Art for No One 

My book, "How a Game Lives," is available for pre-order now. The deluxe edition- which includes prints and a vinyl album- will only be available until May 10! www.lostincult.co.uk/howagamelives

In college, there was an art exhibition on campus focused on the impermanence of art. One of the exhibits was a bowl of ashes titled "this painting was destroyed before the exhibition." Next to it was an oil painting titled "this painting will be destroyed if it is not taken by the end of the exhibition." I visited the exhibition every day, and nobody took the painting. On the last day, the painting was still there. I couldn't bear to see such craftsmanship destroyed, so I took it. Now it hangs in my bedroom, where only I can see it. Lately, I find myself looking at it and thinking "I'm the only one who ever sees this painting. Is this any different than if it were actually destroyed?" Edited to actually close my quotation marks

Sorry Jacob, but true art for noone is my 50 word docs and 4 premiere pro projects that I refuse to release because it isn't perfect yet, but refuse to work on it because I can't make it perfect yet

After Syd Barrett left Pink Floyd, he returned to his birth name Roger Barrett and spent the rest of his life in reclusion painting. The vast majority of his work was never seen by anyone but him and maybe his close family, because he destroyed most of his paintings upon finishing them. It's an incredible contrast to the exuberant displays and mainstream visibility that Pink Floyd went on to do those same years.

Cannot describe how excited I am for the book. You've got me thinking a lot on the preservation of media and I'm thankful to be able to keep a part of yours now no matter what happens to this site

This is a great essay, but I also want you to know that I was housing a giant burrito in my face for dinner when Saturn Devouring His Son popped up and I felt weirdly called out.

Okay but "Las Vegas has more in common with the Nuclear Bombs dropped nearby than the environment it was built in" is such a hard line tho? Like wtf.

There's a similar notion I've been mulling over for some time now. When I read a book, I create a movie in my mind. All the characters and locales take on a specific shape that my brain forms from the writer's words. My own unique, non-transferable version of the universe and the people in it. However, once a film or TV show is created, those people and places become fixed. Daenerys Targaryen now looks like Emilia Clarke. Aragorn will forever be Vigo Mortensen. Every film adaptation invades a little bit of my mental real estate.

When I was working on a comic project I hoped would be my masterpiece, I befriended someone who offered to assist me. At first I agreed, as any help with coloring and shading (my least favorite parts) is helpful, and everything would have been fine if he'd left it at that. As years passed my assistant became my co writer, adding his suggestions, then characters, then rewrites, then changing the genre and the very purpose of the story. I would kneel on the floor crying and begging him to stop but he would look down at me, wait for me to catch my breath, and continue pushing changes as though I had said nothing. Eventually his name went before mine on the creative credits. He was the main name on the websites. Then he talked me into turning one of my lead characters evil so he could be replaced with his own and I snapped. I did the only thing I still had power to do- I killed the project. Thus led to a two year mental breakdown where I couldn't draw nor write. He didn't understand anything I was going through. He still doesn't. A while back he suggested that we play The Beginner's guide together. It was... uncomfortable. Here was a game about an artist meeting a fan who gradually takes over their life, changing the works against the creator's will, and not understanding what was wrong. I looked at my former co writer, wondering why he wanted me to play this as it MUST be a sick joke on his part, and I saw... nothing. No recognition. No flicker of recognition on how closely this game matched our own experience. He thought the game was about bad internet critics. I still don't know how to process this.

Art is a form of communication. Sometimes you only want to talk to yourself.

One of my friends made a painting that his art teacher called the best piece he’s ever seen. My friend painted over it completely and now hangs the completely black canvas over his door. I have still never seen the original. Only my friend and the teacher have. And no one else will. I think about this more than I should. My friend never took a picture. And has said he forgot what the original looked like.

While I respect any artist and their wishes for their art, I feel that being obsessed with the inaccessibility of your art is equal and opposite to the desperation for approval. I dont doubt that City is a masterpiece, but the intentional separation of it dulls it to me in concept. The indifference, though. Thats tasty as hell

i've always found it interesting that the word we use for making art public is "releasing" like a bird from it's cage, like a prisoner from their confinement we set our art free so it no longer belongs to us

I'm not to the end of the video yet, but the idea of "art for no one" evokes, for me, the reality of everyone's singleplayer Minecraft worlds. An idea implied in "for no one" is "(except the creator.)" There are probably millions of beautiful, intricate, or personally meaningful things people have created in singleplayer game files, only to never touch that world again, to lose it on a broken hard drive, or at least, never made accessible to the public. I'm not fully comfortable equating Minecraft with art, but it feels analogous.

from the creator of such masterpieces as 'Fear of Depths' and 'Fear of Cold' may I present the esteemed Jacob Geller's latest perfection - 'Fear of Concrete'

City has no scale without the person. City has no meaning without the person. City has no soul without the person. A city is a nature we made for us.

something about the motivation behind City's creation doesn't fully sit right with me, outside of the vacuum it's presented in. from its inspiration in architecture left behind by a culture and people wiped out by genocide and colonialism, to City's location sitting atop land that rightfully belongs to another people and culture who were all but wiped out by genocide and colonialism, it almost seems like, somehow, the artist missed the point of his own work, as bizarre as that sounds. even Jacob points out the difference between a city abandoned, and a City made to be unlived in, and while art certainly doesn't need to serve a purpose to be important, valuable, and meaningful, i can't help but feel as though City is a hollow imitation. it makes me think of Mount Rushmore, an incredible, awe-inspiring achievement in carving stone on a massive scale... but its magnificence is marred by the reality of its contextual surroundings, what it truly represents: colonizers stealing the land, and asserting dominance by literally desecrating that land with their own faces, erasing the original cultural significance of that place. it is now a symbol of modern america, a monument constructed to venerate the nation's founders, all without ever acknowledging what it took to construct, the price paid in blood and tears and centuries of injustice. i just think City is, and i don't say this lightly, kinda pretentious. the artist claims he'd rather allow no one to see his work that he spent decades to build, but he still allows it. he even allowed someone to take pictures at one point. why? it's like he wanted the existence of City to reach a wider audience, which is contrary to the alleged intention of City. he could have just, never told a single soul about it. never built that fence, which just begs for someone to climb it or cut through it or tunnel under it. he could have made City, and then walked away forever, leaving it for some lone wanderer to stumble upon, or some guy randomly looking at google maps to spot, and they would ponder it for weeks and maybe decades to follow, wondering what it's for, why it's there, who built it... art for no one. i don't doubt that you and many other have had very real and profound experiences on your visit to City. i once got emotional because i heard a fly trapped at the window, and suddenly knew it was inevitably going to die there - people will find meaning in a lot of things. hell, a pile of poop triggered a shift in your emotions; truly we humans will make the most out of anything no matter how small or weird. however, i just think that there must be better examples of the concept of "art for no one" out there around which to center this essay. any one of the tangentially related stories would probably work just as well, if not better. another commenter brought up single-player Minecraft worlds, and how players will shape those worlds and create all sorts of things - even cities - that will never be inhabited, viewed, or appreciated by anyone else but the player who made them. those Minecraft buildings aren't tangible, but i think they are a more honest and pure representation of "art for no one", or perhaps, "art for the sake of art", than City will ever be. of course, Minecraft is very near and dear to my heart, so i'm bound to be veeeery biased, but i don't think i'm wrong here. just my two cents.

The Nazca lines are completely viewable from nearby hills. The concept that they are only visible from the air is one made up by ancient alien conspiracies - although the effort to make them properly proportioned to a perfectly down-ward view may imply that the goal is to be viewable by the heavens/stars/gods

About the Rat King image from Plexus, I wonder if it's intended to display the violence of the action of revealing it. It is not simply splayed along the edges. No, it was complete in the pages. The reader splays it, in an effort to reveal what is inside you splay and cut through the plexus of the art created by the artist.

Probably the most damaged of Goya’s Black Paintings by institutional interpretation is the painting “Drowning Dog”. It is the most minimalist of Goya’s paintings, but very emotive, with all matter being held in the bottom-left corner the little dog is, with its eyes held up to the majority of the painting, a swath of off-white near-emptiness. Despite this, it’s held at the prized end of the “Black Paintings” hall in the Museo del Prada, with its plaque proclaiming it to be the best work of this series and definitively a drowning dog.

The Beginners Guide was... kind of a turning point for me. In some ways, it's when I began to think of myself as an aspiring game designer. When we get to that note in the game... Well, I was thinking that Coda had died, but I also knew that that felt a bit too obvious. What I still haven't really been able to fully figure out is... Yes, I gasped when I found out that Coda was alive, and had asked the narrator to stop speaking with him. I looked at that first note for a full minute before moving on. It recontextualize everything before it. But, it was finding out that the narrator added the lampposts to each game that made me cry. I stared at that for... I'm not sure. It could have been five minutes or an hour. Something about that just... twisted a knife in me. I guess it was just simply that the narrator had led me to believe that there was some significance to these lampposts, some deep wisdom being shared through their constant inclusion. But it turns out that their significance was only in the absolute betrayal they represented. And somehow that hurt so much more than when I thought Coda had died before finishing any of these interesting game concepts. But it hurt in this deeply personal way. That's what I haven't been able to figure out... Why does it hurt like he betrayed me? I guess simply that I have empathy, and that game is an extremely well-made piece of art. EDIT: Super weird bit of synchronicity; right after I watched this video, I went to facebook to check my memories. Literally the first one is my post I made after completing The Beginners Guide exactly 1 year ago.

One time, in my Minecraft world, I put down a big slab of sandstone blocks, with the explicit intention of forgetting why I did so.

I'm not the creative type, but I am a biologist, and many of the things you said in this video stuck with me. Despite all the technological advances the way many of us learn anatomy is still to take a razor to a corpse like you did to that book, open that which was mean to remain closed, and take the things inside out of their intended state. The concept of *in situ* - in its natural state - is a sort of holy grail for those attempting to understand our bodies, because to observe something is to change it and to be able to see how life works is in many cases to damage it. This is especially true in the case of the brain, which is simultaneously one of the most important and most fragile parts of us. Nobody has ever truly seen a plexus, just crude imitations or dead tissue. Perhaps the divine art is also for no one.

The thing about TBG (which is the only piece here I have the education to speak on) is that when the twist happens, it's nauseating. That betrayal, the forced complicity, the way Davey makes you almost an accessory to this enormous trespass-- the entire thing is fictional, but it's also not, obviously. The concept of a malicious curator makes sense to me, but what I took from TBG and what I try to impart on as many people as possible is *you do not know this artist by their work.* You cannot use someone's work to psychoanalyze them. It's, to me, vitally important to always remember that, for my protection and for others. It also killed a lot of the allure of parasocial relationships. No matter how much I enjoy someone's work, I always always always remember that I should never assume that I know them as a person. I honestly think of TBG as an important prerequisite to life in the modern era.

I'll admit, my primary reaction to City's existence is pure contrarianism. "A place in the desert that I can't go? That I can't take pictures of? Says who? Can they stop me?" Just a gut reaction of opposition, before even any consideration of art- An artist can create art, can present that art to the world, but to tell the world how they can and cannot engage with that art? I don't really think that's up to them. ...That is a sort of entitlement, obviously. But we are entitled to some things, it's not always a word synonymous with 'unreasonable', and I feel like my own biases aside, there is still a line to be found there, somewhere. What are the limits of privacy? Coda, in the Beginner's Guide, certainly seems like their privacy was violated. Prince's feels more hard to judge. And City? The idea of a thing so large it ceases to be a thing and becomes a place- CAN that even be considered private in the first place? Does anyone have that right? Heck if I know.

“I also frequently wonder whether any of this means anything at all. Which is just the experience of making art, I think.” - Jacob Geller, The Best Games of 2023

Another fun thing about plexus/book publishing: pre 1900’s books used to be sold much like plexus is, with connected or uncut pages loosely bound in paper or fabric. This was so the (wealthy) purchaser of the book could arrange to have it bound properly in leather of their choosing later (likely to match their library’s collection). If one was to read a book unbound like this, they’d have to slice open each page individually with a knife. When hearkening back to family trauma Helfrecht also may have been thinking about how her ancestors would have received and read a book like hers, down to the paper and the cutting. As someone who has cut pages that are like this, It feels solemn to do; not often to books require you to take a decisive step every single page you turn. But it also is made yours by the way you decide to shape each slice, if you trim the edges or not. You shape it, not just for yourself but for everyone who reads it after you.

11 years have gone by, and yet, the concept of "Art for No One" still brings me back to 2013, when the creator one of Yume Nikki's most popular fangames at the time, LcdDem, simply vanished and told everyone not to talk about the game publicly, not to contact them, basically, to forget it existed. Same thing happens with all of their music - they deleted it off the face of the internet. One part of me still wishes I could've told them how much LcdDem inspired me to create my own work - in fact, I might not have made my own games at all if it wasn't for LcdDem. Countless posts posing as this person have surfaced, under a veil of anonymity, indirectly claiming to be them, but it's never final. Of course, everyone has the right to anonymity. The only thing that stings is, having to feel guilty just for sharing an amazing piece of art, for mentioning it, talking about it. 11 years, and there was never any closure. I tell myself I let go, and I wouldn't say it's a lie, but it's not completely true either. But it inevitably comes up in conversation - the way it handles colors, the atmosphere, the music, the way almost no inch of game space is wasted (except maybe the orange maze). It's at the root of why I picked RPG Maker at all, it's the first Japanese fangame I've ever played. It's the core of why I made my own fangame at all - how can I forget such beauty?

I'm admired you didn't mention Kafka. Kafka didn't published most his works. He was a minority inside a minority: A German speaking Jew inside Czechoslovakia (at that time Bohemia). He almost never finished anything, burned almost all he wrote and what he left, he left with instructions for burning all; what was not done, and because of that we have some of his books. The only famous book he published while alive was Metamorphosis (AFAIR).

The google reviews for city are pretty interesting. Lots of one star reviews "we didn't get in, we drove for hours thinking they'd let us in"

33:34 For a moment I thought this was going to lead into some sort of Da Vinci Code-esque crime drama type scenario where Jacob either goes looking for Goya’s skull or reveals that he was the one who had it all along

Really surprised to not see any comments in here about Vivian Maier! She was a nanny working predominantly in Chicago and New York who, incidentally, is by far my favorite street photographer. It's incredible. Her work stretches from celebrities dipping out of theatres at premieres to wage labourers reclining on landfill sofas, each picture packed with perfect lighting and composition. She died less than a before her work blew up the internet, and the only reason her work fell into the hands of the man who posted it was because she couldn't keep up with the payments on a storage locker. John Maloof, the man who's responsible for championing her work after her death (and the same one who posted it online) currently runs a website dedicated to her photography. Art for no one, and documentary for no one -- shoulder high piles of negatives, home movies, recordings of conversations with strangers, all destined to be buried under the dust, and "saved" by the happenstance of a delinquent payment. edited for spelling

Hi, Jacob. I paused at the time where you revealed the "twist" of the Beginners Guide, and went and finally played it. I think it broke me. I cried at the end, with that betrayal, with that... rotten center that crumbles the whole exhibit, cried at seeing myself in Davey the narrator. Came back, finished your video, cried again. But then again. I'm glad it exists. I'm glad City exists, even in its betrayal by the times, to a lesser extent by you. I'm glad YOU exist, and have helped me to develop my own meaning in seeing the art of games, and art in the world around me. I'm sad. But, I guess, that's the whole point. Because the meaning of art is the meaning we put into it. The experiences we bring to the table mold and shape how we view art. It's not objective. Sorry if this is rambling. I'm just... trying to find my own meaning, I guess. And I hope, some day, I do.

im very fascinated by your comments on the anxiety of not "getting it" when going to city, the anxiety of coming back without a "worthwhile" experience, something to write to home about, etc. the topic of "getting" art is something that pops up in your videos fairly often but i wonder if you'd ever make a video solely about it. it would be phenomenal coming from you of all people

in high school my art class went to an exhibition of "outsider art." the artist was henry darger. all of his work was discovered posthumously, including a 15,000+ page book. it was an uncomfortable experience for many reasons. his work primarily featured children, and violence against them. he was a devout catholic and most likely a repressed homosexual and pretty obviously struggled with sexual identity based on his depictions of the sexes. afterwards i couldnt stop thinking about how his art was probably made to process trauma and identity and all number of things, and now it was being picked apart by high schoolers to study for quiz questions.

skating on city is on my illegal bucket list now

That episode of 'Malcolm in the Middle' where the dad spends ages painting a masterpiece with dozens of layers, and then the paint falls on the family. The audience is never shown the painting. I love and hate that episode.

As a Peruvian, I'm somewhat surprised you never addressed the damaging of the Nazca lines by the Greenpeace group over half a decade ago. The destruction caused by a group of outsiders trying to give their own meaning to a work, disrespecting its culture, and its preservation. The Nazca lines can't be visited by the average individual. To walk on them requires specific permission from the government and those preserving the work, and to see them from above requires access to a airplane, something most people in the country can't afford. The term for the kind of surface that covers most of the Peruvian desert is "Desert Pavement." A thin layer of rocks covering every each inch, cementing the landscape in the same shape it always was, and always will be. Any step you make in the deserts of Peru leaves a permanent scar that will last for thousands of years, and from above, you can see every track left by every car that's ever wandered into the sands. And in an attempt by outsiders to shame a country into changing the fuel they depend on to exist, they destroyed part of our heritage that we all agreed should be protected. There is not a single person in Peru who believes the average person should be allowed to walk along the lines, as to view them is to destroy them. Which is why Greenpeace had to flee the country. Not just out of risk of the government punishing them, but out of risk of the people punishing them. I feel a more in depth analysis on the lines would've greatly aided your thesis here, and brought some much needed attention to the damage those who don't understand art can do out of a desperation to grant it their own meaning. Like the tearing of the pages, or the slicing of the painting. Despite this though, I'm still glad to see them mentioned. Although most people associate Peru with the work of the Incans, our national logo illustrates the P of our nation with the swirl of the monkey's tail. It's a work that for us, is just as important as our cities of stone. Great work, and I look forward to your next video!

When you brought up Goyas paintings and called it Saturn Devouring his Son, my first response was to out loud say "That's not what it's called!". I was *overjoyed* when you went on to explain that none of these paintings have Titles. For me, that exacerbates the horror of that particular black painting. It's something monstrous, cannibalistic... and people looked at it and went "Clearly, that's Saturn devouring his Son!" Because if it's not that, not a myth that can be clearly categorised... then what is it? Ever since I learned that fact about that specific painting, I've been haunted by it. Edit: I think one of the most interesting parts about that piece of information is that... It's the one thing that even with the painting being revealed, Goya will take with him to the grave. Everyone has seen these paintings. No one will ever know what they are paintings of. Who IS this monstrous figure? Who are the "Pilgrims", the "Witches", if that's even what they are in the first place? We can guess, we can speculate... but we'll never know. The figure is saturn because people decide he's saturn, turning to old myths to try to make sense of something that was never intended for them to see. Personally, I like not knowing who the figure is, as much as I find this picture far more haunting and terrifying. I think If I ever knew for sure, if I suddenly knew what the painting was 'about'... I'd go right back to how I felt before I learned it's nameless. It wouldn't be disturbing anymore, because I'd have no reason to think on it. But as a glimpse of something that I'll never really understand, a nightmarish figure seen for an instant with no context or explanation, it will probably haunt me for the rest of my life. I'm sorry I'm nerding out about this one fact. I really, really like that bit of trivia and as soon as I saw Goya come up, I was hoping for this so badly.

I get the feeling that the real ‘City’ was occurring while they were creating the piece. Planning, construction coordination, calling in favors for machinery, those sounds are all so common in a city. The constant development and upkeep of all the infrastructure is a major aspect. During the construction, it probably felt like a whole city working to make this art

I don't know who said it first. Pretty sure my grandfather was quoting someone else. He always said, "There is music that's meant to be heard. But there is also music that is meant to be played."

I'm reminded of being a child and checking out an illustrated book from the library. A delightfully-drawn "mystery" wherein a bunch of anthropomorphized animals attend a birthday party only to discover that someone's eaten all of the food before the guests could make it to the dining room. The twist is that the book ends with all of the animals proclaiming their innocence with the reader left to guess at who's telling the truth and who's lying. The cliffhanger ending had one bit of salvation: a sealed envelope on the rear cover. My copy was sealed but the bigger problem is that this was a library book. Child-me agonized over whether I could cut through the paper and find the answer until my mom (thankfully) reminded me that the next kid to check this out would likely *also* want to read the answer. We opened the envelope together and found out which animal ate the feast. And I'm glad we did! The answer was that the mouse ate the food along with a few hundred of his friends. This book went from good to great as the letter also revealed that the hundreds of other mice were visible as texture in the painted backgrounds. Sure enough, reading through the book again brought a new joy. I'm sure the author and illustrator would have been glad for my petty act of vandalism. I think there's more of a parallel with Undertale rather than the destruction of Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue. What limits would you break to experience more of a good thing? An author-intended transgression that brings you closer to total understanding at the expense of a preconceived limit.

I wonder if there is a meaningful difference to be found between "Art for no one", "art for an audience that we aren't (and cannot be)", and "art for the artist". To me, the Nasca lines *feel* like art for the sky, or maybe the gods, depending on how you want to religiously conceptualize it. That is, art that is meant to be appreciated, but not by the people who made it, and not even really by any human. Coda's games in the Beginner's Guide, on the other hand, feel more like art for the artist - the meaning is there, but obscure. Again, we're not the target audience, it's not *for* us, but the art is for someone, and that someone is human, which can make the art even harder to grasp, in some ways, because for all the space that separates us from the gods, we know about as much about the gods as the people in Nasca. Same with Goya's works. Given the context, they seem more like works for the artist. Meant to be seen and appreciated, to express certain feelings, just... not to the public. But the City really does sound like art for no one. Hearing you talk about it, at least, it feels like art that even the artist would rather not see. Something that should exist for the sake of existing, but not be seen or experienced by anyone. Or at least not understood by anyone. I get the feeling that the challenge of the art is to ask us to not see it as art. Here's a thing that exists, it proclaims. But don't try to explain why. Just accept that it does and move on. Wanting to see it, to experience it, runs directly counter to that. It's very existence runs counter to our entire sense of being human. We see something that is artificial, and we feel the need to understand it. In that sense, the use of Prince's work seems somehow... obscene, maybe? Because, until he died, I don't know that I would call those songs "art". Or at least not "finished art". It's not that they were only meant for the artist, or god, or even for no one. They were... proto-art. Failed art, maybe. Akin to scenes in a movie that were storyboarded, or even shot, but ultimately didn't make the cut. Or the rough sketch of a famous painter that they decided wasn't conveying what they wanted. It's something in the process of becoming art. But, I guess that begs the question of - what *is* art? is the first draft of the first chapter of a novel that get trashed so that the author can start over art, in and of itself? Or is it only once the novel is completed and the author says "Done" that the collection of words is transformed into art? If that first draft is art, does that mean that every paint stroke after the first is, in some way, destroying existing art in order to create new art? I obviously don't know. As usual, your videos are fascinating, and leave me with more questions than I had when I started. But that's utimately the point, right? Not to come to a conclusion, necessarily, but to just... find new questions to ask.

recently, i bought a copy of autumn de wilde's book, "elliott smith" titled after and dedicated to her late friend. it is mostly photos that she took of him, with two sections of interviews with smith's friends separating the book into sections. the first section of the book sees smith posed in different locations, in front of a mural, outside a shop, by the side of the road. in the last section of the book, we get photos of these same places, now without smith. it's a real gut punch, something i had never experienced with photography before. it was such a great illustration of loss.

The Beginners Guide is one of the most impactful game experiences to me. My best friend is, now, a digital artist. He had been drawing a lot since he was a kid, and he had mentioned wanting to eventually show off his art. So the Beginners Guide served as a guide, for me, to slowly help him show off his art, in a way that fit his style. I never wanted to overstep those bounds, just give support that works toward his own goals.

Another artist who comes to mind is Franz Kafka. He never intended to publish his books and told his only friend who knew about his writing to burn them after his death.

Watching this video I can't help but be reminded of my best friend. A few months back, she finished a draft of a novel. She intends to keep working on it and she has several other WIPS she's working on. She spent years writing it in her free time, and she intends to never publish it. In fact no one but her has read it, though those of us who talk to her regularly have heard plenty about it. She has little interest in the opinions or criticism of anyone else, because this is her way of getting out the stories in her head. She's agreed to one day let me read through to check spelling and grammar, and I know when that happens that it'll be a very special experience because of the trust it requires. I think in an age where everyone has access to a platform the idea of not sharing art seems ridiculous until you're the one making art you don't want to share. Goya's hidden works make sense to me because it's so clear that it was for himself. I think in a sense we only want to see hidden art or art for no one because we know it's there and we know we aren't supposed to see it. And (ignoring any specific controversy a piece in this video may have, looking at you City) we feel entitled to look because the people who made those pieces call themselves artists, and why wouldn't artists want to share their art. Why would you write a novel for any reason other than to publish it. Got a little pretentious on main there but ig guess watching a jacob geller video will do that to a girl LMAO

As an artist who has been destroying my paintings over the last 20 years, this spoke to me very highly. I would take photos of them before I destroyed them, but very, very rarely would I show the photos to people. A few years ago, an ex-girlfriend would watch me paint, and she convinced me that I should stop destroying my work. Only in the two years since have I started to not burn or paint over everything. It has been an interesting shift, as now I make a bit of money selling them, but there is also an unsettling feeling that the part of my soul which I'd put into my work is still out there. The catharsis that I would get from destroying the trauma I'd put into a piece seems to linger.

From personal fandom experience, I've come to the conclusion that if a fan is going to present a creator's work against their wishes, the moral thing to do is to at least be an honest narrator about it! have some caveat at the top: "The creator does not want their work shared or shown or displayed. I simply think they are wrong to demand that. I am showing this without their consent." I mean specifically when an artist has declared that everything they have ever made should be burned and scrubbed from the internet, and a fan saves some copies and distributes them against the artist's wishes. Because once a piece of art has been finished, made, published, and even been SITTING OUT THERE ON A WEBSITE, FOR YEARS... I do NOT believe that an artist has the right to sneak into people's houses at night and yoink their "I hate it now" book or painting off the new owner's shelf. They cannot demand that every copy be burned. They can demand that any further distributions halt, or have a warning label placed on em. But that book-publishing scenario is very different from The Beginner's Guide, because those in-game games were NEVER published, so there was only the one fan who ever had access to publishing them against their will... More similar to The City installation, I guess. Or the Black Paintings. When it's a collaboration that is poisoning the original direction and artists' intent, I think the artist has full rights and justification for kicking that collaborator out. Because that work isn't done, it's a living, growing work. But at some point, artists pass away. And they may want something specific done with their works, like "this painting should always be lit by candlelight only" (a real request from an artist from like 1800 that I heard about a museum in 2000 struggling with) but there HAS to be some compromise at SOME point. Art does not breathe, does not live, if it cannot be moved, cannot be reframed, or relit, or retranslated, all of that. The world moves on without the artists, and all we have is their art. There has to be a conversation. Otherwise, the art stops speaking, and it dies too....

I was watching for like the first 38 minutes thinking “He should really talk about The Beginner’s Guide in this video,” hearing D.S AI Coda hit hard

City feels like an inverse of the path carved by Dashrath Manjhi. City is hard to find, nearly inaccessible, and if Heizer had his wish, never to be used; whereas the path cut between Atri and Wazirganj was meant to be visible and used often, giving access to his village to the hospital over the mountain. It's interesting how the same act of moving around rock can MEAN opposite things

I think what people forget is that art is just art. It doesn't need a rhyme or reason to exist. If I could, I'd draw giant animals just cause it's cool to see what you can do. Sometimes stories and structures are meant to be used in those time periods, but at the same time, some things are made cause those people thought they could and they did. I understand why the owner of "City" didn't want to make it for others to come and look at. I know I've made plenty of drawings that were just fun to make, and it was a good time. I've never liked classes where we have to deep dive into a creators art because at times its never thag deep. Sometimes, we think too much. This isnt to say that I dislike these conversations, it's one of the reasons why I love watching these videos. I just also like basking in the original intent of the creator.

Something cool I noticed that wasn't mentioned is at 32:28 where you state "the giant is sleeping" is that all the little circles and shapes are all people, with a big ladder climbing up on top of him. A whole lot of tiny little people exploring this sleeping giant. (The most notable person is in his left eye! A little kid peeking in.

$5 says "The Beginner's Guide" is talked about in here

I know people joke sometimes "honey, drop everything Jacob Geller dropped a video" but not going to lie, this is literary me right now

I avoided watching this for a few days because I knew it would hurt. My grandmother once told me that the only things worth living for are art and love which is why there are so many love songs. As an aspiring artist gearing up to release my first album here in the next few months, a project I’ve spent the better part of the last three years working on, I often worry that I will release it and no one will listen. I worry that the very thing I have dedicated my life towards pursuing lacks the merit of being. To create art is to destroy one’s sense of self and replace it with a constructed framework of meaning. To dissect and autopsy your deepest fears and desires and then put them on display. It is inherently vulnerable and narcissistic to believe that you have something within yourself worth sharing. The idea of putting myself in that position only to be greeted by silence is horrifying. The idea of doing it all over again on the next project only more so. Yet I must create. I am not naive enough to believe that my art stands alongside the greats but it’s the best I can do and I will keep doing it until it kills me. I don’t think any piece of art is truly for no one at all. Because all art is for the artist. It’s a self portrait spread across a hundred canvases. To creat art is to write one’s autobiography little by little in riddles and metaphors. It’s scary and painful and often times feels like it will eat you alive. But it’s the only thing worth living for.

Y’know what I’m thinking of? When I was little, I saw this commercial about a musician who made a vinyl record out of some sort of earthy material, can’t remember what it was. It was supposed to be a statement about climate change, because he buried it underground and it wasn’t supposed to be opened for a set amount of years, it was maybe 50 or 100, I can’t remember. But with the material it was made of and its underground burial, unveiling it in a state where it could be played was reliant on the climate of the earth during its time underground. Basically, if it ever got too hot for too long, the vinyl would degrade and the music in its original state would be lost to time. I think about it a lot, y’know? What’s going on with that? It could’ve also been a weird dream. I was a very environmentally conscious child with a very overactive imagination, but I SWEAR I remember that commercial vividly.

I used to be homeless in Vegas, all of my time not spent day laboring on housing construction at the edge of town was spent crack climbing, bouldering, and soloing in Red Rocks. Your inclusion of all the different spots within the park's loop added such an extra point of subjective meaning to this video. Thank you for the unintentional (though very welcome) identity trip.

A professor of mine actually works primarily in the Central Andes and she explained to us that it is precisely because of the fact that people could not see the Nazca Lines in their entirety that they were built that way. The lines were actually ritual pathways for prayer (walking/travel is often associated with prayer in the Andes) so to SEE the entire monkey would defeat the purpose of the path, you had to EXPERIENCE it. Such a great video as always though Jacob, can't wait for your book to come out :)

Man, getting an ad for “Kingdom of the planet of the apes” and some Star Wars mobile game in the middle of the conclusion was some kind of gut punch

The Beginners Guide shook me to my core when it came out. Somehow I knew you'd talk about it as soon as I saw this video in my feed

"This is not for you." - _House of Leaves_

Calling city a skate park no one can ride in actually summed it up pretty well I think i only saw the nyt pics but that’s really accurate to how it looks there

Hey, man. Just watched over on Nebula, and came here to say: As you were relating the House Surgeon story, I just started screaming. I have a feeling you didn't elaborate much more on the connection between the story and the book itself in order to let people savor their visceral reaction to realizing it themselves. If so, it worked.

City, if you ask me, has very little in common with Goya's house art, Prince's vault, and Plexus. (I assume) Goya had no reason to expect his home would be torn apart for his personal art. Prince kept his recordings in a space akin to a Google Drive. Plexus was published so that people could enjoy it. City is insanity. If a single individual has forty million dollars, I'm already low on sympathy. If they're cool with burning that on a single art project, I'm very annoyed. If that project is *supposed to be* a secret, I wish the artist had died before he could break the ground. I understand the desire to make art, and the desire to keep something private, but the selfishness required to have the means of creating a monumentally sized sculpture in the middle of nowhere and act upon it boggles my mind. To me, it smacks of building a war casualty memorial wall but only putting your own name on it. It's some CEO level narcissistic bullshit. (Big, expensive art projects are not my problem. It's the intention that bothers me.)

One of my favorite things to do has always been to sit on a piano and play an improvised piece that lasts only that moment. I dont record it, i dont remmeber any of what i played, and the only “audience” is made up of whoever happens to be there. The music just happens as quick as it is gone. What i play is most likely not very good, but to me these moments are some of the only times were i feel proud of the art i have made. It feels the most pure, without the corruption of expectations. Purely itself.

The irony is that the "experiences" you bring up in this and many of your videos are so esoteric I would never have come across them if not for the video, yet your analysis and dissection of them robs me from ever truly experiencing them for myself. Your greatest work yet, thank you. I really liked Sun Figures.

it rains a lot where I live but we have this huge retaining wall I love to draw on with chalk, when it washes away there's melancholy but there's solace in knowing it was there, and made me happy while it was

Just a few days ago I watched a video by Broey Deschanel, "Immersive Van Gogh: Why Art is in Crisis," that got me thinking about the idea of art for no one vs. art for exhibition. I think there's a larger conversation to be had here about the ways that technology and capitalism encourage us to share *everything* - for a price, preferably. I've seen so many people - mainly artists - talk about the pressure to monetize their hobbies. Ad-driven social media is filled with half-baked opinions and open diary entries, concert footage recorded by fans who watched the entire show through their phone cameras. The idea of making or experiencing something just for ourselves or for the universe/the divine has become increasingly unthinkable. I wonder how many people like me hold themselves back from creating art these days because of paralyzing stage fright over something that we feel must be shared or otherwise wasted.

The more videos I watch, the more I feel like I can appreciate "art" in abstract. I've always been someone that was just confused about those big splotches on a canvas, or a canvas entirely in one color, or anything like that - confused why it is supposed to be art. And around me people always joked something along the lines of "Even I could do that" or "That's probably expensive for money laundering purposes". And I understand why these people say that - I myself prefer intricately painted or carved art, that is immediately grasping one with it's detail or abstract representation. Something that shows the talent, hard work, and artistry of the creators is just more pleasant to me personally. But when Jacob mentioned the mostly red painting at around ~22:26 and continued talking after I suddenly realized: A lot of art is not just the piece itself, but the story attached to it. Be it the story the artist tells, or the story an observer experiences

during the whole video i couldn't help but think about a passage from adrian tchaikovsky's "children of ruin"; the flawed digested ancient copy of Erma Lante, a terraformer turned exobiologist who died millennia ago, her memory reanimated by an alien bacterial colony incapable of understanding what it ate, but desperate to find more, and maybe understand one day. and this shambling homunculus, this broken parody of a shadow of a long-dead woman, trudges around the landscape of Nod, digging up the native soil to build endless facades of a city from her memories. a dead city built from alien dirt, trying to rebuild with only contextless copies of broken memories, hoping it will make it understand. the landscape is strewn with the same grid of the same identical streets and facades, no interiors, no life, no purpose, repeated across continents on an alien world full of life that has no need for cities, on which only a handful humans ever set foot, in the distant past but the empty streets are still there

I looked up the pictures of City. I already hated it. But now that I’ve seen it, I hate it even more. Concrete scars on a desert. Disgusting.

for almost my entire waking life, I've been writing poems, majority of which I've been clutching in secrecy. the pressure to share them in hopes of "changing" the world or "providing" and just contributing anything is always there. but maybe art can also be just art, even if it was public or private. it doesn't diminish nor exaggerate its value, it's just art. something telling of something that came from someone. no matter how close I clutched them to my chest, there will always be the certainty that glimpses of my poetry can flutter in my everyday; in the actions, in the words, and in the connections we make with people. so, who is no one?

The fact that these videos leave me feeling in awe of the concept of art itself is truly a testament to Jacob's own artistry. What a wonderful thing to be able to witness.

Jacob-among all your videos, none have affected me as much as this one. In 2015, I played The Beginner's Guide the day in came out in the midst of the deepest, darkest depression of my life. Somewhere in the latter quarter of the game I burst out crying with a sense of existential desperation, but try as I might I couldn't articulate why. During this video's segment on that game, I once more found myself silently sobbing, but this time with a sense of cosmic relief. I get it now. Thank you.

One of my best friends is a writer. One of the best I have ever seen. I am not one who will typically read a book without any sort of visuals to go off of, but I always find myself hopelessly enthralled by his work. And yet, the only people who have seen the majority of his work are him and myself. I've always told others how great of a writer he is, how I wish they could see it... But I can never bring myself to actually *show* them. It feels, wrong. Like overstepping a boundary that is indescribably intimate to his entire self. He's never kept every work entirely private, some short stories have been shown to a couple other friends, or to his creative writing teacher in college. But even I have not seen what is likely over half of his work. I relate to Davey in The Beginner's Guide quite a lot. It feels like there is a special kind of complacency for artists who can create and comfortably never show anyone, and it's difficult to not feel frustration that I don't have the same kind of resolve. It's something I have thought about a lot. It's something I wish I had and want to pursue. The conclusion I have eventually come to is that it could demonstrate a strong self confidence. That you don't need other people to tell you your art is good in order to be happy with it. It could also simply be that the art is an outlet for things you simply can't get out of your head any other way, like a sort of self-therapy. But not necessarily as a way to treat anything, but rather simply because the emotional attachment to the ideas presented in the art are that strong. I decided to finally just, ask him. After so long of speculating, I just asked why. He said "I create for you and my friends stupid :P " I have since taken up writing.

20 minutes before even seeing the thumbnail and title of this, I began a painting that I will Not film the process of. I always feel the pressure to record, document, romanticize and share the process of my paintings. I am exhausted. I am so, so tired. On the inside. I don’t have the strength to create scenes. I have *just* enough strength…. to paint. And I felt bad about letting go. Of failing. But then I listened to your video as I started. I feel okay about it. It’s okay that no one sees it. At least I’m painting it. At least I loved it. I love The Beginners Guide. I watch it when I feel down and lost. The fact that you brought it up, PLUS the timing of the upload and me stumbling upon it… That’s something. Isn’t it?

Also re: Prince's death... As someone who works with harm reduction orgs, I have such enormous feelings towards it. He died from a pressed Norco (brand of hydrocodone) pill that had a fent hotspot. To think that even Prince... Prince! Wasn't getting real pharmaceutical pills. Apologies, as this is entirely unrelated from your video, but that's the direct result of the DEA cracking down on prescription opiates and doctors/pharmacies dispensing them. Prince would be alive if not for the war on drugs, and sometimes I feel kinda insane that no one acknowledges that.

I LOVE that by taking a poop, that animal added meaning to the sculpture. What a genius. Pay him.

You are a Storyteller. This is what it must mean to be a Storyteller. Man, I could listen to you talk about absolutely anything. You use words SO well. You flatter each word. Thank you.

I have a list of my favorite of your videos that I revisit occasionally, probably at least once a month, and I can say in no uncertain terms that this will be joining them. This one affected me in a way that I cannot and will not try to explain. I am already saving up to buy the deluxe edition of your book, thank you for making a physical copy available. It feels especially important in this time of my favorite things being constantly discarded and actively destroyed in search of a single extra dollar. Thank you for sharing your art with us.

The locals don't like that place. Mainly because some yahoo was allowed to fence in a giant chunk of public land and then charge admission.

This reminds me of the secret NES game which is hidden within the Nintendo Switch's operating system. After hackers discovered how to activate it it was promptly removed. It is speculated that it was put there for Satoru Iwata who programmed the game and later became CEO of Nintendo before he died around the time that the Switch entered production.

i'm so emotional right now because the beginner's guide is my FAVORITE game of all time. i was first introduced to it in 2017ish and i think about it constantly. i love its eeriness and the unsettling feeling i get when i play it. i will always always recommend this game to anyone who loves conversations about what constitutes art, what art should be seen, respecting artistic integrity, etc. i've scoured the web looking for conversations/analyses about it. LOVE the beginner's guide music you snuck in at the end too.

This video reminds me of something my brother told me yesterday. We are lucky to be from a music-oriented family, and he told me: "The thing you need to do is play. To keep yourself sane". I play the flute, mostly when I'm all alone, and since I've been living in these thin-walled dorms, mostly I don't play at all. I can't, of course, say for certain that some of this "art for noone" is artists keeping themselves sane. But I've written poems and played melodies noone will see or hear, usually to let out things that needed to go out, things I don't need anyone to see. I've also done the opposite - I made an instagram page for the poems I wanted to share with someone, anyone, the ones that were "for show", I guess. I'm not sure how I feel about witnessing this art. But in its way, it's encouraging.

Very glad to hear you talk about the Beginner's Guide. I began to feel nauseous as Wreden's narration turned from what sounded like analysis based on conversation and friendship with Coda, to pure psychoanalysis based just on the game files themselves and Coda's further distancing from Wreden. When the twist happened, I felt like I could vomit- despite knowing it was clearly a fiction, that this hadn't happened, the game succeeded in tearing down my defenses and suspending my disbelief to an incredible degree (hampered only by one small moment where Wreden says he has to step away to do something and the game is without narration for a bit, which makes no sense since even in the context of the universe, he is recording files to edit into the game, not live narrating each playthrough). The lamppost thing in particular turned it from one-sided psychoanalysis fueled by hubris and the selfish need for access to another's art, to deception in its purest form, a lie Wreden tells the player so brazenly and indefensibly that it makes me question everything else he said all the more.

City sounds so soulless. I hope that with time, the desert takes it back. That someday the cracks are filled with desert flowers, and that sagebrush grows tall and healthy in its streets.

It is the dream of an artist for their work to be spoken about with the tenderness and passion you have in these videos. Art is not static and grows with each thing it was inspired by and will forever grow with everything it inspires. Thank you for making such a lovely video, you always leave us with so much to think about

When beginner's guide was mentioned I audibly cheered alone in my office at 4am. (edit: god, this video was so beautiful)

Love this video. "If a city rises in the desert and no one is there to capture it, what does it matter if its a masterpiece",, Made me think about how like 7-10 years ago, American news orgs were *obsessed* about taking photos of China's "ghost cities" and "metro stations to nowhere". Now said cities are filled with thousands, if not millions, of citizens living somewhere that was deliberately planned for them. Obviously these are urban planning projects, not art pieces, but it made me think of how we conceptualize what we think of as these "empty spaces". Of course the City is located in the desert, the type of environment that receives the least ecological consideration by far.

It means so much to me for you to feature and talk about one of my favorite pieces of art! The Beginner's Guide has always made me feel that the potential for stories in video games has barely even begun to be expressed, and nobody ever talks about it enough. Thank you!

Your essays always leave me numb in the best possible ways. Thanks for all your effort, research, and compassion you bring to the topics that drive you to make these essays. ❤

I love this channel so much. You were the first video essayist I ever encountered, and you are still without a doubt the greatest. Everything about your videos are impeccable, the writing, the themes, the editing and the pacing. I can only hope to one day produce journalism of a similar quality.

I wonder if you've bumped into The Residents and the theory of obscurity. They're a band that's operated anonymously with the theory that true art can only be created in absence of an audience. One of their more well regarded records, Not Available, was originally intended to never see the light of day for that reason.

When you were talking about the theories surrounding Goya's mental state while painting his unreleased pictures, I said to myself, out loud: "is he gonna start talking about The Beginner's Guide?", and jumped out of my fucking SEAT when I found out I was right

Your videos are amazing, and just keep getting better. Your descriptions are so vivid and your presentation so engaging, that it does not even occur to us that City is not shown. (The other subjects, especially Goya, are done justice too.) Thank you for your work, and congrats on the book.

This is my favorite Jacob Geller video so far. I've been subscribed for so long and become so literate in the topics of art and video games and their intertwining, I caught every callback and was thinking "That sounds just like Goya's black paintings--" "That sounds like The Beginner's Guide--" right before those things would come up. And the prose, the deliveries always sound like slam poetry. It's so good.

For me I truly believe that art doesn’t have to be shared or understood. It can be just for the artist. But, I also truly believe that art not shared with the world is the saddest thing. So much life and emotion just hidden away. There’s something haunted about that in and of itself.

55 minute jacob geller video during a snow day, literally can’t get better than this

this brought me to tears, as many of your works do. thank you, I look forward to holding some of it in my hands