LET'S STREAM BUBSY VISITS THE JAMES TURREL RETROSPECTIVE - The Soul of Art

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*Cough*

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Well then!


Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to Let's Stream Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective!

Bubsy visits the James Turrell Retrospective is an art game by Arcane Kids that was first released in 2013, and then extensively updated for a 2017 re-release, which can be played here. This LP will cover both versions of the game, with careful attention paid to the new additions in the 2017 version, which deals with an older Bubsy coming to terms with his relationship with the art world, and his own increasing alienation from humanity.

I hope you enjoy this uniquely abstract glimpse into the very soul of art.

YOUTUBE PLAYLIST.

ORIGINAL POST:

BEAT what are you doing?

BEAT no.

You don't need to impress us! Think of your sanity!

BEAT, is this the latest thing Muteki has inflicted on you and not the excellenthorrible idea I PM'd to you that you never responded to (like a wise skellington)?

Also:

This is going to be a journey on the level of Odysseus. I've never been so sure of anything.

Oh man I totally meant to respond to that and then I totally forgot. BRB sending PM.

But no Muteki is not making me do this one.

Or Sisyphus. Or maybe Prometheus.

Oh, come on. What could possibly go wrong?

i'm sorry somebody had to say it

PUNS hurt my colon.

So thanks BEAT.

So I'd really wanted to get this one underway by now, but I have some VERY SPECIFIC PEOPLE who ABSOLUTELY MUST be on this stream, and scheduling just hasn't worked out yet.

Unfortunatley it'll probably be a few more days before this can actually happen, so you might wanna just consider this one as on hold for the moment.

Sorry. : (

FUCK IT I'M TIRED OF WAITING GONNA TRY AND GET THIS GOING TONIGHT.

EDIT: OR NOT BECAUSE WORK WAS MURDEROUS AND I'M GONNA GO TO BED EARLY TONIGHT.

IT'S HAPPENING MOTHER FUCKERS

https://www.smashcast.tv/beathatesall

BUBSY 3D 01

THE JAMES TURRELL RETROSPECTIVE
AKA: ART
MUSEUM PATRONS
FanboyMaster - Patito - MuteKi - Kalir

BEAT: BEAT LIES! BEAT LIES!! WELCOME TO MOTHER FUCKING BUBSY 3D!

In which Bubsy goes to the James Turrell Retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art! Bubsy has a wonderful time at the exhibit, and learns a lot about installation art which uses light and color to play with your expectations of physical space! And so, having fully embraced the limit of human creativity, Bubsy acknowledges that the earth has nothing left to teach him by placing himself inside a coffin, and allowing himself to be removed from the world.

One FUCKING SICK Bobsled ride later, Bubsy arrives in skeleton hell having finally become an adult. And by "adult" I apparently mean "A human with male pattern baldness". After seeking wisdom from the wise bone elders that populate the area balding human Bubsy crosses the bridge of understanding, and leaps into redemption!

BEAT: NO OBJECT. NO FORM. NO RELIEF. NO SALVATION. NO OBJECT. NO FORM. NO RELIEF. NO SALVATION!

And what redemption does Bubsy find via his leap of faith into the screaming skull of destiny? Nothing short of the very soul of art itself!

Also an Applebees family restaurant.

BUBSY 3D BONUS

ORIGINAL RELEASE
AKA: ART!
OLD FRIENDS AND NEW
MarsDragon - Patito - Smiler - FanboyMaster

I'm actually playing the UPDATED RE-RELEASE of this game! The original was released WAAAAYYYYYY back in 2013.

So here's a video of me playing that. From 2013.

I told BEAT I would start putting up links to stuff (mostly videos) about contemporary installation art and similar stuff.

SO. Let's begin!

So, uh, interesting fact: that's my uncle.

No, not Bubsy.

James Turrell. Technically ex-uncle by marriage but still. Was just hanging out at his daughter's house a few months ago. Makes this thread a little surreal. Well, more surreal than usual.

*annoying nerd voice* I believe you mean "Bubsled".

Six Degrees of Bacon Bubsy

So sometime around the late 80s, art critic and David Byrne impersonator Don Goodes put out a couple pilots for a potential slightly tongue-in-cheek show about contemporary installation art -- not quite the same style of piece as artists like Turrell work on, but in related fields and in similar ideas. In fact, if anything, the first episode, "The Weirdness Installation", is about the sort of art projects that define the Arcade Kids gameography, taking old, worn out ideas associated with children, repurposing them, and making them strange.

It's a pretty clever little video, too, discussing things like the motivation for contemporary art; the traditions they derive from; the craftsmanship involved in actually building an installation; the inanity of the art market; and of course the ever-tenuous relationship between artist, intention, and critic.

Here is weirdness part 1:



and part 2:



For the record -- as the pilot never really turned into anything in particular, just this and another episode (on making a collectivist piece) on youtube -- this may actually technically qualify as vaporwave. You have been warned.

I'm totally digging these ARTPOSTS. Thank you very much, Muteki!

I did have the second video all set up, but I decided I didn't like the way I'd cut it. Didn't feel RIGHT, you know?

Update coming either this evening or tomorrow.

BUBSY 3D 02

THE BUBSY 3D RETROSPECTIVE
AKA: ART (?)
"I THOUGHT THERE WOULD BE MORE PEOPLE HERE"
FanboyMaster - Patito - MuteKi - Kalir

Years later, Bubsy attends his own retrospective on the exhibit's last night in town. Seeing a lifetime's worth of his own work compressed into a few small rooms, his thoughts err closer and closer to the grim introspection that all of humanity seeks to avoid. Why are there so few people at his exhibit, and is he wrong to hope there would be more? How can the vast landscapes he created be reduced to a momentary distraction sitting on a small table? Is anything he has done truly worthwhile, or was it all just the meaningless folly of a bobcat driven by selfish vanity and accomplishing nothing?

BEAT: "I come here to think about why I'm sad all the time."

There is no escaping this grim contemplation. All attempts at reliving his glory days will inevitably lead him right back to this spot. It's as though he's stuck in a loop, endlessly going in circles, unable to exert any control over his own life.

Having seen everything there is to see, Bubsy acknowledges that he has "one more performance to go" and walks into a facade of the Applebees, where he he first discovered the soul of art as a younger man. There he has a vision of another version of himself. This spiritual guide encourages Bubsy to embrace relief where he can find it. To know acceptance, and thus know peace.

Bubsy refuses with a single, stalwart "no". His piece said, the tortured artist leaves his own exhibit, and walks out into the dark night alone.

BEAT: Oh shit! Going into the model entrance will take you back to the beginning of the retrospective! This is amazing!
Kalir: It's all art all the way down
MuteKi: Let's go deeper into the art!

BUBSY 3D 03

MICHAEL HEIZER'S LEVITATED MASS
AKA: ART
MOVED ONTO THE NEXT BIG THING
FanboyMaster - Patito - MuteKi - Kalir

BEAT: "Maybe if I wait here long enough, I'll get crushed." Oh man, Bubsy's entertaining thoughts of suicide. We should really put the suicide hotline in this let's play.
MuteKi: After I mentioned S-town, yeah I think we kinda have to.

Months after the Bubsy 3D Retrospective exhibit has moved on, Bubsy finds himself wandering near the grounds of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on one dark, lonely night. Everyone is very excited about the newest exhibit, Michael Heizer's "Levitated Mass", a giant boulder suspended over a small walkway. The Bubsy 3D Retrospective, once the talk of the town, is now distant memory.

Envious and bitter, Bubsy jumps between trying to snidely dismiss Heizer's work as dumb, while wishing he'd thought of it first. For Bubsy, "Levitated Mass" is more than just a boulder, it is the crushing unfairness of the world itself. He wholly consumed by his jealousy.

He is wholly consumed by the boulder.

AHAH THE CAT
.IS CONSUMED

FanboyMaster: I said Bubsy Paint. You responded with Bubsy Taint.
BEAT: [lying] I did not say- WHAT NO I DID NOT SAY THAT.
Kalir: Yeah, you did.
BEAT: YOU CAME TO THAT CONCLUSION ALL BY YOURSELF!

All joking aside, The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached at 1-800-273-8255.

BUBSY 3D 04

THE CATACOMBS
AKA: ART.
BACK IN TOWN
FanboyMaster - Patito - MuteKi - Kalir

Bubsy awakens in the ancient and hallowed catacombs, the eternal resting place of all true artists. He is greeted by a vision of the man he once was, who warns him that everything down here is a lie. Bubsy is less than receptive to this warning.

BEAT: "Whatever dude." I don't give a fuck! I'm fucking BUBSY! I WAS A BIG SHOT! I WAS A STAR, DAMMIT!

Inside this grim mausoleum, Bubsy finds many of the greatest artists throughout history, perfectly preserved in stone. They tell him they have been waiting for him. That he can become one of them. That they will ensure that he will be remembered for all of eternity, the kind of immortality very few artists ever obtain, and it's his for the taking.

All he has to do is take the place they have prepared for him. To step onto his own pedestal as Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Shakespeare, and Pink Floyd all have before him, and never move again. To finally become Art.



So faced with the choice between a lifetime of frustration and pain, and an eternity of unmoving, undisturbed serenity, the weary and bitter artist Bubsy takes his place in the hallowed halls of art, never to move or create again.



It is the ultimate rejection of the manifold struggles and agonies of existence. It is a rejection of humanity.

It truly is the end of Bubsy.

NOT SO FAST!!



Bubsy's Humanity?! But how?! We rejected you!

Could it be... that even though Bubsy gave up on you, you never gave up on him?!



The illusion of art is shattered! The forces that brought us here will never allow us to simply walk away after we spat in the face of their final gift like that! How can we possibly escape their terrible army of stone?!

Who said anything about escaping?



Art fucked with the wrong Bobcat.

If you meet Art on the road, kill it!

BUBSY 3D BONUS

WHEN YOU'RE A GHOST
AKA: WHEN YOU'RE A GHOST
THEY'LL SIT AROUND AND TALK ABOUT HOW THEY LOVED YOU THE MOST.
FanboyMaster - Patito - MuteKi - Kalir

So entering that code when you finish the game give you GHOST MODE!

PROS

• You can fly around.
• Makes ghost noises like "woooooo".
• There's a Bubsy wearing a blue shirt just out of bounds.

CONS

• No coffin ride or applebees.
• Controls are mega bad.
• Ghosts are inherently inferior to skeletons.

BEAT: Alright, that was... an experience. Several experiences, actually.
FanboyMaster: That happened. Don't know why it happened.

One who examines art should take care that they do not become art themselves.

The Artbyss.

EPILOGUE BONUS POST!
WHY ALL THE LIES, BEAT? WHY ALL THE LIES?

Cuz lol.

Ok real(ish) answer, I wanted to try and convey what I experienced when I played the first version of this game completely blind back in 2013. I had no idea what I was getting into, and just sort of assumed that some bold internet madman had straight up re-created Bubsy 3D in unity, terrible graphics and controls and all. I'm super glad I was able to revive that old-ass stream for this LP, because man what a trip.

But mostly just cuz lol.

YOU EVER GONNA DO THE REAL BUBSY 3D?

As far as I'm concerned that WAS the real Bubsy 3D, just like how the Johnny Cash song is the real version of Hurt. There might have been some other game called Bubsy 3D made by some other jerks that came before it, but who cares, this is the one that matters.

That said, my best BFF forever FanboyMaster has been threatening to do an LP of the FOUL PRETENDER that is the 1996 PlayStation game. I hope you all join me in begging him to reconsider this clearly awful choice of action. I mean just look at this shit.

GIF STOLEN FROM GOGGLEBOB'S SUPER EXCELLENT BLOG.

There is no nobility in suffering Fanboy! Step away from the edge! You have people that care about you!

SO EVERYTHING IN THIS EPILOUGE POST IS GONNA JUST BE MEANINGLESS BULLSHIT THEN?

I briefly considered trying to tackle how the "message" of the epilogue gets muddled and basically lost near the end. Like, it starts off as an examination of how self-centeredness leads to bitter detachment and resentment of the world around you, but then it sort of goes off the rails and becomes about how some works of art will long outlive their creators? And then it acts like the choice to be made is between creating art and embracing humanity, even though art in all of it's myriad forms is an essential part of the human experience?

"WHY THEN, DOES THIS GAME EXIST?" I cried out to the heavens. "IT CONTRADICTS ITSELF AND THE WORLD AS I KNOW IT TO BE AT EVERY TURN! WHY IT'S LIKE THIS MOCKING PARODY OF BAD HIPSTER ARTGAMES AND BAD EARLY 3D PLATFORMERS HAS NO CONSISTENT PHILOSOPHICAL MESSAGE!"

And then I was like "OH YEAH. CUZ THAT'S THE POINT. LOL".

WHAT ASPECT OF THIS LP ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF?

This youtube thumbnail, probably.Yeaaah that's the stuff.

CREDITS
DISCORD BROS
FanboyMaster: Seriously dude, don't subject yourself to that kind of suffering. You have so much to live for.
Patito: It blows my mind that this guy seriously doesn't even have a TT account.
MuteKi: MORE ART POSTS PLZ.
Kalir: Examined art, and became art himself.

SKYPE BROS FROM 2013
Smiler: "No one tell mars that this is not actually Bubsy 3D."
MarsDragon: "I only have Fractured Furry Tales."
Patito: Wait a second! You already got credited in the the discord Bros list!
FanboyMaster: It's very unfair for you guys to try and get credited twice instead of just once like everyone else. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

I really wanted to have all the guys on the 2013 recording on the re-release stream, but after a whole month of schedules refusing to line up I just went FUCK IT WE'LL JUST DO IT NOW!" Sorry Mars and Smiler. I still love you guys. Plz forgive me.

AND FINALLY...
YOU: I've done a lot of these little bite-sized LPs, but I'm still just thrilled to death every time someone indicates that they enjoyed reading or watching it. Thank you all so much for taking the time to join me on this weird little adventure. You guys are just the best.