The following accompanies this week’s ‘Indoor Kids’ newsletter. You can find all the current listings at the Now Playing: Immersive For Indoor Kids page.
Hello There,
Before I get into this week’s column, and the listings, a few highlights from the current news: two relief efforts that artists — one in the US, one in the UK — can tap into, a nifty news hit, and a VR release I’m eager to get my mits on.
Artist Relief will distribute $5,000 grants to artists facing dire financial emergencies due to COVID-19; serve as an ongoing informational resource; and co-launch the COVID-19 Impact Survey for Artists and Creative Workers, designed by Americans for the Arts, to better identify and address the needs of artists.
UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £20 million to respond to new and urgent needs in UK and global communities during and following the Covid-19 pandemic. Deadline: 17 April. Sent to us by reader Sean S.
Vampire (dot) Pizza in Eater LA
We’ve been excited for Vampire (dot) Pizza since it was first described to us: pizza, puzzles, and a story delivered fresh and hot to your door. Well, it caught the eye of Eater LA as well, and that’s just wonderful all on it’s own. The LEIA relief fund gets a shout out as well, since part of the proceeds for the opening weekend are going to those efforts. And shout out to Nick Rheinwald-Jones for donating the proceeds of Pajamas & Cocktails to the fund as well.
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Ironlights
I’ve been a fan of E McNeil’s work since the early days of the VR renaissance, and have enjoyed his strategy games on the Oculus Go and iPhone. So when he announced that he was making a sword dueling game for VR I got very, very interested. It’s out today on Quest and Steam and I’m going to foolishly abuse a credit card tonight. Maybe I’ll see you in the arena.
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A Time To Sow
The hardest thing right now is seeing though to the other side of this, to where our hopes and dreams still live. I know that I struggle with that, if only in part because of an inability for so many to take a sober view of the crisis leads me to overcompensate with a kind of newshound pessimism.
There are, indeed, a lot of ways that this thing can go, and much needs to be done for the kind of work that we champion here to find its footing again when the strictest controls are lifted. Things won’t be the same, not until there’s a reliable vaccine at any rate, and some of what needs to be done is far above the pay grade of individual artists and those who love experimental experiential work.
We not only cannot leave our voices out of the broader discussions to come, but the time has come for us to start talking about how we will operate once the work stirs again. Artists and patrons alike need to lead these discussions, or we will see what happened in the wake of the tragic Ghost Ship fire in Oakland. The work will become even more difficult to produce for reasons that have less to do with actual risks than the desire to not have a political public relations disaster.
Here’s what I’ve learned from a few years now of dealing with civic level politics, and decades of covering politics in public media before that: without concerted pressure institutions will reflexively do what they have always done. The inertia towards the status quo is strong. Yet there is a paradox: the effort it takes to shift the window on what’s possible at the local level is less than you might think, and those efforts can snowball when orchestrated in many places at once.
In short: while it’s always the right time to get organized, right now is REALLY the right time. Now is the moment we can define the battles to come. Now is the time that either hopes or fears take root, and what we harvest tomorrow depends fully on what we sow today.
On that note: I’m getting together with the LEIA team this weekend, and talking with the core team for HERE next week. But that’s just a piece of the puzzle. Reach out, to us and each other. Get connected. We’re in this together.
— Noah
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