BLOGPOST:
bentl is offline
2024.05.09
i wrote this on an instagram post about a week ago. i've since seen cap'n jazz live in las vegas where a person i befriended not 4 hours before got a concussion. i texted my friend, saying "let's write and play some music together!" i've been drawing a lot during my time here. i've been ripping myself away from the god forsaken screen as much as i can, but even now i fail as i type away secretly on my grandma's computer.
with all this, i've come to a very bleak conclusion... eddweena o0 bentl needs a break.
i've been forcing my art out of me for a while now. sure it's been good art, but it hasn't been fulfilling art. i'm animating constantly to distract myself from the shit i gotta do, y'know? it's caused me to go into a shell, socially and emotionally. i need to force myself to just drop what i'm doing for a bit to remember how to live life, it's necessary for my brain and also my art since my art is increasingly becoming worse the longer i force myself to heed it's call. hell, even still i find myself justifying living life from how it contributes to my "artistic output". what am i doing?
anyways, i won't be gone. i'll still be creating, but not for you. if for anyone, it'll be for the scene here in chicago. i'm not going to subject myself to this infernal machine any longer. besides, the internet's gonna die in 10 years anyways so what's the point?
i made a lot for the internet when it was all i had. i made BEAF which is still one of my proudest acheivements. i made some life-changing cartoons and i got to share them with strangers. that's pretty cool! not everyone gets to do that. however, the web has lots of downsides beyond it's relegation to horrible machines.
there's no emotional intimacy here. when you find something here, it's "content". maybe the "content" changes your life, but even still it's content. it's hyperspace, art here becomes contextualized within a hellscape where everything is fighting and bidding for your attention constantly. i've tried my best with this website to make the hyperspace context as intimate as possible, but even then it's just words on a browser with a big red X that makes everything vanish into thin air. when you go to a house show or a gallery or whatever, you exist with the artist. they are humans! they're here with you, they're communicating directly at you with their art as the language of choice. hell, maybe you can catch a word with the artist, talk to them about their art. that's real! that's intimacy! and for fucks sake you don't gotta sell your god damn cat pictures to Jeff Bezos to do it!
i'm very blessed to have been able to move to the big city to find a network of human beings that fucking rule. i came here with nothing, i applied to this dogshit co-op in south chicago hoping to have some place to live until i inevitably rubbed shoulders with the right people. and by god i fucking did! i went out there and i did. i was stuck on the computer for too damn long and old habits gotta die hard. it's the best choice i ever made in my life coming here, it's my home. this weird little electric illusion is not.
and for anyone like me, stuck in the lonely hyperspace trapped behind LED walls: i know you. i was you. i was scared of everything, man. still am. it's safe here isn't it? that's what kept me stuck. but the deeper you get, the more the safety sands away your faith in the world outside. it's unpredictable, it's dangerous, it's fucking racist and transphobic. here, there's always that big red X. everything is in your control. every aspect of your whole life is in your control. and isn't it nice to finally have that? you spend years of your fucking life spat on by the people that surround you, unseen and crushed by the people outside who see you as an error. but here, you have some kind of power. you can find others like you who are just as beaten and erroneous. you can fall in love on this machine for god's sake.
but they aren't here, not really. they're where you are, just miles and miles away. so are lots and lots and lots of others. somewhere out there. they always are. and maybe you gotta almost die to get to them, but that's life. on october 11th in las vegas, nevada, tim kinsella sang to me "it's like you finally realize how lucky you really are to have had a few great heartbreaks."
wait, what the fuck was this all about? oh yea, art. blugh. yea, i'll probably drop a new cartoon, this one short i made a week ago, and make a few more tweeks to the site before i close the lid on this time capsule for as long as i see fit. i think i'll still post VERY INFREQUENTLY (don't get your hopes up) over on patreon, since I won't want to leave supporters of my work out in the cold, although it'll probably only be pretty scrappy behind the scenes and uploads of my visual art endeavors. thanks for the smiles, internet strangers!
- dd bentl
2024.10.12