COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW: MYFORMERSELVES

An interview with myformerselves, creator of Middens

The latest subject of my highly intermittent interview series is myformerselves, creator of the surrealist exploration game Middens, who responded to my litany of questions with great enthusiasm!


Q. Start off by telling us a little about yourself!

“Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing.”

I was born in last days of the Chinese Year of the Cat during a time when humans’ biological rhythms were still dictated around television time slots and popular culture was spooned to the masses by a handful of successful corporate conglomerates. Growing up the lion’s share of my childhood friends were proscribed Ritalin or other behavior modification drugs, but those who knew better flushed their share down the toilet. Every day for about a year I consumed nothing but one serving of broccoli until I grew so weak I couldn’t stand, and I have on a number of occasions been convinced the world was going to end and rejoiced at the thought.

Over the course of my lifetime I have authored manuscripts published locally in the United States and internationally, I’ve also illustrated for a number of works primarily endemic to metaphysical literature.


Q. Middens is certainly an unusual game. What made you want to put together such a project? Would you say you succeeded at what you set out to do?

New technologies have transfigured how an audience surveys a piece of art. When once it would be customary for an individual to observe the subtle facets of a creative piece in a gallery or patiently peruse an artist’s work in the pages of a book today art is channel surfed in microsecond allotments. There is such an oversaturation of visual simulation available over the internet that people prefer to autonomously flitter from one image to the next essentially glancing over works of art that required years to labor. I suppose you could call it a ‘gluttony of the eyeball’ as the practice puts in mind a dog gulping a meal without hesitating to savor the taste.

Games however, by requiring active participation to unravel, necessitate that their players offer their full attention. Traditional medias meanwhile are being harvested like slaughter house cows on an endless meat grind of meaningless image blogs. My desire to emigrate from my native medium is undoubtedly linked to my dissatisfaction with these present conditions, and what I see now as the superior expressive possibilities available through games.

Middens arises out a criticism of what I view as reprehensible messages proliferated by mainstream games---such as victimless killing and the use of “power dominance” to resolve all conflicts. Guns have become the heraldic emblem of contemporary commercial games and you would be hardpressed to step into a game store where a bloodied weapon can’t be spied on some nearby boxart. There is no other medium that allows the player as directly a sympathetic relationship to their heroes as games do, and yet the medium is endlessly exploited to portray killing as entertainment.

It’s fascinating to watch children play games that simulate wars their recent ancestors were tortured and killed in. Although I believe that zombies will likely overtake 1940s Germans as the most popular form of gun fodder---they’re hardly better. It doesn’t require a great stretch of the imagination to see that zombies are only vaguely fantasized humans.

Q. What is your opinion on 'art games' in general?


It is strange to me that ‘art game’ exists as a specification. I have, for instance, never heard the expression ‘art book’ or ‘art painting’ and while I have heard of something described as ‘art film’ the term has never failed to make me cringe. If you accept that gaming is an art implicitly the term ‘art game’ becomes wildly redundant.

The surrealists believe in what is known as the “universality of expression”. There is only one poetry. But there are many means one can use to capture it. The form may vary, but the validity of the art is always the same. To quote the Hindu ’Rig Veda’ : "There is one reality, the wise call it by many names; there is one truth, reached by many paths.” Poetry is the attempted dissemination of that truth.


That gaming’s legitimacy as an artform is disputed is foremostly rooted in people using games in mass culture as their reference point. All media formatted for popular consumption is lobotomized, secularized and sanitized of any ideology or hint of personal meaning. You simply cannot generate money for some themes because they do not satisfy a commercial agenda. The only function that the modern consumer society demands of artists is to occupy free time and pleasure man, so he can spend his time before rejoining society’s churning wheel pleasantly and problem-free. Under these circumstances “art,” as it has been and is conceived by natural traditions such as Surrealism, is seen as radically subversive, degenerate and occultish.

Q. Where did you learn to do your art? What tools do you use?

I am what they call a self-taught artist though I tend to think that this is bit of a misnomer. Although I have never received instruction directly I have benefitted from the mentorship and advice of innumerable sources.
As to my tools they are fairly simple:

A modest chest of cutting utensils, my dated but tenacious computer, and my hands.

Q. Do you have any other projects planned?

Presently I am a quarter into the development of my second game ‘Moments of Silence’. This project will exist in the same continuity of Middens but the setting, characters and plot will be self standing.

Simultaneously I am also working on a variation of a virtual pet, and several interactive adaptations of religious texts from around the world.


Q. What inspired you to get into game design?

The ever increasing accessibility of creative programming technologies is
granting a whole generation of independent artists entry to a medium
traditionally monopolized by corporations. In the past games have been
marginalized in artistic discourse, and their merit as a valid artform
often debated. However, second to reading no other medium allows so
intimately experiential an exploration of a subject, and I believe
this will be demonstrated more and more cogently as new artists
potentiate the latent possibilities of its powers.

Q. What are some of your sources of inspiration?

Over the course of my life I’ve learned to treat every aspect of my life as a potential creative resource. In this sense even fairly mundane happenings in my daily business can lead to creative jumps. Dreams, childhood memories and taboo thoughts are often the well springs behind my works.

Q. Are there any games in this community you like or recommend?

Catmitts and Moga are a few of the developers I’m aware of and who I’m glad to be aware of. I am indebted to Catmitts in particular however, as his soundtracks have intimated me to some superb musical selections.


Q. What advice do you have for aspiring game designers or artists?

1. Avoid praising anyone and do not insult anyone. The high is supported by the low and the low supported by the high. Be a grandmother to everyone and treat their expressions as equally valid.
2. In any artform negative space is your most important resource
3. Do not fall for the hallowed fallacy that if you pursue art you can be cutting edge, obscenely affluent and a social celebrity in the likeness of someone such as Salvador Dali. The pursuit of art leads more to continual material poverty than to anything.
4. “No one should abandon duties because he sees defects in them. Every action, every activity, is surrounded by defects as a fire is surrounded by smoke.”
- The Bhagavad Gita


-Any other comments?

“Step out onto the Planet.
Draw a circle a hundred feet round.
Inside the circle are
300 things nobody understands, and, maybe
nobody’s ever really seen.”

--Lew Welch



Thank you for the interview Solitayre!