Modern art, contemporary art works quite well when it offers an alternative to a conservative mainstream. This is what happened in the early 20th century. Salon figuration and even forms of classicism were still very much alive when cubism and constructivism and dada and De Stijl happened.

But now that modern art has become the mainstream it has lost much of its charm. There is nothing to rebel against anymore. Yet modern art is stuck in some weird state of permanent revolution. Hence to constant “redefining” of art, or the “subversion”, or all the “post” genres. Contemporary art feels like it continuously needs to question itself, to question what art is, and what its place is in society.

But I know what art is. And I just want to make art now. This stuff is difficult enough without questioning it or subverting it. I know what art can mean to people and I just want to make that. Not for any sort of elite that enjoys subversion (of nothing). But for as many people as possible. And I think videogames are the most suitable medium for this. Even if these videogames need to stop being “games” in order to really reach people.

Bientôt l’été may be the most explicit art game we have made so far. And yet is also functions as a transition to the games I want to make after this, “beyond” art.

The key to both is focus. By stripping everything away that is non-essential, even at the expense of realism (perhaps especially so), the mind of the player is allowed to appreciate even minute things. Things that may go unnoticed in a richer context (like the footsteps in 8).

A simple context allows the player to enjoy every element in it, and allows the creator to concentrate on these few elements. To make them beautiful and meaningful and charming. This does not only apply to the environment or the graphics in general. But also to the interaction design.

We have known for a long time that conventional rules-driven, goal-oriented play distracts the player from engaging with the actual content of the piece: the virtual world, the characters, the philosophical theme, etc. But simply removing such interactions, or even taking care that the player cannot engage in any remaining activities in a game-like manner, is not enough.

I believe now that the amount of interaction needs to be as minimal as possible. Perhaps even to the point where the game becomes slow. To create the opportunity to enjoy what is really going on in this world. A lot more processing should be devoted to generative systems that make the world feel alive. It’s much better to play a limited creature in a rich world than to be an all powerful hero in an essentially static decor.

Sometimes when I see a bad contemporary art piece, I feel embarrassed about being a contemporary artist. Some contemporary art can seem so absurd, so grotesque, completely incomprehensible, lame and alienating. And I feel embarrassed. Because I know there are people who experience the work that I have helped create in this way. Their responses to my work are exactly the same as my responses to another contemporary art piece that I didn’t get.

I don’t want to be in that position any more. I don’t want to be that artist. I don’t want to make work that confuses people. It seems so unnecessary. And lazy in a way. I need to work harder.

Because I do want make the world a better, more beautiful place.

I have tried to do that by investigating my own preferences and trying to present the most pure version of what I find moving, what I find beautiful. I think that is what drove many decisions in Bientôt l’été.

But the “extreme” work of art that comes out of such a process is bound to alienate most people. To most people Bientôt l’été will be empty and it will not move them. Perhaps it can inspire peers who may include a milder version of some aspects of it in their own work. And this work, unlike my own, can inspire people.

In the future, I want to be like those peers. I want to at least try to make something that is refined, well balanced, accessible, understandable. Rather than presupposing that I’m always going to be too weird to ever get through to anyone outside of a small elite.

I hope that not every artist makes this choice, though. Because I do think extreme works of art can ultimately be beneficial to people, if only to keep the mainstream from becoming all too dull and dulling. Even if I cannot enjoy that extreme contemporary art myself. Some people do, and some of then will be inspired to make something that I do appreciate.

I have spent the first half of my life rejecting pop culture. Maybe I can spend the second half embracing it. That way I get the best of both worlds in a single life time.

I definitely feel a lot less hostile towards pop culture now that I have developed an interest in using some of its features in my work. But there’s still plenty wrong with modern life. And in a way this newfound enthusiasm is just another, hopefully more efficient way to achieve the same goals.

I used to be a big Nietzsche fan. But now that the whole Western world had become a Nietzschean paradise of self-indulgence and anti-morality, I’m deeply disgusted. Like the writing of De Sade, it was titillating fun as long as it was fictional. But when that stuff turns real, it’s horrible.

I do realize that a big part of this problem is caused by the current state of capitalism and cannot be fixed through aesthetics alone. But I believe the power of capitalism is waning, so this part of the problem will dissolve.

In the mean time, through my work, I want to reacquaint people with the truly beautiful, perhaps even the spiritual, with the concepts of harmony and kindness and respect. With wonder for the unknown, reverence for what is greater than us, and empathy, maybe even love, for everything else.

Put in these terms, it is clear that the corniness of popular art is highly suitable for my purpose!

It must be possible to make sincere work with elements that are usually reserved for superficial popular amusement. I guess we have done this to some extent with The Path: starting from a folk tale and designing the characters with a goth girl aesthetic in mind. These two factors probably greatly contributed to the game’s success. And they didn’t prevent us from exploring deeply artistically.

So it’s probably a good idea to embrace popular clichés. And then work with them to add more character, more depth. Nobody ever complained about an excess of depth in their entertainment. The only thing that people complain about is the gateway to this depth, which is often difficult and sometimes boring. High art sometimes take a lot of effort to enjoy. I can understand that many people don’t want to do this effort.

And I don’t think it’s necessary. I think the interactive medium offers us a way to get to a rich and deep emotional experience, without great effort. Because we have so much control over the experience. Our art can respond to the viewer and we can make them complicit. The effort, if any, can be shared by player and game.

As an artist, I have a reflex to stay far away from ubiquitous elements in popular entertainment. Zombies, vampires, superheroes, aliens, fairies, kittens, etc tend to only provoke eye rolling in me. But maybe I should not reject such elements, given their obvious appeal to large groups of people. Maybe I can embrace them and use them for my own agenda. These elements are certainly rich enough. There is no explicit requirement to make superficial entertainment with them. And perhaps using them can help avoid the problem of alienation that often occurs when art is too original, too different from the mainstream.

There has always been an implicit reductionism —minimalism, perhaps, even— in our approach to making videogames. In the sense that we always wanted to make videogames that are not games. And being a game, in the strict formal sense, was —and probably still is, for many— the core of what makes a videogame. In such a context it always felt like we were removing things, stripping things away that many might have expected.

But what we were really doing, was trying to figure out how to design videogames for a different purpose. Since we had no interest in competition or victory as subject matter, it was only logical that we weren’t going to use game-like structures. We needed to figure out other types of structures and interactions, to serve our own goals, to support and express the subject matter we did want to deal with.

Not that we had a clear message. In fact, the capacity for ambiguity is one of the main features that attracts us to the interactive medium. Interactive works of art are more about exploring possibilities than making statements for us.

We developed a design process that encouraged us to maximize the number of meanings and interpretations a work could generate. We deeply enjoy the confusing flood of ambiguities and uncertainties that comes out of such games. For us, this is a much more honest representation of reality than any sort of wisdom brought down from the mountain. We didn’t mind contradictions and dead ends. It was all part of the joy.

But now I realize that this is difficult for many people. Even enthusiastic players of our games, while knowing better than to suggest a definitive interpretation, often still tend towards making sense of it all. And that is not always a satisfying activity in works that are not designed to make sense.

Bientôt l’été is a lot more specific than our previous games but it still contains an element of open-endedness, of throwing its hands in the air exclaiming “I don’t know! You figure it out!” even if there is nothing to figure out. For all extents and purposes, Bientôt l’été is meaningless.

In my future work, I want to reject this sort of all-embracing maximalism. This inclination towards allowing the game to be anything. Because I think this results in the game being nothing for many players. And it really shouldn’t be.

So rather than adding whichever interactions that contribute to the wealth of possible meanings that the game can generate, I want to think more carefully about the player’s emotional experience. I don’t even want to make assumptions that any interactions are necessary. I want to create a pleasant, satisfying experience. With as little means as possible. Even without interaction, if that makes the experience clearer, the joy deeper.

One of the nice things about making art is that size doesn’t matter. You can make a tiny work of art for just a few people and it’s perfectly satisfying.

But is this still true when working in a popular medium and embracing it as such? I imagine it would be utterly unsatisfying to make easily accessible work and then have only a small number of people play it. When creating work with the potential of appealing to many people, you sort of have the obligation to try and reach all those people too.

That can be an expensive project. A small art project can be a bit broken. But when working in a less elitist sphere, the piece just has to function properly, technically and artistically. It just has to work. So people are not confused. So they get the work, on a first try, without effort or preparation.

This is entirely possible but it takes considerable effort and the accompanying cost. I’m attracted to the challenge. But I’m also still drawn to small projects that you make one day and publish the next. My love of early websites may never go away.

That I don’t want to make art anymore should not be construed as a recommendation for others. Even if I want to do something else, my admiration for those who do make art knows no bounds. It’s bigger than it ever was.

One of the less glorious reasons why I don’t want to make art any more, is that I don’t think I’m very good at it. And, for a change, I would like to try something that perhaps I can be good at, or of which it doesn’t matter so much whether one is good at it.

Contrary to my younger self, I do not wish the extinction of contemporary art. I wish for artists to keep trying, to keep pushing. I’ll just be one of those people who stands on the sidelines now, cheering them on, expressing my admiration without really being involved.

One of the reasons why my work of the past years has leaned towards art, is an implicit fear of corniness. There’s a lot of things that humans find beautiful or pleasant that have been featured and exploited in popular entertainment. This omni-presence has rendered such depictions or topics virtually taboo for art.

Even today, and even far outside the art world, creative people often find it difficult to include pictures of rainbows in their work, or sunsets, or kittens, or unicorns or mermaids, without a sense of irony. I personally dislike irony because it’s cheap. But I behaved in a no less cowardly fashion by simply avoiding such features altogether.

I think the inclusion of the science fiction elements in Bientôt l’été has helped me get over my fear. Even though Bientôt l’été itself is beyond a doubt intended to be a Work of Art, it contains this virtually kitschy element that may be the key to freeing myself from the timidity that has been my artistic practice.

I am no longer afraid to make videogames about things that are simply pleasant to observe. I still want to avoid the exploitation that often goes along with the use of such elements in mass media. But I think I can do this by being utterly sincere. Mass media are embarrassing because the images they produce are not good enough, not sincere enough. Because their only goal is money. But I have far more important goals.

In the first years that I created in the interactive medium (web sites from 1995 to 2002), I did so with the explicit notion that what I was making was not art. I was already very arrogant though. In the utopian spirit of early cyberspace, I considered what we were doing to be better than art.

This attitude was born out of disgust with contemporary art and its context, the art world. Going online felt like we were abandoning that sinking ship. From one day to the next, I dropped all of my analog creation and turned my back on museums and galleries.

At the same time, the distance between my graphic design work and my art suddenly vanished. Probably because working with an interactive medium implied working for people, and that implied design. And because in the early days of the web, one could get away with a lot more daring designs than one can now. In those days, it was only when we failed to achieve our creative goals that we called our work art.

But when working with videogames as a medium (as of 2002), I felt gradually pushed back into the idea of art. In part because our approach to game making deviated so much from conventions that it could only be explained as art. But also because videogames embraced a very old fashioned idea of art (beauty, emotion, etc) that I found a lot more palatable than what is considered artistic in contemporary fine art circles.

After ten years, however, I feel ready to go back. I have learned a lot. Playing the artist is a very enriching experience. I highly recommend it.

The videogames context has changed as well. Creating a game that is just meant to be beautiful or meaningful has now become acceptable. Gamers have become a lot more appreciative of videogames that are not about challenges and rewards. The medium -dare I say it?- seems to have matured a bit.

So now I can go back to that thing I wanted to make in the first place. That thing that is better than art. That thing that can only be done in the interactive medium, where you can think with your fingers and where your brain is always connected to the hive mind of the cosmos. Where suffering ceases to exist and all is joy.