MARCH 2022
BACK GALLERY

DANNY JARRATT (SA)
Compositions From Failure

In First Person:

To play a video game is to fail constantly. A game over screen is a constant reminder of your defeat. As a queer man, I am in a constant state of failure under heteronormative capitalism. I am a biological failure because I won't have children. And an economic failure because I won't create generational wealth.

To escape these negative emotions, I play video games. Informed by a history of queer resistance, I argue that playing a video game is a form of queer resistance. When players begin to play Panel De Pon, a 1990s video game series, you disengage from hegemonic narratives and stop being productive or social. In a world of pixelated blocks, patterns and stress, heteronormativity softens. So the only thing that matters is making patterns and keeping the screen clear of obstructions.

I present paintings that use compositions from the game over screens from the puzzle video game. This work aims to take a tense fleeting digital moment of failure and represent it as a colourful physical artwork, suggesting a new way to succeed—something I have been doing my entire queer life.

Third person.

To play a video game is to fail constantly. A game over screen is a constant reminder of your defeat. As a queer man, Danny Jarratt is in a constant state of failure under heteronormative capitalism. He is a biological failure because he won't have children. And an economic failure because he won't create generational wealth.

To escape these negative emotions, he plays video games. Informed by a history of queer resistance, Jarratt argues that playing a video game is a form of queer resistance. When players start to play Panel De Pon, a 1990s video game series, they disengage from hegemonic narratives and stop being productive or social. In a world of pixelated blocks, patterns and stress, heteronormativity softens. So the only thing that matters is making patterns and keeping the screen clear of obstructions.

FELTspace presents paintings that use puzzle video game compositions taken from game over screens. This work aims to appropriate a tense fleeting digital moment of failure and present it as a colourful physical artwork, suggesting a new way to succeed—something he has been doing my entire queer life.