Making ‘Dumb-smart’ Things
Meet Sam Chiet, VR developer and maker of technology for the human spirit
** ART <3 CODE **Projects and stories from the intersection of art, code and everything in-between.`````````````````````Name: Sam Chiet
Role: VR developer
Location: Anywhere
Likes: Playing guitar, DDR, reading and knowing weird facts about Pythagoras the triangle math manWebsite | YouTube | Twitter
Without using your job title, what do you do?
I am a maker of dumb-smart things. Every ‘dumb’ idea, every fleeting thought you’ve dismissed on a whim-
I come in like a little goblin, and I take that idea, hold it close, and give it the life the universe absolutely needs.
Which project matters the most to you and why?
The Desktop Meadow came from a place of exhaustion and just wanting to do something nice for a change. Going into the pandemic lockdown (round 1) and spending more and more time on computers, so many people (especially teenagers) were burning out.
Part of this stems from how computers are designed: clinical, inhuman and efficient. Their form emerges from a constant push towards productivity-first. So this is ‘bad’ design.
The Desktop Meadow grows flowers on your computer windows and every few hours, a little purple mail-bird comes in to deliver you a letter written by someone else, from their meadow.
Brief notes relating a family cookie recipe, well-wishes, the view outside their window, a tic-tac-toe game, constantly in circulation. Whatever slice of life their author felt compelled to write about, little pieces of good put out into the world on digital paper.
That’s the one where people sent me DMs talking about their struggles with depression and anxiety. How the isolation left them feeling disconnected and online classes felt meaningless.
And then how the rhythmic swaying of the flowers reminded them to breathe, and how the letters they sent and received let them anchor themselves. It was both a tool and passive support/connection. Just every once in a while, a reminder there’s people out there.
Like all of my projects, on a technical level it’s absolutely horrific, and I owe the fact it functioned at all to a wonderful one “Professor Sucrose” (who’s a member of Hack Club).
When and where do you do your best work?
In a cold dark room after being up for 19 hours straight — one quivering hand reaches for my coffee-
No. Doing jams is fun, but I’m at my best when I’m well-rested, wrapped in a blanket, with a mug of hot cocoa and healthy contact with people who care about who I am but not as defined by my career.
Something cool on the internet you wish more people knew about?
There used to be this website called zeroviews.net — it’d surface random zero-view videos on YouTube where the uploaders didn’t even bother re-naming the title. It’s defunct now, but searching MVI or IMG in YouTube sorting by newest will still get you wild slices of life.
And 17776 by Jon Bois.
What is in your toolbox?
Pencil and paper, a Kinect, Unity, GameBoy z80 assembly programming, too much time, custom game engine tools, a little bit of ingenuity,
…and a big magnifying glass for looking at clues.
What is the best way to learn about your area of expertise?
Keep the pressure off and enjoy yourself. It’s a cliche, but learn to be okay with failure. Failure isn’t an end state, it’s where you learned something. If something doesn’t work, and you realize why, that’s progress.
I’m guilty of this too, but people often try to be too smart and spend way too much time overthinking and analyzing things. Instead, try to solve a problem the first way and barrel forward.
How do you deal with artist block?
If there’s a common theme in much of my work, it’s doing things that shouldn’t be done. Whether a technical expectation, or just creatively the concept is so absurd it is beneath consideration — that’s where my gears start turning. So I try and find an interesting set of constraints, and working through that tends to help.
What does creativity mean to you?
Wanting to create things and wanting to be popular is treated as synonymous these days. I think we’ve lost a part of creating things that is valid even if other people aren’t watching.
I’ve divorced what makes me happy creatively from what is expected to make me happy creatively (ex. views, money).
What makes me happy is the cycle of finding an interesting nugget, putting something pure out into the world, and then being able to start again.
So I ease pressure on myself. Scope down instead of scope up. If a project isn’t working, I take a look at what I’ve learned and feel good about that, find a new direction.
Also I go outside.
What do you think will be the most dramatic change for the VR industry in the next 5–10 years?
I think it really depends on where we go as a society. Does Facebook ‘win’?
Are platforms a necessary evil or a symbiotic resource in relation to artists who just want to have a nice time making nice things?
Where are our dumbest, most wholesome subversive impulses allowed to thrive? And conversely, where are they instead controlled?
