640" height="2362" width_o="640" height_o="2362" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d603d23fc874a3b7b9f6979b55dc64f0101585da25ef30c1ad01c63de4e2d090/IMG_4783-copy.jpg" data-mid="234178897" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/d603d23fc874a3b7b9f6979b55dc64f0101585da25ef30c1ad01c63de4e2d090/IMG_4783-copy.jpg" /> <img width="1212" height="1212" width_o="1212" height_o="1212" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/839393e02b362cb253ce71d9babdfc61fe70ec49c06e283cbd175eaf7186f7cd/IMG_4786.JPG" data-mid="234178239" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/839393e02b362cb253ce71d9babdfc61fe70ec49c06e283cbd175eaf7186f7cd/IMG_4786.JPG" /> <img width="2448" height="3264" width_o="2448" height_o="3264" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3df49b7065de29d9b0310f988d3742c09aa7af65214af8e2e5ac38a73ecbbd47/IMG_4952.JPG" data-mid="234178234" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3df49b7065de29d9b0310f988d3742c09aa7af65214af8e2e5ac38a73ecbbd47/IMG_4952.JPG" /> <img width="2448" height="3264" width_o="2448" height_o="3264" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ce819504b52df0d624bf6cd963e961761e3cafe394284ca3a6233e03a8073a02/IMG_5002.JPG" data-mid="234178233" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ce819504b52df0d624bf6cd963e961761e3cafe394284ca3a6233e03a8073a02/IMG_5002.JPG" /> <img width="1280" height="1280" width_o="1280" height_o="1280" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/08d78370a37131706696999796d90f1b3a69ec8c0808616271646a21c5aa436d/IMG_5900.JPG" data-mid="234177332" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/08d78370a37131706696999796d90f1b3a69ec8c0808616271646a21c5aa436d/IMG_5900.JPG" /> <img width="3264" height="2448" width_o="3264" height_o="2448" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b17ebcccb366bd7e5d9f58458916db7fe4767c1cf862166ea4f505dbe86fc2dd/IMG_4965.JPG" data-mid="234178232" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b17ebcccb366bd7e5d9f58458916db7fe4767c1cf862166ea4f505dbe86fc2dd/IMG_4965.JPG" /> <img width="2448" height="2448" width_o="2448" height_o="2448" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c318c1b912b1c4c3003ba99f5adc5a294448bfb49ddb22ab7c02b6bf8ba5940e/IMG_4974.JPG" data-mid="234180465" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c318c1b912b1c4c3003ba99f5adc5a294448bfb49ddb22ab7c02b6bf8ba5940e/IMG_4974.JPG" /> <img width="2448" height="3264" width_o="2448" height_o="3264" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5b99a22eec96b126716c7e26450440cc2584d653d2fdbe5b0c167508c9957f67/IMG_4995.JPG" data-mid="234178231" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5b99a22eec96b126716c7e26450440cc2584d653d2fdbe5b0c167508c9957f67/IMG_4995.JPG" /> <img width="640" height="890" width_o="640" height_o="890" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/da7a15a2980773dd9ce16afdc7f0d3ce016a420fb37c09816c34007d148c68d6/IMG_5076.PNG" data-mid="234178898" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/da7a15a2980773dd9ce16afdc7f0d3ce016a420fb37c09816c34007d148c68d6/IMG_5076.PNG" /> After that, he sent me £650 to buy materials and figure it out, which was amazing. I went shopping. I bought a 60” diameter water balloon, two 10 litre kits of polyurethane foam, a long stick, 5 litres of epoxy resin, several bags of mirror tiles, a few cans of silver spray paint, tarps, packs of Modroc plaster bandages, a big box of hot glue sticks, two glue guns and several mixing buckets. The art school studios were closed for the summer, so I filled the balloon with air in my living room and used plaster bandages to make a dome from it. I thought back to the last time I did this - a childhood papier mâché project, only huge this time. That was my base. When I got access to the studios again in early September, I put it in the boot of a taxi and took it down Oxford Road to uni. I covered the floor in tarps and stacked two desks on top of one another with the dome on top. I stood on a chair and started pouring foam all over it. I cut pieces away and tried again when it went wrong. I sprayed it silver and glued mirror tiles on, one by one, to create the melted disco ball effect Wayne wanted. <img width="2448" height="2448" width_o="2448" height_o="2448" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/969f613eb8a4e02e46462744a512cc5b52a032f0f1e08d7e978f34d03368b32b/IMG_7829.JPG" data-mid="234179685" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/969f613eb8a4e02e46462744a512cc5b52a032f0f1e08d7e978f34d03368b32b/IMG_7829.JPG" /> <img width="2448" height="3264" width_o="2448" height_o="3264" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c5fa3170384532fb71ae54933046d08da05419e10171173d43d1f301a5cf4764/IMG_7834.JPG" data-mid="234179686" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c5fa3170384532fb71ae54933046d08da05419e10171173d43d1f301a5cf4764/IMG_7834.JPG" /> <img width="3264" height="2448" width_o="3264" height_o="2448" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/34f2f9c1f34e6639646fb3ab38dde1b0c7766c34d0c4d717f751544378d1ed99/IMG_8259.JPG" data-mid="234179687" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/34f2f9c1f34e6639646fb3ab38dde1b0c7766c34d0c4d717f751544378d1ed99/IMG_8259.JPG" /> <img width="2448" height="2448" width_o="2448" height_o="2448" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3903391d036dea2ef7a562d336aea6aa190e969a055cc353675b4424ce920d5a/IMG_8472.JPG" data-mid="234179688" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3903391d036dea2ef7a562d336aea6aa190e969a055cc353675b4424ce920d5a/IMG_8472.JPG" /> <img width="2048" height="2048" width_o="2048" height_o="2048" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ee45586201a40373a51bf9edf5168675379773d594406b95141477a87d4eda68/IMG_8534-1.jpeg" data-mid="234179691" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ee45586201a40373a51bf9edf5168675379773d594406b95141477a87d4eda68/IMG_8534-1.jpeg" /> <img width="2448" height="3264" width_o="2448" height_o="3264" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/17b96bf0d416a1f2ae7998e72f53132860f144f347f758f2ad5c6572755b68b2/IMG_8432.JPG" data-mid="234180544" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/17b96bf0d416a1f2ae7998e72f53132860f144f347f758f2ad5c6572755b68b2/IMG_8432.JPG" /> <img width="2319" height="2319" width_o="2319" height_o="2319" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e208bb6a0993b06523b67f9df33f5b9a9e20fdc3f2edbeff00ada706d2498c0a/IMG_8672.JPG" data-mid="234179690" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e208bb6a0993b06523b67f9df33f5b9a9e20fdc3f2edbeff00ada706d2498c0a/IMG_8672.JPG" /> <img width="2448" height="3264" width_o="2448" height_o="3264" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1e0bca24c0153ad2f9643f7243a76f5faa5dacd8aaa3eb743f3da0a3a468246f/IMG_8687.JPG" data-mid="234180545" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1e0bca24c0153ad2f9643f7243a76f5faa5dacd8aaa3eb743f3da0a3a468246f/IMG_8687.JPG" /> <img width="640" height="452" width_o="640" height_o="452" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bdc8ec1355dbf4f14e89be4d77b75ef4b0e9f36195c92ce00813d6769d2ca70c/love.jpg" data-mid="234179787" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/bdc8ec1355dbf4f14e89be4d77b75ef4b0e9f36195c92ce00813d6769d2ca70c/love.jpg" /> It was a little difficult to get the tiles looking right on such an uneven surface, and when I sent a few pics, Wayne wasn’t keen on the size of them or the pattern I’d placed them in (he was right). I’d already spunked the budget by then and I couldn’t afford more, so I sat for hours hand-cutting each of the big ones into quarters with tile nippers. <img width="2448" height="2448" width_o="2448" height_o="2448" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9f5d0c9bd0bec0e994a4eb55b1c1de9e5c8beda5f39991309155fe8b7c4564cb/IMG_9915.JPG" data-mid="234179803" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9f5d0c9bd0bec0e994a4eb55b1c1de9e5c8beda5f39991309155fe8b7c4564cb/IMG_9915.JPG" /> <img width="450" height="800" width_o="450" height_o="800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/362f19f3e93768f9b0a575ecf8534f82e2d005a6e6db3232dcf80abdb352dc35/sparkle.gif" data-mid="234180053" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/450/i/362f19f3e93768f9b0a575ecf8534f82e2d005a6e6db3232dcf80abdb352dc35/sparkle.gif" /> <img width="2448" height="2448" width_o="2448" height_o="2448" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/eddb8d73cabed2a96f43353f6d035dccdb6144efdcc91bca3465570ac9e079de/IMG_8979.JPG" data-mid="234180049" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/eddb8d73cabed2a96f43353f6d035dccdb6144efdcc91bca3465570ac9e079de/IMG_8979.JPG" /> I sent more pictures. He said it looked great and that I should cover the whole thing. I had nowhere near enough tiles for that, and I was confused, because I didn’t think that was necessary for a trial run. I told him I was broke and that hundreds more mirror tiles would cost a lot. He suggested I could ship him the one I’d made, but it wouldn’t even fit through the studio doors at that point. I think the size of the domes he had installed at home changed from six to ten feet, and that kind of negated everything I’d done so far, too. Things broke down and fizzled out after that. We didn’t fall out, but it was just too complicated. I had so much else going on. My work was changing, I was trying to figure out what I really wanted to say with it. I had a dissertation to write. My personal life was in shreds and things were going on behind the scenes that were really fucking with my head. I know Wayne didn’t mean any harm. He’s a visionary thinker who likes to take a big idea and just get it done. I like to take on big ideas and let them consume me. I think the mistake I made was that I’d always come back to him with questions and barriers. I didn’t realise I was meant to work it out with my own ingenuity and come back with magic. I wasn’t supposed to weigh the dream down with hesitations. I wasn’t equipped. I wish I had been. I was a student artist being asked to make a large-scale sculpture for a rock star across international distance by text. I think it’s worth reflecting on because it’s the kind of uneven dynamic I imagine happens more often than we admit in creative industries. It’s the kind of structural mismatch that appears when you’re young and hungry and trying to meet lofty ambitions with no buffers. It’s the reason so many of us fall through the cracks. I was offered something glittering but there was no scaffolding beneath it so it just collpased, and I know I’m not the only one.&nbsp;You’ve got to look after yourself. --- The best part of early Instagram was the way it felt like real intimacy. There really were strangers who became friends and collaborators. Sometimes they became lifelines to me. I’m still in touch with a few now. The worst part was how quickly attention came and how stressful it felt when I didn’t know how to handle it. Eventually, the feed stopped being chronological, a lot of those connections thinned and fell away and I think something essential got lost, or it certainly got colder. Blobshop faded like yesterday’s dream, like a pop song that never made the final cut. A hulking mirrored dome in a borrowed room I had to saw into pieces to dispose of. I try not to think about the waste. <img width="2448" height="3264" width_o="2448" height_o="3264" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7695c1e86088f4ffe1e87633061ded3352033f6ad75c68f96f563f314c440dcd/IMG_8673.JPG" data-mid="234180221" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7695c1e86088f4ffe1e87633061ded3352033f6ad75c68f96f563f314c440dcd/IMG_8673.JPG" /> <img width="640" height="795" width_o="640" height_o="795" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/11bfe9126f3199fc56b8e161ab6ee469bc16e51db39e1bcb22b9c9585f557dff/IMG_9132.PNG" data-mid="234180403" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/11bfe9126f3199fc56b8e161ab6ee469bc16e51db39e1bcb22b9c9585f557dff/IMG_9132.PNG" /> <img width="640" height="1136" width_o="640" height_o="1136" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8e1b4b54e7f87be7a9f070dde773756df76cccc66d25245c0abc44ee19ad3276/IMG_8699.JPG" data-mid="234180219" border="0" 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height="1627" width_o="1627" height_o="1627" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/628abd4e2325f132115d08345801e7b03a18ca4a8a98b94af6d0b365b4d829cf/EQZM1705.JPG" data-mid="234180396" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/628abd4e2325f132115d08345801e7b03a18ca4a8a98b94af6d0b365b4d829cf/EQZM1705.JPG" /> <img width="544" height="394" width_o="544" height_o="394" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f732624e5ddafcc58e4f950e37cda757190fccd26e612d4091def7ab1554e0f1/IMG_6371.JPG" data-mid="234180241" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/544/i/f732624e5ddafcc58e4f950e37cda757190fccd26e612d4091def7ab1554e0f1/IMG_6371.JPG" /> <img width="2448" height="3264" width_o="2448" height_o="3264" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7a1fa36e80415f6fdd09110cf9d1ba1247c51924d9a0d6c9b7e653df881f6e76/IMG_3822.JPG" data-mid="234181226" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7a1fa36e80415f6fdd09110cf9d1ba1247c51924d9a0d6c9b7e653df881f6e76/IMG_3822.JPG" /> <img width="3264" height="2448" width_o="3264" height_o="2448" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a4ba3e7467b10caccac0542a014e92a0c185a7afea9bd555ab71bebc5d80b284/IMG_3880.JPG" data-mid="234181227" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a4ba3e7467b10caccac0542a014e92a0c185a7afea9bd555ab71bebc5d80b284/IMG_3880.JPG" /> <img width="2448" height="3264" width_o="2448" height_o="3264" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b6cb0b732bcd4dc9d32302b6044704ce5eed13376ee3bfa5ee3fe387845f3eb1/IMG_5948.JPG" data-mid="234181229" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b6cb0b732bcd4dc9d32302b6044704ce5eed13376ee3bfa5ee3fe387845f3eb1/IMG_5948.JPG" /> <img width="1936" height="1936" width_o="1936" height_o="1936" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a2abc1a5acbaf907bb514931ae857449820fe904a42c5bb341387d3c9679d6d5/IMG_3741.JPG" data-mid="234181225" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a2abc1a5acbaf907bb514931ae857449820fe904a42c5bb341387d3c9679d6d5/IMG_3741.JPG" /> <img width="1080" height="720" width_o="1080" height_o="720" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/061997bfa5221fbc921ac68215a0e171b7fec8c47a2c44b7bc895300cf034015/Photo-on-13-04-2015-at-15.42.jpg" data-mid="234180242" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/061997bfa5221fbc921ac68215a0e171b7fec8c47a2c44b7bc895300cf034015/Photo-on-13-04-2015-at-15.42.jpg" /> https://bexilsley.com/Blobshop-1 Fri, 23 Apr 2021 13:09:42 +0000 Bex Ilsley https://bexilsley.com/Blobshop-1 Blobshop2013 - 2016 / 2022 - 2022 <img width="1869" height="1663" width_o="1869" height_o="1663" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f0b4ceddc495ae6e790747db3ccce516fa94a65d4bb566399ccd5554af93338c/5.png" data-mid="123699281" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f0b4ceddc495ae6e790747db3ccce516fa94a65d4bb566399ccd5554af93338c/5.png" /> <img width="948" height="1276" width_o="948" height_o="1276" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b5844e6b9f2a8e1805a6b9882cb1688c30876694d52680e4ab58fbe063fa0a3f/Untitled-2.jpg" data-mid="233923773" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/948/i/b5844e6b9f2a8e1805a6b9882cb1688c30876694d52680e4ab58fbe063fa0a3f/Untitled-2.jpg" /> <img width="720" height="520" width_o="720" height_o="520" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b1a9d5a46af32e9c8e7bfbbf394eabb6411bffdcd281967d537a8fb4c5f5250b/bs2.png" data-mid="123939347" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/720/i/b1a9d5a46af32e9c8e7bfbbf394eabb6411bffdcd281967d537a8fb4c5f5250b/bs2.png" /> <img width="1756" height="1823" width_o="1756" height_o="1823" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a2fba36085f369653e2cec9776fb5f98312e0d014da1df8964c725ea693094ac/7.png" data-mid="123699274" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a2fba36085f369653e2cec9776fb5f98312e0d014da1df8964c725ea693094ac/7.png" /> <img width="2004" height="1833" width_o="2004" height_o="1833" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cbe71fe38b177b45a62db4e0dc71085a879bdf9eecdaae84c309a5262e01ef80/13.png" data-mid="123699279" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/cbe71fe38b177b45a62db4e0dc71085a879bdf9eecdaae84c309a5262e01ef80/13.png" /> What was Blobshop?Between 2014 and 2016, I ran an online shop called Blobshop where I sold small blob sculptures I made - fluorescent, gooey, psychedelic forms - for £20–£25 each. They were made from expanding foam, pigments, and resin. They sat somewhere between artwork and ornament, between pop sculpture, merchandise, and post-internet artefact. I did this during my time at Manchester School of Art, and for a brief, surreal period, it kind of exploded. My work was shared by The Flaming Lips and Miley Cyrus, re-edited into fan memes, and caught up in a chaotic little corner of early 2010s social media art culture. This is a personal reflection on that time - what it meant, what it cost, what I learned. I’m writing it down because I want the story to live somewhere outside my head. If you were there, or if you’re just curious, here it is. The Beginning In the Autumn of 2013 I began my first year of art school at Manchester School of Art. I’d started with making poured paintings and photographic experiments with liquid after seeing similar works I liked on tumblr - in particular, this one by Destiny Womack, though there were others too. I liked it because it was psychedelic, chance-based, and I’d just had a big 60’s oil-wheel-acid-art phase in 2012 when I was building my application portfolio. <img width="640" height="640" width_o="640" height_o="640" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/97edb6af76af49c5592079702b201b52c25e5df0832037e785920fb8b257f607/1799842_1471305809749456_520646711_n.jpg" data-mid="233924019" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/97edb6af76af49c5592079702b201b52c25e5df0832037e785920fb8b257f607/1799842_1471305809749456_520646711_n.jpg" /> <img width="4000" height="3000" width_o="4000" height_o="3000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/79172883a93ccad160227aec1cc403af8e13f62d33779b2cd76c20e4aaef90ec/P1030545.jpg" data-mid="233924031" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/79172883a93ccad160227aec1cc403af8e13f62d33779b2cd76c20e4aaef90ec/P1030545.jpg" /> <img width="608" height="610" width_o="608" height_o="610" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/57bbf178723f8e62cae607f7d4b580a13c70162d25b44ccb30f492c8ce5eadc9/Screenshot-2014-11-27-18.33.58.png" data-mid="233926155" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/608/i/57bbf178723f8e62cae607f7d4b580a13c70162d25b44ccb30f492c8ce5eadc9/Screenshot-2014-11-27-18.33.58.png" /> <img width="768" height="768" width_o="768" height_o="768" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7c103bcb2b0a9f4c2f8491a1964cc51dbc7bfc8e63a3ef8ba10e4b5b98d10568/02.jpg" data-mid="233926152" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/768/i/7c103bcb2b0a9f4c2f8491a1964cc51dbc7bfc8e63a3ef8ba10e4b5b98d10568/02.jpg" /> <img width="640" height="640" width_o="640" height_o="640" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/91f617792bc9033699fcca39a22de8363e79cd91761ecca90385a6e984957993/IMG_8510.jpeg" data-mid="233924060" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/91f617792bc9033699fcca39a22de8363e79cd91761ecca90385a6e984957993/IMG_8510.jpeg" /> <img width="4000" height="3000" width_o="4000" height_o="3000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/12202e7df48b4fc331fea6e553f6fdd5597b50dde3988ef98969a5e3dfe07457/P1030496.jpg" data-mid="233924035" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/12202e7df48b4fc331fea6e553f6fdd5597b50dde3988ef98969a5e3dfe07457/P1030496.jpg" /> <img width="768" height="768" width_o="768" height_o="768" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4b134826508a172f4a1711cd7c7ee051756b1f386b6634e2eeeaac3e40510d53/IMG_3978.JPG" data-mid="233972624" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/768/i/4b134826508a172f4a1711cd7c7ee051756b1f386b6634e2eeeaac3e40510d53/IMG_3978.JPG" /> <img width="4000" height="3000" width_o="4000" height_o="3000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7528aba7c77c20b1ee35e97ad4050e3d6e13bee5409a49ec2726c54752fd18f7/P1030593.jpg" data-mid="233924033" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7528aba7c77c20b1ee35e97ad4050e3d6e13bee5409a49ec2726c54752fd18f7/P1030593.jpg" /> I spent many hours trying to work out how to do this as organically as possible, finding the right materials to use. I wanted gravity to do its thing and reveal beauty to me, freezing a moment of fluid movement in time, on canvas or wood or metal. I began to tire of them pretty quickly. They didn’t really say a lot, especially not anything new.&nbsp; While I was leaving a certain amount down to chance in those paintings, I still felt limited by flat surfaces that I had to tilt and tip and intervene on. I started to think -&nbsp;what if I could pour in three dimensions instead? I had seen Lynda Benglis’ ‘Quartered Meteor’ at the Tate of course, I am not going to pretend she didn’t influence me hugely - and I’d seen Roxy Paine’s Scumak works and&nbsp;Louise Zhang’s sculptures online. I decided that was the direction I needed to go in. I made my first blob sculpture in my studio space at art school in November 2013, using 2-part expanding foam and UV powder pigment so it would glow softly under blacklight. I’m not sure if I’d seen Benglis’ ‘Phantom’ yet or not. The UV fascination came more from my interest in 1960’s posters and 1990’s rave aesthetics. I’ve always been into garish stuff. <img width="640" height="640" width_o="640" height_o="640" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c2489a859ef9fdf4bed57182f0177f95764a39bb448c490cbd6a70dc08b08560/unnamed.jpg" data-mid="233919132" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/c2489a859ef9fdf4bed57182f0177f95764a39bb448c490cbd6a70dc08b08560/unnamed.jpg" /> <img width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/af6d1938dd3f86c888a17a7de9696ee37e3026774ba0802cee385409394d62ff/10153510171990023.jpg" data-mid="233919145" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/600/i/af6d1938dd3f86c888a17a7de9696ee37e3026774ba0802cee385409394d62ff/10153510171990023.jpg" /> &nbsp; After the winter break, I made more. I made a few, all about 2ft tall, or thereabouts. They were created by mixing fluorescent pigments into the foam itself, or sprayed with chameleon car paint. I would then pour and paint on a layer or two of epoxy resin to make them glossy and seal the colour. I’d thought of that because I’d seen resin poured onto paintings - ones by Alex Echo in the window of my local Castle Fine Art in Leamington Spa - in 2012 before I moved to Manchester. I loved how it made it look shrinkwrapped, laminated, impossibly shiny. <img width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b4ca7886b915df56d653fb518a01e172af17165162115692f75598c301c5f5d9/10153766119595023.jpg" data-mid="233919148" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/600/i/b4ca7886b915df56d653fb518a01e172af17165162115692f75598c301c5f5d9/10153766119595023.jpg" /> <img width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/57689253684300e69113e8959fab23a999a872e1ad69027d049f2b01f71bd941/10153794148445023.jpg" data-mid="233919149" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/600/i/57689253684300e69113e8959fab23a999a872e1ad69027d049f2b01f71bd941/10153794148445023.jpg" /> <img width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c0fc53e7f384c4dbfad574e19fe48c0c229d739f0f203f6d3dbac1e636e24d26/10153793982815023.jpg" data-mid="233919153" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/600/i/c0fc53e7f384c4dbfad574e19fe48c0c229d739f0f203f6d3dbac1e636e24d26/10153793982815023.jpg" /> <img width="640" height="640" width_o="640" height_o="640" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1ed30251880bd00634fd9bd1e4d28d1a350b989123b1bf8264138858188316a7/IMG_8492.JPG" data-mid="233919210" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/1ed30251880bd00634fd9bd1e4d28d1a350b989123b1bf8264138858188316a7/IMG_8492.JPG" /> <img width="640" height="640" width_o="640" height_o="640" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/684dd5958db08127b8144b35b45ec91dfd38687bd6db4750069926b1fc53d180/IMG_8489.JPG" data-mid="233919211" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/684dd5958db08127b8144b35b45ec91dfd38687bd6db4750069926b1fc53d180/IMG_8489.JPG" /> <img width="640" height="640" width_o="640" height_o="640" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/af673d23145e4f1396e9a8dc213a124abc1af8b1507d272b66b2cbdb2de36dde/42169576_237019853834045_4010763193990250496_n.jpg" data-mid="233919183" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/af673d23145e4f1396e9a8dc213a124abc1af8b1507d272b66b2cbdb2de36dde/42169576_237019853834045_4010763193990250496_n.jpg" /> At the same time, I was building up a little Instagram following, modest but engaged. A lot of that was to do with integrating myself into a community of artists and creative people surrounding the band The Flaming Lips, a band I love. I had a lot of valuable exchanges this way and a lot of inspiration. We’d do art trades and collaborations. I can’t list it all here, I’m not sure I could even remember now, but all of us liked and used lurid colour, all of us looking at the gooey, the splashy and the strange. &nbsp;In late 2013 or early 2014, Andy Holden gave a talk at my uni and showed us his Totems for Thingly Time. I’m going to steal the description from the Arts Council’s collection: The sculpture Totem for Thingly Time (IV) has been described by the artist as ‘part cake, part stalagmite, part pastel hangover’. Formed of dripping plaster, Holden explains that this work was an attempt to make an object that ‘revealed the time of its own construction’. He sees it as ‘something heavy, ambiguous, fallen out of the cartoon landscape, but related to place in the same way that a bird’s nest is.’ &nbsp; Naturally, I found these fascinating and beautiful and drew parallels with what I was trying to achieve. In the last image on Andy’s site, you can see smaller versions of these large pieces. He told us he used leftover plaster to pour over glass beer bottles and he sold them out the back of his van at the private view - ‘original multiples’. I loved that - how it circumvented the opaque world of gallery sales, a world that seemed completely unreachable and convoluted to me as a student. It was a cheeky and cool little comment on exiting through the gift shop. An accessible, affordable souvenir.&nbsp; I was thinking too about the difference between the physical ‘sculpture’ and its representation online, the flat backlit image of it on the Instagram feed. It becomes something else then, doesn’t it? So, inspired by Andy’s ideas, I made smaller blobs, 5 or 6 inches tall - just the right size for a desk or a bookshelf. I figured it could supplement my student income and make me less skint. I launched Blobshop online via social media and Bigcartel in February of 2014. They sold out, to online and offline friends and fellow artists around the world. <img width="2048" height="2048" width_o="2048" height_o="2048" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1a0710624171ea412b8b20624343997d15a074dd158783349f8cde18bcf08627/462427903_8432018430251418_8098513228611478629_n.jpg" data-mid="233921125" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1a0710624171ea412b8b20624343997d15a074dd158783349f8cde18bcf08627/462427903_8432018430251418_8098513228611478629_n.jpg" /> <img width="2048" height="2048" width_o="2048" height_o="2048" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d899c57278325f0a56b5151bdb4e9ef72c78c0f70af8b15e8dbb3b984760ca90/462458299_8432018446918083_1289957102375791366_n.jpg" data-mid="233921126" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d899c57278325f0a56b5151bdb4e9ef72c78c0f70af8b15e8dbb3b984760ca90/462458299_8432018446918083_1289957102375791366_n.jpg" /> In May of 2014, I went to see The Flaming Lips play in Manchester and I took a gold glitter blob with me to give to Wayne Coyne. I think he’d already seen my work online at that point. He started following me on Instagram, which was a dream come true. This time in my life was really exciting. I felt like I’d finally found my language and my place. Over the start of that summer, I made more. Further ‘drops’ happened throughout the first half of 2014 and they sold well. I was building a little following, bolstered by the support from Wayne, and it was helping me through school. <img width="1280" height="1280" width_o="1280" height_o="1280" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2e214c8a95f181575c389463e3802295137f205e5e77b043960335acb682789a/IMG_0988.JPG" data-mid="233922508" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2e214c8a95f181575c389463e3802295137f205e5e77b043960335acb682789a/IMG_0988.JPG" /> <img width="1684" height="1684" width_o="1684" height_o="1684" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/75a6c2c690d0a92b7059902e335ee91c5f3c18e2190bd351af0acb2ac3b27130/IMG_0047.JPG" data-mid="233922488" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/75a6c2c690d0a92b7059902e335ee91c5f3c18e2190bd351af0acb2ac3b27130/IMG_0047.JPG" /> <img width="1000" height="1000" width_o="1000" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/46291d3920accb824fe651a81f76a5bd4d91ede9162b68b1c63fa1b33a310f89/IMG_1298.JPG" data-mid="233922530" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/46291d3920accb824fe651a81f76a5bd4d91ede9162b68b1c63fa1b33a310f89/IMG_1298.JPG" /> <img width="1280" height="1280" width_o="1280" height_o="1280" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0c5d878401419b69ab0cb7b3afe4161ecb739d811ed2bf415c3c199277baf74b/IMG_1101.JPG" data-mid="233922526" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0c5d878401419b69ab0cb7b3afe4161ecb739d811ed2bf415c3c199277baf74b/IMG_1101.JPG" /> The Middle In August 2014, I sent some white blobs to artist Oliver Hibert, who I’d connected with over Instagram. He painted some signature eyeballs on them as a little collaborative fun-thing-to-do. I would seek these kinds of opportunities out for connection and reach - mutual support. I liked to arrange trades. I received a lot of artwork from others in exchange for blob sculptures. <img width="1279" height="1279" width_o="1279" height_o="1279" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/13576bd8c9f44bc6c1e38bdf3a30a982ab1037430376ac58f8e7ee0486d02602/IMG_0970.JPG" data-mid="233922503" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/13576bd8c9f44bc6c1e38bdf3a30a982ab1037430376ac58f8e7ee0486d02602/IMG_0970.JPG" /> <img width="1279" height="1279" width_o="1279" height_o="1279" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8ad20da0de4c29783c8e724d1c188c1bc896ecd1ae3e9b379b46c7959c702c47/IMG_0818.JPG" data-mid="233922536" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8ad20da0de4c29783c8e724d1c188c1bc896ecd1ae3e9b379b46c7959c702c47/IMG_0818.JPG" /> My memory is hazy, but I think Miley Cyrus - who was already collaborating with the Flaming Lips at this time (Oliver created the artwork for With a Little Help from My Fwends, the Lips’ Sgt Pepper’s cover album that Miley leant vocals to) was following Oliver on Instagram already, and this collaboration is what led her to see my stuff. On 11th August, I woke up early because my phone was going insane. I could hear notifications coming through every second and I didn’t understand what was happening. Through half-stuck sleepy eyes, I realised Miley Cyrus had followed me on Instagram, along with 7500 others. 15000 new eyeballs. Everything had changed. I went for a shower. I was scared. I came back to a direct message. &nbsp;<img width="595" height="513" width_o="595" height_o="513" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/66c6e30ab2aa045ecbb5070cfd66324e1adf96a4de3e205940a60d677ec49977/miley1stmsg.jpg" data-mid="233926225" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/595/i/66c6e30ab2aa045ecbb5070cfd66324e1adf96a4de3e205940a60d677ec49977/miley1stmsg.jpg" /> So I asked for her address and I returned to art school for my second year, as very&nbsp;serious student and self-appointed queen of the Grosvenor building. I was trying to think about what all this meant and how it could be used, what I was going to say in crits. I’d already been thinking about the process a sculpture goes through when a photo is taken and uploaded online, from object to representational image. I was thinking about the difference, or the grey area, between proper art and mere&nbsp;décor.&nbsp;Mostly though, I was thinking about all of those new eyes on me - more and more each day. The first thing I did was take my photos of my little blobs and made them into repeating patterns to be used on merchandise - cheap extras I could upsell. Stickers, pins, posters and compact mirrors.&nbsp; A looped, regurgitated journey from matter to data and back again. I also uploaded the patterns to Print All Over Me so I could sell blob prints on clothes. <img width="1840" height="1840" width_o="1840" height_o="1840" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/70e423e824c1e4aa18c6cbb0da766e08b4ca5fdbb59775824244e94fc06ebd02/IMG_1965.JPG" data-mid="233923697" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/70e423e824c1e4aa18c6cbb0da766e08b4ca5fdbb59775824244e94fc06ebd02/IMG_1965.JPG" /> <img width="600" height="800" width_o="600" height_o="800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/dd16c873595713ddb8571ff8044b1dca7019b1504380216e16d2e139ad51f7c3/483a774148dfa7769474354ee417b24a.gif" data-mid="123653156" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/600/i/dd16c873595713ddb8571ff8044b1dca7019b1504380216e16d2e139ad51f7c3/483a774148dfa7769474354ee417b24a.gif" /> <img width="785" height="1026" width_o="785" height_o="1026" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5c9b587980eda6dc87e10eea6576287171c023f056c4d8178294a685f53f2cfd/Untitled-3.jpg" data-mid="233923937" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/785/i/5c9b587980eda6dc87e10eea6576287171c023f056c4d8178294a685f53f2cfd/Untitled-3.jpg" /> <img width="640" height="640" width_o="640" height_o="640" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/851291ed752b868850588cdd30be7439e8a52d78c82450590d291ff83dc4b46b/IMG_8509.jpeg" data-mid="233923965" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/851291ed752b868850588cdd30be7439e8a52d78c82450590d291ff83dc4b46b/IMG_8509.jpeg" /> I got a box together for Miley - some blob sculptures and extras, a t-shirt or two. She stuck the stickers on her laptop and she posted photos of the blobs. She sent me photos of her biting them. By December of 2014, she’d taken my poster print and had it made into a repeating pattern and then WALLPAPERED HER BATHROOM WITH IT. She emailed me photos two days before Christmas. This was surreal for me. It still is! <img width="960" height="1280" width_o="960" height_o="1280" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4ea25e8f3829dca8b5f048b9fc4555065254489f39026b40a5ea435c639d054f/FullSizeRender.jpg" data-mid="233926289" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/960/i/4ea25e8f3829dca8b5f048b9fc4555065254489f39026b40a5ea435c639d054f/FullSizeRender.jpg" /> <img width="640" height="859" width_o="640" height_o="859" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2ccefb303554ff8d0adef45b1e90e6289fbeb575635cec4ee1c49295c8a892cb/IMG_0630.PNG" data-mid="233926474" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/2ccefb303554ff8d0adef45b1e90e6289fbeb575635cec4ee1c49295c8a892cb/IMG_0630.PNG" /> <img width="1033" height="1033" width_o="1033" height_o="1033" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c17bcdff5caeca55814041313880bb2b053cde744260d419f7c94b14eab39647/IMG_3580.JPG" data-mid="233926226" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c17bcdff5caeca55814041313880bb2b053cde744260d419f7c94b14eab39647/IMG_3580.JPG" /> <img width="640" height="640" width_o="640" height_o="640" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/750961529b78495f84447f80589bb94c10386c2d91322bb909e006786b8d1260/IMG_5419.JPG" data-mid="233926419" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/750961529b78495f84447f80589bb94c10386c2d91322bb909e006786b8d1260/IMG_5419.JPG" /> <img width="640" height="1136" width_o="640" height_o="1136" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9f1837637869e161d32ab63d891be16385201a1a700f9f52adef8fddd6bbc6a0/IMG_1425.PNG" data-mid="234157384" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/9f1837637869e161d32ab63d891be16385201a1a700f9f52adef8fddd6bbc6a0/IMG_1425.PNG" /> Every time she posted, I was flooded with comments from her young fanbase. They would ask what are these? how do you make them? what do they do? why do they exist, if they’re useless? I got so many I printed them out and made them into wallpaper - like Miley had done in her bathroom - for one of my second year assessments. <img width="2048" height="1361" width_o="2048" height_o="1361" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/98fc42e9ced6fe4fab0876c5b6aeb77bb5d0dd655b69a11673caba6a2e828167/10945873_10155184858140023_5284930070773373449_o.jpg" data-mid="233924913" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/98fc42e9ced6fe4fab0876c5b6aeb77bb5d0dd655b69a11673caba6a2e828167/10945873_10155184858140023_5284930070773373449_o.jpg" />Then, there was this amazing symbiotic thing that would happen. Miley would post, and her fans - ‘smilers’ - would make ‘edits’. They’d include things they knew she liked, references to her visual world at the time - it was all a kind of hodgepodge, maximalist, 2010’s post-Internet, seapunk-adjacent, weed-pizza-unicornpoolfloat-core aesthetic. Collages made quickly with apps. Stickers, gifs, acid smileys. She would sometimes post her favourites, so she would get tagged in hundreds of them. My work - and later my face - would appear in these remixes too. This was both amazing and disturbing to me - my work so far removed from it’s original form that it was truly something else entirely. It was a fan culture meme now, eaten and regurgitated a hundred times over. <img width="640" height="827" width_o="640" height_o="827" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f5ed75eb8c8ba495c89af77e19ce7cb7f1c99d2e4ee31590d90c6c1f974f148f/miley1.png" data-mid="233924730" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/f5ed75eb8c8ba495c89af77e19ce7cb7f1c99d2e4ee31590d90c6c1f974f148f/miley1.png" /> <img width="640" height="846" width_o="640" height_o="846" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1428bc6c1f341cf98161d6d8a9a7189db1f9ce610e465f9acdc077c41ef46e3b/IMG_9649.PNG" data-mid="233924728" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/1428bc6c1f341cf98161d6d8a9a7189db1f9ce610e465f9acdc077c41ef46e3b/IMG_9649.PNG" /> <img width="640" height="732" width_o="640" height_o="732" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1823bc9f7abca08bfb315c2f8d8b9ad70e531254657ac24c497e6f00e84cb7ae/IMG_6404.PNG" data-mid="233931216" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/1823bc9f7abca08bfb315c2f8d8b9ad70e531254657ac24c497e6f00e84cb7ae/IMG_6404.PNG" /> <img width="1272" height="1477" width_o="1272" height_o="1477" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c1ea3b70476f3aeb21eda8417d31c59b375d24a425ec2bff97338ad0a50f3ecd/IMG_4387.PNG" data-mid="233931217" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c1ea3b70476f3aeb21eda8417d31c59b375d24a425ec2bff97338ad0a50f3ecd/IMG_4387.PNG" /> <img width="1272" height="1468" width_o="1272" height_o="1468" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b15a33f83146d49534f4de7d5a9f7ca9da781b41b702568035e584f9ab95abce/IMG_3487.PNG" data-mid="233931220" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b15a33f83146d49534f4de7d5a9f7ca9da781b41b702568035e584f9ab95abce/IMG_3487.PNG" /> <img width="1272" height="1468" width_o="1272" height_o="1468" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2d90e7a5f5464dd3a0d220cab78c2fa44b25a4b3317667575561ce33cf969c4b/IMG_4049.PNG" data-mid="233931219" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2d90e7a5f5464dd3a0d220cab78c2fa44b25a4b3317667575561ce33cf969c4b/IMG_4049.PNG" /> <img width="1275" height="1468" width_o="1275" height_o="1468" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/58eb4288acf3fdc9a33cb31341800035116c252be6c9ab65ceafbb8408faa181/IMG_4117.PNG" data-mid="233931218" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/58eb4288acf3fdc9a33cb31341800035116c252be6c9ab65ceafbb8408faa181/IMG_4117.PNG" /> <img width="1272" height="1463" width_o="1272" height_o="1463" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e7eb36ec30056aeb85f5b1c8929adf6d20560c95b3d2eb294d2d629a0daf967e/IMG_3492.PNG" data-mid="233931221" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e7eb36ec30056aeb85f5b1c8929adf6d20560c95b3d2eb294d2d629a0daf967e/IMG_3492.PNG" /> <img width="1275" height="1471" width_o="1275" height_o="1471" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ce326a3966cdbddd79a8dd0d9c4894a44108226f4019419f542b1d44d13e5d5f/IMG_3447.PNG" data-mid="233931228" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ce326a3966cdbddd79a8dd0d9c4894a44108226f4019419f542b1d44d13e5d5f/IMG_3447.PNG" /> <img width="1272" height="1474" width_o="1272" height_o="1474" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/965f6d0b1896e4b0e2c362d832eb18ff164f3c2c5949a6206a10c71967828eae/IMG_3506.PNG" data-mid="233931225" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/965f6d0b1896e4b0e2c362d832eb18ff164f3c2c5949a6206a10c71967828eae/IMG_3506.PNG" /> <img width="1281" height="1469" width_o="1281" height_o="1469" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d7a052c1335bf225d8784b90cfd96609e624caf59735563030135de37fa0173c/IMG_3485.PNG" data-mid="233931227" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d7a052c1335bf225d8784b90cfd96609e624caf59735563030135de37fa0173c/IMG_3485.PNG" /> <img width="640" height="741" width_o="640" height_o="741" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/871a4b78391608516d3498ee4856b13d28954f57703b7e0c3208589031effbb9/IMG_5508.PNG" data-mid="233931229" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/871a4b78391608516d3498ee4856b13d28954f57703b7e0c3208589031effbb9/IMG_5508.PNG" /> <img width="1272" height="1471" width_o="1272" height_o="1471" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b1b05f5ad25df778375a11c1585ac439826f99400658b9da2296bb58fb632e88/IMG_3498.PNG" data-mid="233931222" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b1b05f5ad25df778375a11c1585ac439826f99400658b9da2296bb58fb632e88/IMG_3498.PNG" /> <img width="640" height="739" width_o="640" height_o="739" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/611a2263d98d7610564ce7643a2e294ef91686a11ddb3d962c8ccc5f38cd582b/IMG_5433.PNG" data-mid="233931215" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/611a2263d98d7610564ce7643a2e294ef91686a11ddb3d962c8ccc5f38cd582b/IMG_5433.PNG" /> <img width="1366" height="710" width_o="1366" height_o="710" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3311e7dcfb866e94bf87d5c296c64880f61d340c7f7142f3650d2e437e552605/mtv.jpg" data-mid="233942022" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3311e7dcfb866e94bf87d5c296c64880f61d340c7f7142f3650d2e437e552605/mtv.jpg" /> I started thinking about how I, too, was different online to the way I was in my body, in the real world. How I would flatten and translate myself for consumption. That wasn’t a revelatory thought, even in 2015, I knew that, but I wondered if I could turn my Instagram feed into a space for performance, a way to comment on the shallow self-branding of the Instagram artist. I’d read Athletic Aesthetics. I grappled a lot about whether mimicry alone can truly critique something. I also felt the need, for my sanity, to create some kind of barrier between me and the chaos of the comment section - a sort of hyperreal avatar called Bex Ilsley who would stand between me and all this attention, something untouchable and distant, laced with pastel positivity, taking cues from the visual language Miley’s fans used. In 2015, that felt somewhat fresh, I guess, alongside artists I admired, like Molly Soda. <img width="1280" height="1280" width_o="1280" height_o="1280" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8f90de4256659fddf647c5d84a0cf78ee4dab5d33a6221d19f23643dd54fb30d/3.jpg" data-mid="233925988" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8f90de4256659fddf647c5d84a0cf78ee4dab5d33a6221d19f23643dd54fb30d/3.jpg" /> <img width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e82fc17bc156ecb17a3193a7b42c000dba634441556b10ad300e30ed9d5e5ca6/leew.jpg" data-mid="233926094" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/600/i/e82fc17bc156ecb17a3193a7b42c000dba634441556b10ad300e30ed9d5e5ca6/leew.jpg" /> <img width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/17f90055dc9f672287b0f924cba21007d33e30d88bc643201be2bff5c2039591/Photo-17-02-2015-14-19-00.jpg" data-mid="233926096" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/600/i/17f90055dc9f672287b0f924cba21007d33e30d88bc643201be2bff5c2039591/Photo-17-02-2015-14-19-00.jpg" /> <img width="992" height="992" width_o="992" height_o="992" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b4be606304d00d3f27bdbb443c323995574805fdc880e24977c5e95d2b459bb0/2.jpg" data-mid="233926129" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/992/i/b4be606304d00d3f27bdbb443c323995574805fdc880e24977c5e95d2b459bb0/2.jpg" /> <img width="639" height="629" width_o="639" height_o="629" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7f2c032b4bccd218466ebaec9ecb88effa30cde96f1cae2c333faaba89166983/Screenshot-2015-06-30-11.02.23.png" data-mid="233926904" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/639/i/7f2c032b4bccd218466ebaec9ecb88effa30cde96f1cae2c333faaba89166983/Screenshot-2015-06-30-11.02.23.png" /> <img width="1280" height="1280" width_o="1280" height_o="1280" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e07b34aa2521756cba67886b3160ad3aa7cd3fa0b9172fb57693f60a9d8964a1/Photo-19-09-2014-08-46-28.jpg" data-mid="233926154" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e07b34aa2521756cba67886b3160ad3aa7cd3fa0b9172fb57693f60a9d8964a1/Photo-19-09-2014-08-46-28.jpg" /> <img width="900" height="1350" width_o="900" height_o="1350" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7efa7db21c15cfac7418f50670bed95605860dd53d31df9420ae723b2e6578e4/w1.jpg" data-mid="233926136" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/900/i/7efa7db21c15cfac7418f50670bed95605860dd53d31df9420ae723b2e6578e4/w1.jpg" /> <img width="900" height="1350" width_o="900" height_o="1350" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ccb2a7b437715ec9a0e4c582356359551f15df2f13717e8a1074af3c82d567ba/w3-copy.jpg" data-mid="233926138" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/900/i/ccb2a7b437715ec9a0e4c582356359551f15df2f13717e8a1074af3c82d567ba/w3-copy.jpg" /> <img width="900" height="1350" width_o="900" height_o="1350" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6b3f98da19c671c11265995ed5645b560a9e5f4e20d3eeb7f2036c9965a888e2/w2.jpg" data-mid="233926137" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/900/i/6b3f98da19c671c11265995ed5645b560a9e5f4e20d3eeb7f2036c9965a888e2/w2.jpg" /> In the first half of 2015, I also started to play with shapes and other materials in my sculptural experiments. I worked on my execution. They got smoother, sleeker. I made blobs that dripped downwards, I made gigantic ones 6 feet wide. I remember the day I managed to make the first drippy one, in March 2015, because it took some figuring out and I was so pleased with it. It involved tipping and coaxing the rapidly solidifying foam down a vertical sheet of greaseproof paper I could then peel away to preserve the drips.&nbsp; <img width="640" height="640" width_o="640" height_o="640" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/63f7e63d1de4a7937c02bd3242a42df1b3ace1b4f2742f86ea53cf7e82dd2d7e/40130942_311812632955149_5387082960027516928_n.jpg" data-mid="233928471" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/63f7e63d1de4a7937c02bd3242a42df1b3ace1b4f2742f86ea53cf7e82dd2d7e/40130942_311812632955149_5387082960027516928_n.jpg" /> In April 2015, I made a few more. <img width="540" height="540" width_o="540" height_o="540" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/02077242af4b7886ac2fb049b5a8a8dd5cfd5ff1882148fb8dcfd625113df783/52826918b83fd5d23fb49877d7e32564.JPEG" data-mid="233942020" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/540/i/02077242af4b7886ac2fb049b5a8a8dd5cfd5ff1882148fb8dcfd625113df783/52826918b83fd5d23fb49877d7e32564.JPEG" /> <img width="540" height="540" width_o="540" height_o="540" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e466fc506f97ac7449c53d59ff11253d258e5b4189084346bb3f8f38a2a5f2c0/b6413a7ed9ad0146d496b5504cbecf12.JPEG" data-mid="233942875" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/540/i/e466fc506f97ac7449c53d59ff11253d258e5b4189084346bb3f8f38a2a5f2c0/b6413a7ed9ad0146d496b5504cbecf12.JPEG" /> I’ve gone back and forth in my head about writing this next part, but I will, because it’s the truth. In September 2015, an artist mutual contacted me to ask if I’d trade that trio of blobs above in exchange for work of theirs - similarly colourful, wall based pieces made from similar materials. I agreed. I never received anything from them, but that person is now - a decade later - very well known for making work very similar to the above (albeit&nbsp;much more polished and finished). They do it very well. They began this shift in their work in December 2015. I understand the idea of influence, taking something and honing it, swallowing it up and translating it into something your own. There’s plenty of that in this story, after all. It’s part of what art is. I will say that it pains me sometimes to think about what could have been, if I’d had the funds, if I’d had the time, if I’d had better mental health in my 20s, if I’d found a way to focus, stick with them and develop them. I think if I had carried on making blobs like this, it would have looked quite a lot like what that person makes now and has enjoyed phenomenal success with. Maybe. Maybe I only had the early sketches in me, the prototypes, rough ideas that didn’t know how to market themselves properly, and theirs is the final version. That’s alright too. I know what hindsight is, and I can laugh at myself about that. I felt strongly that my blobs should be affordable for everyone - especially for Miley’s young fans. I didn’t realise I was also preventing the work from ever being viewed as valuable. As art. Ultimately, uni life was a struggle, these materials weren’t cheap. I had other ideas that were more interesting to me, pressure from tutors to make things that had more to say - something that could be intellectualised. Pressure on myself to do the same. To my knowledge, that person has never acknowledged that I influenced them. I say this with as much humility as I can muster, but looking at the timeline, it is difficult not to wonder. I can’t say it doesn’t sting, on bad days, when that person is tagged on my old posts - ‘this looks like one of yours!’ - or when that person’s artwork appears alongside my own in image searches - see similar results. Ah well. Life really does go on. In that summer of 2015, I made blob variations from casting plastic and plaster and silicone. I made one covered in plastic eyeballs that I could insert my legs into, a kind of tongue-in-cheek reference to The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife and the way I was starting to feel about my relationship with expanding foam and the endless online gaze. I made one I could puke, like the foam was invading my body from multiple angles. <img width="2163" height="2163" width_o="2163" height_o="2163" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ee2758e408b20c3b73899fd218da683f937f709c75814724d088e17be6914b0b/IMG_5246.JPG" data-mid="233926877" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ee2758e408b20c3b73899fd218da683f937f709c75814724d088e17be6914b0b/IMG_5246.JPG" /> <img width="1000" height="1503" width_o="1000" height_o="1503" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7ed003549fe529a422d6643f4bc056d120f78ef8888cbd8a4d57404ac50f307b/f_14_1000.jpg" data-mid="233927180" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7ed003549fe529a422d6643f4bc056d120f78ef8888cbd8a4d57404ac50f307b/f_14_1000.jpg" /> Making Instagram such a central part of my practice was taking its toll on my head. I knew I was basing much of my self-esteem on positive reactions and keeping myself relevant to a growing audience that weren’t even the audience I was trying to speak to. I was mainlining dopamine through my phone and it was turning me into a twat. I couldn’t post freely anymore, couldn’t share mistakes or messy momemts or failed experiments, for fear of backlash and shattering the illusion I was trying to build. Everything had to be glossy and perfect and ready-to-ship. That’s what I’m grappling with, above. The End In early July 2015, Miley contacted me and my friend Zara - owner of Keep it Bright, to ask if we would produce artwork for an unknown project. I was put in touch with a digital marketing director at Maverick Management.&nbsp; -- We are working on a project and after seeing your amazing blobs at Miley’s house I thought they would be perfect creatively to use as part of the design. Do you have them as PDF files, or as like a wall paper that we can tweak? I’m not exactly sure what format the design team needs but I’m hoping to find out tomorrow. -- When I responded with some of the repeating patterns I’d already made for my own merchandise, they asked if any of it was custom-made for Miley. When I said no, they asked if I could make a new, exclusive version they could license for usage. I said I could, no problem. I asked some clarifying questions about what they wanted and I gave an estimated time frame for completion. -- We are interested in doing a buyout on these exclusive blob designs, so that Miley would own the rights to use them as needed in the future. Please let me know what the cost of this would be, both for creating and owning the rights to the designs, and I’ll work on getting it approved by business management. -- Now, as a student in my second year of art school, who was not in any way business-minded or used to negotiating this kind of thing, I had no idea how to answer that question. I asked around. I asked my tutors and a few working artists I knew. Nobody had a black-and-white equation I could use. Nobody could tell me how to price my work for this. I was clueless, so I responded -&nbsp; I'll admit I've never sold full copyright before and I don't know how to name a price without knowing the extent to which the design could be used. I have been seeking some advice from trusted artists and designers I know (in general terms, of course) so I have some idea but it seems this is always dependent on the usage. do you have any more details on that yet? Could you tell me what your budget for artwork is for the project? -- We don’t currently have any plans to use the blobs for anything beyond this initial website project, so I don’t have more details the usage. However we do need to be covered in the event that this changes 6 months from now. We can offer you $500 for the custom blob designs, with all the rights to use them in perpetuity. -- Since there’s no indication of how the designs could be used in the future, I have to consider the potential of that and assume it may be widespread commercial application. I’m also aware that an artist of Miley’s standing shifts a lot of units and if you were to use my design on any commercial products then I’d want to negotiate an amount that is a fair reflection of the expected sales. Obviously I’m not looking for some delusional and unreasonable sale price at all, but from speaking to others who have sold copyright for use by musicians, $500 does seem low for full rights. If there are no plans to use the design beyond a launch website then I’d like to propose exclusive licensing of the designs to you instead for a one-off fee of $500 for that specific use. If you need to use the designs for something else later on down the line then we could discuss the sale of the full rights at a later date once this need becomes apparent. If licensing doesn’t work for you, let me know, as I’m still open to negotiating a figure for full rights at this point. -- Sorry for the delay. There have been some creative changes happening and I wanted to get a straight answer before replying. It looks like we’re going in another direction at this point, so I don’t think we’ll be needing the custom blobs any more :( -- That was the end of the Miley chapter. They said the reason for the lowball offer was because the album was being released outside of Miley’s contract with RCA, so there was no budget. I still wonder sometimes if I fucked up. I read this back now, ten years later, and I ask myself if I threw away the opportunity of a lifetime.&nbsp; In August 2015, Miley Cyrus &amp; Her Dead Petz was released and went on to become a cult milestone in independent pop - bold, weird, and high-profile. I love the album. It’s raw and mad and takes me straight back in time. I read these emails back and I flit between two opposing views - that my instincts were correct and I was right to turn down $500 for the full rights to the only intellectual property I really had at the time - work that meant everything to me. Another part of me wonders - Did I throw away an incredible opportunity because I lacked the tools to negotiate? Could I have coped with that level of exposure and momentum at that stage in my life anyway? What I keep with me is that I know I played a small part in shaping a little corner of popular culture. I’m on a moodboard, somewhere in the past. That’s more than I could ever have dreamed of when I was a child. I am still grateful, forever, to Miley, for promoting my work. I wouldn’t have gone on to do what I did after without that. I don’t think she had any idea about these discussions. What’s painfully ironic is that I moved away from making blobs after that anyway, so it wouldn’t really have mattered. It had come to its natural conclusion. My work became much more about self-portraiture - costumed facets of myself I created, that felt more authentic to me, somehow, than the person awkwardly shuffling around Manchester, glued to a phone. That’s something I’ll write about another day. In December of 2016, one of the blob images somehow ended up in Adbusters, on a Donald Trump collage captioned ‘pussygrabber’, mistaken for a royalty-free graphic. A hilarious conclusion to their journey. They were great about it though, they printed a correction in the masthead of the next issue and gave me a years’ free subscription! <img width="296" height="394" width_o="296" height_o="394" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3223d9f451b865db2a2df98ab113ab137401f33bb0b0b13a9c1b37e228371a6e/unnamed.jpg" data-mid="233954199" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/296/i/3223d9f451b865db2a2df98ab113ab137401f33bb0b0b13a9c1b37e228371a6e/unnamed.jpg" /> I came back to blobmaking briefly in the years after, but as parts of other things. It wasn’t possible to keep Blobshop going when my living situation was so precarious - multiple HMOs in various cities while I crashed and screamed through life - and I had no money for a permanent studio. I worked collaboratively with students at Kendall Collage of Art and Design with my friend&nbsp;Natalie at her space The Moon in 2016, for a video project directed by Bokeh Monster. We made some blob headwear for that. <img width="1024" height="683" width_o="1024" height_o="683" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d58385875516dc897de3a0ab2c3f4c1de05ad381d695f244951e60faa64726de/160407__MG_9959-XL.jpg" data-mid="233996333" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d58385875516dc897de3a0ab2c3f4c1de05ad381d695f244951e60faa64726de/160407__MG_9959-XL.jpg" /> I made some to support a TV screen for Castlefield Gallery’s ...in Dark Times in early 2017. <img width="5184" height="3456" width_o="5184" height_o="3456" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8574bfbd697af3c83e9ec8625d2ad783b31a4e8d8dd5775c7e64c51460fb6412/InDarkTimes.jpg" data-mid="233932540" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8574bfbd697af3c83e9ec8625d2ad783b31a4e8d8dd5775c7e64c51460fb6412/InDarkTimes.jpg" /> <img width="5184" height="3456" width_o="5184" height_o="3456" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/823d1adf53f9f3217722ca1fe3e85c59a7aa67bb9533f90f7bfe990344d0680c/Indarktimes-15.jpg" data-mid="233932543" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/823d1adf53f9f3217722ca1fe3e85c59a7aa67bb9533f90f7bfe990344d0680c/Indarktimes-15.jpg" /> This piece existed until it was sent to Belgium for another show, and one of the blobs fell out the back of a truck somewhere! The Beginning (Again) In 2021, I started thinking about what I could do to make this work feel like I owned it again, not something absorbed into the feed and forgotten. What could I do differently? I always loved the idea of making a transparent blob, and I’d been doing a few experiments with casting, like this surreal cartoon breakfast I made for fun during the covid lockdown. <img width="782" height="782" width_o="782" height_o="782" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5b5bea25c209963b6a41abb0eeb09805202fd24edab8b0bd7a3ba8ce0ddf39fd/englush.jpg" data-mid="233934740" border="0" data-scale="57" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/782/i/5b5bea25c209963b6a41abb0eeb09805202fd24edab8b0bd7a3ba8ce0ddf39fd/englush.jpg" /> The second iteration of Blobshop launched in October 2022 with minimal fanfare and little response. Years of slow posting and a severely reduced level of engagement with Instagram meant I was greeted with a punishingly low-priority place in the new algorithm-driven feeds. I could not - would not - put in the level of effort required to claw my way back to the top. I cringed at the thought of making a reel or using a trending audio. It felt humiliating and my heart wasn’t in it. I didn’t need to make them to survive anymore, having succumbed to full-time work in web development, so there was no need to force myself to play the game. I wasn’t willing to manipulate algorithms for attention I no longer craved. I really only wanted to prove to myself that I could do it and make it feel like mine again, rather than an idea that had been co-opted or diffused into something else.&nbsp; I’m so pleased with how they came out after 18 months of trial and error. I love them. <img width="1440" height="1440" width_o="1440" height_o="1440" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/26fadc70a223b86fdfea9f56f4aecf35451d80088517f308045cbf4f1020d7bd/333594610_883483372716225_4334422963196199098_n.jpg" data-mid="233942794" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/26fadc70a223b86fdfea9f56f4aecf35451d80088517f308045cbf4f1020d7bd/333594610_883483372716225_4334422963196199098_n.jpg" /> <img width="1440" height="1440" width_o="1440" height_o="1440" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3a45da2709dd33c4e1c1c9bd2a8545709f4c85717e16ef76fbe482459eed11fa/333580993_523406256565260_2154899897817779670_n.jpg" data-mid="233942797" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3a45da2709dd33c4e1c1c9bd2a8545709f4c85717e16ef76fbe482459eed11fa/333580993_523406256565260_2154899897817779670_n.jpg" /> <img width="1440" height="1440" width_o="1440" height_o="1440" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bf2f3e4ae926780b68bbe68a189852691f50762c7d11b01efc6aa40dee56bf0a/330793293_975066813483078_5507339190195194097_n.jpg" data-mid="233942793" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/bf2f3e4ae926780b68bbe68a189852691f50762c7d11b01efc6aa40dee56bf0a/330793293_975066813483078_5507339190195194097_n.jpg" /> <img width="1440" height="1440" width_o="1440" height_o="1440" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f3d66e4dd557c84a3a25f1a316bcdf969b36ec2eeaa0f309f26b04d7e37fdba5/335764566_912443426567788_6148477686608556169_n.jpg" data-mid="233942798" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f3d66e4dd557c84a3a25f1a316bcdf969b36ec2eeaa0f309f26b04d7e37fdba5/335764566_912443426567788_6148477686608556169_n.jpg" /> Thanks for reading.Bex ✴ ✴ ✴ &nbsp;<img width="2004" height="1320" width_o="2004" height_o="1320" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3b55000e90f6b7495c23b27b40a9a3133510c61853da2fb4cd01179da533194c/b2.jpg" data-mid="233938641" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3b55000e90f6b7495c23b27b40a9a3133510c61853da2fb4cd01179da533194c/b2.jpg" /> <img width="320" height="320" width_o="320" height_o="320" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/95ba7ff526a3ef2d5930fd1bdf93905c6a984b3951afd8f7f9a93c0f3f87261b/IMG_3571.GIF" data-mid="233938333" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/320/i/95ba7ff526a3ef2d5930fd1bdf93905c6a984b3951afd8f7f9a93c0f3f87261b/IMG_3571.GIF" /> <img width="640" height="640" width_o="640" height_o="640" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/26a9a4eaf65af6ffe6e55982c3ff0fc03d2ee84a359a7f2483dab728a07b1ae8/IMG_3567.JPG" data-mid="233938335" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/26a9a4eaf65af6ffe6e55982c3ff0fc03d2ee84a359a7f2483dab728a07b1ae8/IMG_3567.JPG" /> <img width="640" height="640" width_o="640" 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data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/239c839b85ae0c1e1d675c8fde69d51298afd4d6f6412f9eed63c1b4d015c231/unnamed-copy.jpg" data-mid="233938423" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/239c839b85ae0c1e1d675c8fde69d51298afd4d6f6412f9eed63c1b4d015c231/unnamed-copy.jpg" /> https://bexilsley.com/Overview Fri, 30 May 2025 08:59:44 +0000 Bex Ilsley https://bexilsley.com/Overview <img width="1000" height="1000" width_o="1000" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/00f1ed1f854274da3b7be6676857a8b0f6a2436c5a3b47f9775e3ce844d30765/beach.png" data-mid="234857940" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/00f1ed1f854274da3b7be6676857a8b0f6a2436c5a3b47f9775e3ce844d30765/beach.png" /> 04 I’m Still a Cannibal for the FBI I wanted to fix a childhood memory, and ended up deep in a digital dig-site, reverse-engineering a mostly-forgotten piece of history. Read more 🏝 21st June 2025and beyond <img width="1000" height="1000" width_o="1000" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0d7a34bcb961d8915619ffa1128fcd0028e7c150c496cf27a90f5aeffabd9825/GJ5A1907-2.jpg" data-mid="234492328" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0d7a34bcb961d8915619ffa1128fcd0028e7c150c496cf27a90f5aeffabd9825/GJ5A1907-2.jpg" /> 03 Are You Still Watching? What happens when you become the work, then fall apart in front of it? Read more ⏿ 12th June 2025 <img width="640" height="633" width_o="640" height_o="633" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6b03303905913efa8cdcc935a63bb67bea6e756eca47cba61a3adf6cd61a58e8/IMG_3005.PNG" data-mid="234492291" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/6b03303905913efa8cdcc935a63bb67bea6e756eca47cba61a3adf6cd61a58e8/IMG_3005.PNG" /> 02 Blobshop (2) Some bonus content regarding Blobshop. Includes a fun story about the time I didn’t get to make a mess on a roof in Oklahoma City. Read more 🌪 4th June 2025 <img width="2448" height="2448" width_o="2448" height_o="2448" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5d359add15fb3c1c5c684f380cc2ced9617a945147488adacb23a35eb62bae64/IMG_5854.JPG" data-mid="234492299" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5d359add15fb3c1c5c684f380cc2ced9617a945147488adacb23a35eb62bae64/IMG_5854.JPG" /> 01 Blobshop Once upon a time, I made neon goo blobs in my art school studio and I shipped them around the world for £25 each. Then Miley Cyrus followed me on Instagram and things got complicated.&nbsp; Read more 🗢 31st May 2025