Video game artist Gary Adrian Randall cleverly inserted all his deepest political feels in his latest game, making you wonder where else messages like these may be in every day life.
The video game artist, graphic designer, and contributor to our site recently released stills from his latest phone-based video game, Enter the Reveries, to encourage the average American to think more deeply about the way they feel about some pretty major social issues like the Black Lives Matter movement, abortion rights, and other formerly taboo-for-video-games topics, through the digital art protest: AMERICANCER.
According to his website, he felt inspired to call attention to social justice issues only recently, sharing that “I have never considered myself a political person. In fact, on more than one occasion I have described myself as willfully ignorant, especially in terms of politics. But they say tragedy never affects you until it hits close to home. The Pulse Massacre earlier this year was my wakeup call.”
The last scene of the game is an American mainland map with some pretty creepy looking art over it — not surprising since the game is a dystopian paradise, but when you get a closer look, each sub-region features a different patch of American social injustice, agitation, or in this video game artist’s own words, “depressing realities.”He’s asking other artists to take a look at his work, share their feelings, and channel their own frustrations about our changing society into their art. His goal is to inspire people to protest with their creativity, and to share their unique experience and pain with the world online. Imagine this as a social injustice rap battle playing out in physical art instead of verbal.
When you zoom in over one of the areas he digitally painted you find yourself faced with a swastika haphazardly strewn about a skeletal Statue of Liberty and a zombified Confederate soldier. If you ask Gary, that’s his way of showing that America is still choking on rampant racism and tolerance issues.
Another area on his map shows a muzzled woman in front of a backdrop of chains and religious intolerance, because in the artist’s eyes, women simply do not get to have an equal voice in so much of American society. His map also touches on LGBT rights, gay teen suicide rates, domestic violence, and trans rights. “No one issue is isolated. They’re all connected issues because I think we all need to value each other more.”
While his illustrations are certainly dark, his hope and optimism for the future are definitely bright.
“This whole election year has been really insane, and people’s reactions have been more insane. I just want to do my part to push the people around me to a more aware level, and if slipping a little subconscious video game imagery is the way to do it, that’s how I’m going to do it. I really want America to feel whole again sometime soon, and I think encouraging art expression is one way to get there.”
He’s asking other artists to take a look at his work, share their feelings, and channel their own frustrations about our changing society into their art. His goal is to inspire people to protest with their creativity and to share their unique experience, pain, and even happiness with the world online. He’s tracking the project with the hashtag #AMERICANCER on all social media platforms, and plans to interact with fellow artists.
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