Alicia Astronomo talks>VITALICIO: EP 2
[Author’s note: This is Alicia Astronomo’s recorded reflection on her first video game, VITALICIO, which was created in Microsoft Powerpoint 2007, CapCut, and reprogrammed for online play. She takes the time to discuss VITALICIO’s origin story and future plans for the game. This article is transcribed from the second half of a 30 minute recording on April 10, 2024, and edited for print on April 22, 2024. Not all grammatical errors have been corrected.]
[W]ith [VITALICIO], I am sharing what’s in my world. [B]riefly, to go over what’s in this demo, and what will come onto the game, um, I, I was asked about this last month. I had come to ONLē Vibez (A) for Kente’s Corner (B), which was curated by Blue Bostic (C). I had come pretty much when the event had started and I had just come from the Octavia Butler Book Club Fan Club (D) facilitated by Kehinde Applewhite (E) and VILLAGER (F), my dear, dear friends. Actually, this Sunday . . . this past Sunday was the last chapter meeting, um, for Wild Seed (G), um, which I will touch on in the future. Trust me that will be vomitmouth — I wanna say approved but it was already approved by me I, I already stand on the fact that . . . I told Kehinde when they sent out the form, um, “I will reply thoughtfully, I’ll take my time, but you’ve been doing everything right. Everything’s perfect.”
So anyways, flashback to last month. Um, I was — I just left book club and I’m reading these next two chapters that — that are due in two weeks and Blue had approached me, you know, like, well, “What are you reading?” um, cause I guess I was, I, I just was choosing to be mysterious on the bench in everyone’s way while they’re setting up an event, um, I’m telling them about it, they’re giving me recommendations, books on the Yoruba people, which is great because I just received a book from my employers and mentors about “The Way of the Orisa. (H)”
Um, anyways, Blue had, y’know, asked me if I could present a — an interactive video game, and in that moment, I was like, “Oh my god. That’s what I’ve been waiting for.”
I’ve been sitting on this for a year. I’ve had these ideas, like, “Oh, I’m gonna do dress up, and oh, like you’re gonna be able to talk to me, and you’re gonna be able to explore my room, or like my mind, and I’m gonna read to you and listen to music.”
Um, and so I approached my friend, my dear friend, who I asked if they want credit and they never responded to me so I’ll keep them anonymous until they tell me that they want it and then I’ll edit everything I guess or just add it on. Um, to acquire the software, um, it’s hard to get an old program, 2007 Powerpoint, and they asked me, like, “Why do you need this specific year?” and I’m like, “Just trust me. Like don’t worry about it.” And I had immediately, upon acquiring the software, I was tinkering away and I’m just beaming with joy like I, I don’t even know if they know how happy I am and how happy that made me. Like I feel united as a circle with myself. I went home and completed a rough draft of the demos of the — sorry, of the title sequence and the start page and some skeletons and I just kept watching it over and over again I couldn’t stop, um, and then I’ve been sitting like, “Well what do I wanna do? What do I wanna do with this?” So at the beginning, when you’re selecting a color, um, those frames come from a series that I had started also at this friend’s house. Um, and the goal of it is to take a reference image and recreate it 10 times. Um, though I will edit that, I’m sure it will be way more than 10, but the intention is: drawing it in pencil, in black and white, understanding shading and value, lighting, um, then recreating this with color, whatever medium, and then eventually painting this. “I’ve mastered this, I know this,” but I’m also — me personally, I am still learning to paint. I just make shapes and fill them in for cathartic and therapeutic reasons but I need to learn how to shade and value and yada yada. But for the purposes of this game, you know, it’s like, “oh, well, I have options.” You know, these are different perspectives on the same reference image and that reference image really, really is a self reflection, um, I am imposing my own experiences onto a template and exploring my psyche through it, and it’s painful, [laughs] um, I will say that all of these images all these reference images are stills from 70’s porn. So with the sexual undertone, it’s not very pleasant in my mind. It’s actually quite disappointing and hurtful, um, so [laughs] I wanted to use this as a way to choose and also you know showcasing this art because I’ve been trying to figure out how I want to include it in anything and it’s just been very special for me. Um, I don’t, I don’t wanna have it go to waste I guess.
Um, so for the sake of this demo, I have you know, “What do you want to do?”
Reading, sleeping, dress up, and listening to music. And I feel as though I repeated myself but I didn’t, I didn’t, they’re all separate.
Um, in the future, my goals are to have for yellow, “Where do you wanna go?”
I want to showcase different places, um, and I really wanna name drop but I shouldn’t yet. I shouldn’t name drop yet on the “keep it anonymous.” Basically, um, you know, places in my neighborhood, like I want videos of me standing outside like, “Where should I go?” and there be like I guess like uh faux[?] arrow keys for select[ing] if I’m gonna go forward or move around or whatever. galleries that I’m involved in, I want — I wanna ask, you know, the director, some representative, you know to be like, “Hello, welcome to ‘X’, um, take a look around,” and like, you could click on things inside the gallery and there will be explanations provided to you. I wanted an exclusive exhibition for naked art museum like one that isn’t um . . . isn’t just publicly on display although I’ll include it later on but I wanted it to be something very special I’m still thinking what that’ll be but I think I’m, I think I put the pieces together just now.
Haha um, let’s see, that’s for yellow.
Blue, I want it to be, you know, well, ultimately, green, I’ve already started working on green but with the amount of captioning that I’ve done thus far for red, we’re not — we’re not gonna make green get into um, the official demo launch on the 14th at ONLē Vibez. Like I, I don’t have that much energy. we’ll put — we’ll plug it in later. That’s why I think it’s important to do, um, subscription for the demo, you know, monthly, um, because every month, I’m going to add more to it. Um, so green is me talking. So you can ask me questions, and we’ll have a conversation. Um, I actually should have things for you to respond back with, um, so that way we could get to know each other better.
[B]lue is[:] which one of my friends do you wanna talk to? Who do you wanna call? [I] want my friends to be able to have inputs on their own. [W]hat do they wanna say? What’s important to them? This is all of our time capsule really, um, and since this is “for life,” there will be different installments as time goes on.
I don’t expect this to stay on Powerpoint and video forever. I anticipate actually creating something like Jerry Paper’s, um, Doctor Javier: a Chameleon World game (I). Um, you can walk around and it’ll be like puzzles and stuff like that like I want to really expand this but for now, I’m just happy I have a little talking box where I can ramble and share everything, um, and do know that in the future, I do wanna create days. I’m going to figure out how to do this, maybe it’s like you have to finish . . . yeah that’s the thing is, I need to figure out how, you know, the, when you’re playing a game and there’s only so many ways you can go and after you pick these roots and then whoops, now you’re gonna go to the next day, or, um you know, you can only receive a trophy for doing this and that, something like that. Um, I’m sure it will require coding or me being clever, um, and I guess just for general purpose … just one little last touch … yeah this game is, it’s supposed to be, definitely [a] self portrait. So much me-ness, but I want it to be an outlet for others as well, you know, you have a virtual friend, and just to show you that it’s important to record yourself and archive yourself and have something of you as an artifact. Um, I’m very excited to see how this turns out um, definitely going to be presenting this at many more occasions, um, especially as the game goes on, very excited to see how it grows and you know, share that progress with everyone and document how it’s … how it’s come along. Um, I definitely should have recorded the skeletons of the game, but [at] the same time maybe that’s, that’s just a treasure for me. I think that sums up what I needed to get off my chest. I’m going to try to sleep now, so thank you for listening and I’ll see you all at ONLē Vibez for Open Forum, a group show. I hope it’s a cypher again, ’cause Kente’s Corner is hosting it, and a Tekken tournament, um, all on April 14th, 2024, from 6 to 10 pm. If you’d like to attend, tickets are $10 on ONLē Vibez website, and if you’re confused when you get on the site, you have to click on “events” and then you’ll see the flyer. If you’d like to play the demo yourself through my website, um, it’s $10 a month, you just gotta go on nakedartmuseum.com, you’ll see “play demo,” it’ll take you to a paywall, um, I’m sure Squarespace takes a 9% fee, so it’s probably $11 but um, that’s all you need and you’re in. So me and VITALICIO will see you later. Good night.
(A): ONLē Vibez: a film production company and retail store located in Baltimore, MD, owned by Jeremiah Collins. April 22, 2024, https://onlevibez.com, https://instagram.com/onlevibez.
(B): Kente’s Corner: a nasty emcee (KENTE!) and even nastier producer (MFUNDISHi). April 22, 2024, https://www.instagram.com/kingofdjungle/.
(C): Blue Bostic: an artist, illustrator, arts teacher, and curator. April 22, 2024, https://www.instagram.com/bluemakesstuff/.
(D): Octavia Butler Book Club Fan Club: an event by THE VILLAGE! STUDIO dedicated to exploring the profound legacy of Octavia Butler. April 22, 2024, https://www.vllager.com/THE-VILLAGE-STUDIO/Octavia-Butler-Book-Club-Fan-Club-.
(E): Kehinde Applewhite: (b. in California, US) a Baltimore-based textile artist and co-founder of THE VILLAGE! STUDIO. April 22, 2024, https://www.vllager.com/THE-VILLAGE-STUDIO/meet-the-team, https://www.instagram.com/KEHINDE.LLC/.
(F): VILLAGER: (b. in Lagos, Nigeria; based in Baltimore, MD), is a multi-disciplinary artist, whose work is centered around investigating humanity as a product of culture and social conditions through an Afro-diasporic lens. April 22, 2024, https://www.vllager.com/, https://www.instagram.com/vllager.me/.
(G): Wild Seed: a science fiction novel by American writer Octavia Butler. Although published in 1980 as the fourth book of the Patternist series, it is the earliest book in the chronology of the Patternist world. April 22, 2024, https://archive.org/details/wildseed0000butl_f6y5/page/n9/mode/2up.
(H): The Way of the Orisa: a practical guide that includes the 16th Truth of Ifa, the Orisa days of the week, prayers, ritual requirements, descriptions, and histories. April 22, 2024, https://archive.org/details/wayoforisaempowe00neima.
(I): Dr. Javier Genneheigen’s Chameleon World: a video game released alongside Jerry Paper’s Big Pop For Chameleon World, created by Cole Kush with tremendous help from designers Jon Schmidt & Joel Cares. (N.d.). JERRY PAPER — Cole Kush. April 21, 2024, https://ckush.com/JERRY-PAPER.
[Author’s note: If you are interested in playing VITALICIO online, you can access it via a monthly subscription of $10. You will receive email notifications as updates are made.
https://www.nakedartmuseum.com/vitalicio-demo]
At the end of 2024, Alicia Astronomo will compile all vomitmouth articles from the year into print publications and distribute these magazines across Baltimore, MD, and other art communities.
If you would like to support vomitmouth’s production, donations are accepted. All donations go towards funding the physical magazine.
To donate or contact, please direct all inquiries to nakedartmuseum@gmail.com.
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