EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY - Nathalie Lawhead
Nathalie Lawhead is a vocal proponent of blurring the discursive bounds between video games and the rest of visual arts and technology conversations, so it should be no surprise that their magnum opus, EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY ignites an uncategorizable tragicomic blaze from the tinder of queered and Riot Grrl zines, Web 1.0 anti-design, surrealist Flash animation, diaristic prose, and the suffocating but omnipresent platitudes we are expected by a brutally positivist society to partake in like a numbing sacrament. The game is made up of a fake Windows-98-esque desktop interface, filled with undulating file icons, pop-up window mini-games, animation loops, videos, audio commentary, and other elements that slowly overtake the screen. If you play it in the order of the fake computer’s file names, this series of increasingly bleak vignettes casts an unwavering stare at the brutal ways society represses and belittles depression, trauma, loneliness, anxiety, and difference (especially in regards to gender). Though this might sound brutal to experience, its brilliant use of Hertzfeld-esque comedic timing (this is easily one of the funniest video games I have ever played) and its symphonic arrangement of deconstructed digital assets jittering and washing together like a collision of MySpace and Anna Oppermann’s installations make for a crushingly, touchingly cathartic look at the messiness of being human.
Creator: Nathalie Lawhead
Link: https://alienmelon.itch.io/everything-is-going-to-be-ok
Connections:
Anna Oppermann - Antidesign
Don Hertzfeldt - Rejected
Kim Gordon - No Home Record