This is the current state of my video game Repatriate Me. I added a losing screen, and I added a restart/quit screen, and basically it’s a “finished” game except not really, it just works as a game app now. But I want to make the basement longer and add more enemies. And a few more ways to move, and I also have to change the code for his health system because he gets secret health points that don’t reflect properly. Confusing but anyway! It needs work but it’s ready for my show at the Art Lab Gallery at Western University, so we are installing it, it’s going to be playable on a computer in there. Also to be honest if anyone wants to try it I could send them a link to what it is now. Although it’s not exciting yet. It needs more! And it’s only one of four levels.

I’ve been in London doing install since yesterday. I’ve also been doing work in my studio and that’s been nice because I don’t get to be in a workspace like that at home. I like working from home, but I do find at artist residencies where I have a studio to go even just once a week has really increased my ability to get work done. It helped with Carmilla The Lonely for sure. I had two residencies where I worked on that. Vienna and Hamilton.

I’m having a good time in my life. In less than a week I’ll be flying to Amsterdam to take the train to Osnabrück. And go to a big festival and see lots of art. It’s weird because I’ve been traveling between Toronto and London (Ontario) since last August like, every week almost. But not a fun trip far far away. And now I’m finally getting to go somewhere outside of Ontario and I’m so excited. Outside of Canada! That’s amazing too. And NOT the States.

I was just thinking about the last time I was in the States. I was in New York. I kissed a sexy dude in Brooklyn who had an amazing moustache. I actually really liked him and still do and I wish I could get to know him better even if it was a friendly way but now I have no idea when I will ever go to the United States again. And I don’t know if he would ever leave the United States because he’s also trans and the border is not great especially for trans Americans returning. Fuck this sucks.

There’s so many other places I wanted to see again down there. I wanted to go to New Orleans again and I don’t know when I ever will. I did get to go into a sad Piggly Wiggly in New Orleans, but I never got to go to Georgia or other Southern states except for running through the Atlanta airport a couple times, and being in the Fort Lauderdale Airport once. California is nice and I wish I could go there again too, except fuck! What the hell?

I knew at some point the American Empire would fall but wow it is a grisly scary downfall that is already hurting a lot of people. I feel for my friends down there. And I kind of have some ideas of possibilities of where this is going, but to be honest I don’t really have an “in” to what is going to happen over the next few years. Like I have some quasi psychic stuff and feelings but I can’t comprehend everything that is going on. And there are always twists and they can be good or bad twists. I do think people need to resist though.

I sometimes feel like a jester, just trying to entertain people until the end. I definitely would have been one of those musicians on the Titanic playing music until the water took me. Like they probably did realize so many people were not going to make it, including themselves, and just wanted to provide a point of beauty at the end. Sometimes I think making art right now is just to share in a community where we see each other and witness what is happening to all of us.

I have been having concerns about the legacy of my media after I die. Digital media is fragile. You can just delete it. Lose access to Dropbox, or a hard drive. I have most of my videos in two distributors, one in the United States (Video Data Bank) and one in Canada (Vtape). But that’s still all concentrated in North America. I’m starting to think about having files in another country, on another continent. I’m thinking of having multiple places around the world with my videos. I mean the great thing about my practice is that I can make as many copies of a video as I want and it doesn’t degrade the image, I could have videos all over.

But also, in the long term I don’t see my videos ever leaving the earth, I think they’ll all be gone when the earth is a dead planet. I don’t see humans ever getting off this planet. Definitely not at this rate and also I don’t think we should leave anyway. I think this is where we belong. Forever is impossible. There’s no way my art will exist for infinity. And I have to be okay with that.

But if I could save it from the fascists, that would be nice.

Really I am starting to think about sending out some files through a torrent service so that people access the videos and they just exist on some rando’s drive. I don’t know if I am that brave but also why not? I wouldn’t name them something misleading though. OMG do you remember Limewire? I still have audio clips on my phone of like, some guy pretending to be Bill Clinton telling me not to pirate songs. I think that was his message? There’s just weird shit you would download back then.

I remember the first song I ever got on Napster was the Popcorn Song.

Anyway, I didn’t get this thing I applied for in the United States, but considering how Trump is treating the arts, and the fact that the project is about transgender people and climate change, I don’t think I would have had good publicity. Or some shit would have happened, some big drama I don’t want to deal with right now. Last year was bad enough! Yeah it does suck. BUT ALSO I was already working on a grant application for this project so I can just continue with it.

I’m close to being done my grant! I just need to wait for some more people to respond to my ad, but the rest of the grant is written. I have confirmation letters from a Director of Photography, a Choreographer, an Editor, and three musicians/bands. So I just have to put together a giant pdf of letters and cvs and links to outside support material (I don’t want to include that in my official support material, but some jurors like being able to see who is getting hired and what they can do). Ahh I should probably put a note in about casting dancers at a later date. Sometimes juries get really fussy and want all the info upfront. But I don’t know who will be living in Toronto at that point and I need to cast local dancers because I priced out how much it would cost to fly three in and put up in a hotel and give per diems for two weeks and it was like, $22,000. Which is a lot! Too much! I’m already flying the DOP and Choreographer in and I also have a ton of travel in year one, so yeah I can’t have far flung dancers too. Unless I also got ANOTHER grant, but nooooooo, I don’t like depending on multiple grant agencies for one project. Although my video game projects usually have a few sources of money. Not tons tho.

Anyway if you saw my ad about my project on my Instagram or Bluesky, there’s way more to say about it, but if you are transgender and have been impacted by climate change (especially if it has caused you to evacuate or move) you can email me at tjcuthand at gmail dot com and I can tell you more.

I’m in my hotel room and getting hungry so I should wrap up this long ADHD ramble.

Protect each other.