# floating in unknowing cloud cathedral of christian ideology > frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck > ~ george carlin turns out failed video garme company "tale of tales" were always a bunch of outright believers. ir developing another religious project cathedral in the clouds indeed after ir holy eye-rolling interview at garmechurch you've just got to look back at pictures of **auriea harvey** and **michaël samyn** to see it clear as a 60's cult church bell. hallelujah guitar strumming video garme development brothers and sisters! what follows is an imaginary 'tale of tales' interview with **robert what** **auriea harvey** and **michaël samyn** make up the developer duo tale of tales. they're behind luxuria superbia a garme exploring sex but also other slightly crappy garmes like the path the graveyard fatale and bientôt l'ete ir garmes tend to defy expectations forcing players out of ir comfort zone and into a mindset that (at least seemingly) "confronts difficult issues in surprising ways." however one consistent unaddressed theme that arises again and again in ir garmes like fetid swamp gas is the(/ir) idea of faith or religion when i spoke to them i found that they weren't merely interested in religion but considered themselves holy almost by default. ir appreciation for religious roots results in ir prolonged interest in religious subject matter and themes. in fact toward the end of the interview they expressed ir interest in creating a "big christian project" that would be "almost a tribute to all this christian iconography." according to auria "something like that available for believers - and even nonbelievers apparently - would be kind of an interesting moment of connection" "i think there's too little of that in contemporary art," adds michaël. i talked to them about the foundations of that artistic conviction and ir own personal spiritual beliefs **robert what**: what core beliefs would you say most motivate you? **michaël samyn**: i think one of the core beliefs that i think auriea and i share is that everything exists; nothing is impossible. there's a certain group of people that thinks there is an ultimate explanation for everything. we actually prefer not to because mystery is so much more interesting **robert what**: if everything exists and nothing were impossible that would be horrible. a universe where duke nukem were president for example would be unbearably cheesy and retro. there is indeed a certain group which do exist however - in england they're politely termed "intensely annoying religious people" **auriea harvey**: or the impossibility of knowing everything is what intrigues us. it's not so much that we deny truth it's that we don't want to pin down the world to a single truth. all things can be possible **robert what**: not wanting to pin the world (whatever that is) to a single truth itself sounds like a singular truth. if all things are as you say possible then surely one can indeed pin down the world to some bland single truth (eg. 'g0d'). people who state the impossibility of knowing everything too often find it impossible to admit they think they secretly know at least one ('holy') thing totally and completely **michaël samyn**: it's sort of arrogant in a way for humans to think that they puny little humans will ultimately know everything **robert what**: it's not actually possible to make that statement with any seriousness if one truly believes or rather understands one is as equally puny as everyone else. to do so seems equally arrogant. would you distinguish between a person who says "you can know everything," and a person who says "you can know some things"? **auriea harvey**: that would depend on what they say they know. (laughs) **robert what**: not necessarily. what if both are wrong? and besides what on earth has such talk really got to do with modern secular video garme development? **michaël samyn**: well i would call a person who says you could know some things a realist. whereas someone who says you can know everything is just arrogant **robert what**: there are certainly some arrogant realists out here. can you give examples of a person who would be that second thing? **michaël samyn**: no. (laughs) **robert what**: didn't think so **auriea harvey**: i really think we sort of end up verging on pataphysics in a way. beyond metaphysics you know? it's not about making sense of the world because i guess we think the world makes no sense and that's as it should be **robert what**: yet by merely stating the world makes no sense you've attempted to make sense of it. as for feeling you're 'beyond metaphysics' - you're probably not even remotely beyond modern physics - just like most everyone else **michaël samyn**: well and there's another aspect too. we're very much art-lovers and for us our experience with art with beauty gives us a certain sense of truth and a certain feeling of knowing about the world. it's so instinctual. it's beyond words. it's spiritual. but it also gives a sense of confidence. like you really feel like "i get this. i understand this existence. i feel connected to this universe." **robert what**: cobblers. things which appear 'instinctual' or 'beyond words' are too often mere culturally received ideas and ideals unwittingly taken in through uncritical osmosis. as a result any confidence which occurs is often false. what is termed "art" is especially near the top of the cobblers pile **auriea harvey**: so in connection to believing in everything we end up seeing the god in all things. in the motion of the gesture in a sculpture in the color of a painting in a sunrise itself one can start to see the god in things without having to explain it without having to feel like "oh this is religion." it sort of goes beyond that and becomes more primal emotion which makes you feel connected to all things i suppose **robert what**: surely its equally easy to see beauty truth reality connection - any number of things which aren't 'g0d' in gestures sculpture etc without having or being able to explain it? **michaël samyn**: i'm a little bit jealous of people who can name that feeling. like if you're really catholic or really buddhist or something then you can really pin that down more. we were just brought up as these modernist atheists or something so for us this is very difficult **robert what**: perhaps you just want your christian cake and at the same time be able to enjoy your modern socially acceptable default level of atheism. (thinks: and if your project is so modern and secular and apparently open for everyone why aren't you building a mosque or a synagogue?) **auriea harvey**: whereas we can still feel it i guess is the thing. and where we come in contact with that is in art in music in nature and in these things that are in and of themselves unknowable. i guess to a certain extent when looked at in a certain way; when not looked at through a scientific lens. you look at the moon as something poetic and not as a big rock in the sky that's a certain weight and a certain distance from us… **robert what**: why set a false binary opposition between an artistic (apparent) un-knowability and scientific knowability. isn't science itself poetic? **michaël samyn**: although that sounds poetic in a way a big rock in the sky. (laughs) **auriea harvey**: yeah it's a ball of fire it's in the sky you know? that's pretty amazing! **michaël samyn**: and i find it very encouraging to realize that science cannot explain everything because that leaves an opening for things that science can't explain. because when science explains things they become so dull. (laughs) **robert what**: making out that science somehow wants (or even needs to) 'know everything' appears a fundamental and even deliberate misunderstanding of science. maybe there's an opening for things science can't explain even in the very things it can explain extremely well. as for things somehow becoming dull the instant science explains them - that's not even a concept nor one remotely worth replying to **auriea harvey**: so boring! i mean do i love you because of chemicals in my brain and pheromones that you emit or is it something else… **robert what**: perhaps the very scientific chemicals that exist not 'in' but *as* your brain are no more or less than the love you think you feel. so you wouldn't call yourselves religious in any way? **auriea harvey**: oh we absolutely would call ourselves religious **robert what**: oh dear that's what i thought you'd say **michaël samyn**: yeah in a way. we have a fondness for religion more specifically for catholic christianity which we see a lot of here in northern europe. we even go to church once in a while but not regularly. we don't do any religious rituals or anything **robert what**: a fondness for christianity and the refined air of religiosity is itself a holy ritual performed every moment one continues to believe and revel in it **auriea harvey**: it's hard to put into words but it's like… the things that make us feel the closest to the rest of humanity are things like religion and art. but because we're not practising any particular faith we can find worth in other faiths. but not like "oh i'm going to try out buddhism now," you know. it's not like that **robert what**: nonsense. to paraphrase writer david shields "art never saved anyone" - but at at least it hardly ever claimed to 'make one feel close to the rest of humanity'. if there's one thing directly responsible for making one utterly separate from the rest of humanity it's religion. the thing is by 'being religious' as you put it you are practising faith. and by what standard do you imagine you 'find worth' in various faiths if not the default standards clearly set out by modern secular / atheist society? **michaël samyn**: this thing with christianity specifically is that it's such a big part of our culture of the society that we live in that we grew up in that we're comfortable with. we might be interested in hinduism or islam and fascinated by certain aspects of it but it's not our own culture. it's not our own society. and the values of western civilization are fundamentally christian even if it's not religion **robert what**: so what you're saying is your christian bias is completely arbitrary based on the fact you're both western. that much is obvious. as for those 'western values' you're right - they're both all too christian and fundamental unfortunately **auriea harvey**: yeah but then we find that we have all these conflicts even within that between michael and i because i was raised protestant and ey was raised catholic. i mean we were both raised like godless sinners but ey was raised catholic and i was raised protestant. i guess what i'm trying to say is underneath it all i am protestant and ey is catholic since i've been surrounded by catholicism in culture so much i realized what a protestant i am and how these two different forms of christianity are affecting each other. i became so much more aware of history and the whole story of what happened in culture revolutions how the united states began. i became interested in all of these things because of this. realizing how inseparable religion is from culture has been very enlightening. i think being in america i didn't really realize that at all **robert what**: the idea that culture and religion are essentially the same thing from the outset is itself highly enlightening - and neither are anyone's friend. how do all of these bizarre boring and utterly unnecessary and arbitrary cultural beliefs influence your work? **auriea harvey**: we made our early work before we were making vidyagarmz our website work when we were making net-art. we fell in love and we couldn't describe the love that we had for one another. so it became "god-love." we had found the god in everything: the god in us i find the god in ir ey finds the g0d in me **robert what**: good grief. that's a load of g0d **auriea harvey**: we started making these interactive works that were based on the books of the bible and we were going to do the entire bible. we only ended up doing the first five (laughs). we stopped at deuteronomy but we really literally thought we were going to go through the whole thing. we read and then we created it **robert what**: "doing the first five" sounds what a lot of people mildly interested in reading the bible as an old collective work of literature might do while waiting for a connecting flight **auriea harvey**: it was sort of like a way of understanding what we had been through. in order for us to be together it involved a lot of like… drama in a way. we had to make breaks with our previous lives and come together. it felt like being cast out and thrown into the desert and having to travel. we saw all these parallels and it was sort of comforting to draw from a grand myth… **robert what**: the appeal of grand myths is for meagre minds content to appear to others as though minor actors in a large staged production - but are really only ever interested in self aggrandisement through ir so-called spiritual connection and cultural association to this allegedly grand myth - the myth that religion is grand **michaël samyn**: yeah i mean we started in exodus is what you're saying. you left your home country. and then there's like numbers and leviticus with all the cultural conflict in the way. all the laws that you're confronted with and the history… **robert what**: sounds terminally boring - like having to attend sunday school **auriea harvey**: and then a time of war and the war in afghanistan started **michaël samyn**: yeah exactly! it's so weird how like bush was saying things on tv that sounded very similar to what god was saying in the bible in numbers **auriea harvey**: it was so ironic **robert what**: no irony was involved. the american's war in and on the middle east was and is always strictly religious in its fundamentally zealous biblically apocalyptic promotion of all-amerikan freedumb **auriea harvey**: so anyway we made interactive works based on these feelings we were having things that were basically autobiographical. they're still online although some of them don't work anymore. this is a very literal answer to your question: we just immediately were drawn to the bible as a source of making sense of our own situation **robert what**: since it's come out now that you're both nakedly religious i wonder if any of them 'work'. as for being drawn to the bible to make sense of one's situation - one would be far better off turning to (for example) the works of a cheesy science fiction writer. or the advice of one's grandmotherdsd indeed it seems like you have very specific high-concept ideas that flow directly from your spiritual or general beliefs. is there an underlying mission or goal that you're trying to pull off with these or are these sort of just meditations on various things? **auriea harvey**: i think the point is to be unafraid which is very hard to do even for us these days. but i think if we had a goal in the last ten years it's that we were unafraid to try things to go forward with things **robert what**: perhaps you really mean unafraid to admit that you're christian inclinations and religious nonsense do you no real favours except perhaps aesthetically. some of those churches and mosques are incredibly beautiful and meditative after all **michaël samyn**: there's a very general artistic goal: we want to show beauty. we want to give the experience of real deep beauty to people sometimes in unexpected places. we did the graveyard and we want people to think about how beautiful it is that people get this old and die but the world still continues. it's not necessarily a sad thing. there's beauty in that **robert what**: fair enough - though the need to give people the experience of 'real deep beauty' seems a dubious pursuit to say the least. are not these things by ir very (often unnatural human) nature themselves unexpected and unpredictable? as for the world still continuing - especially in its current dire state - now that does seem sad **michaël samyn**: actually we sort of started playing with another biblical story the story of solome who actually gets john the baptist beheaded. then we started thinking "well what if this john the baptist character feels liberated after ir death and maybe could start looking at solome in a more generous way." whereas before ey was always kind of insulting ir. well maybe afterwards ey could say "oh ey's actually kind of pretty." (laughs) so we started exploring that idea: "well what would john the baptist think of solome after ir death?" **robert what**: i don't think anyone could care less. there are already too many beheadings taking place in the real world without exploring long drawn out forever veiled and murky biblical metaphors. why not draw on the work of a non famous postmodern internets philosopher for instance? what's so remotely auto-fascinating and 'deep' about dead words in a dusty copy of the bible? fresh graffiti in a public toilet holds no less meaning or importance **auriea harvey**: but we don't say what ey thinks. we just leave the interpretation open and it creates the possibility for this moment. a lot of people don't get that but we don't feel we need to tell people what to think **robert what**: but you are telling them what to think by being andor acting religiously **michaël samyn**: that's important i think. you have to do it yourself. that's the interesting thing about vidyagarmz where it very much is an active way of appreciating the arts **robert what**: there's nothing remotely less active in any other way of appreciating art and there's nothing special about the interactivity of video garmes. indeed most of the time video garmes are pseudo-interactive; often even ir true interactivity is passive. i'm also curious how intentional it is that every garme i've ever played by you has made me feel uneasy. i've played the path the graveyard fatale vanitas and luxuria suberbia and every one of them has made me feel uneasy in a totally different way. since you've both come out as religious and holy i think i understand why. it's that holy aura of religiousness. that heady perfume of religious propaganda draped in pseudo-humble secular garb **auriea harvey**: well we're trying to make you feel something. definitely with the path we wanted uneasiness. i don't know how much of that is intentional actually **michaël samyn**: very often our work starts with sort of a "what if" question and to do the obvious is not very challenging for us because other people are already doing the obvious. for us it's more like "let's find the beauty in this. let's find the beauty in that. don't just dismiss things offhand" **robert what**: that you think other people are already doing the obvious itself appears an offhand dismissal **michaël samyn**: even in the path which is a relatively dark and deep story it's still about sort of feeling "yes okay. as a girl growing up you have these weird things go on and these strange tensions," but there's value in that as well. there's certain beauty in that as well **robert what**: steven poole of edge opined that teh garme is "a supremely boring collection of fmvs with pretensions to interactivity that very quickly wears out its joke about control and becomes a tedious slab of nihilistic whimsy." is there anything tales of tales makes that doesn't have 'a certain beauty' to it? **michaël samyn**: uneasiness is actually good because it means that you relate teh garme to your own life which is very important to us. it's not about escapism. it's about the player's own experiences. we hope that at some point that people do see what we see in it find that beauty in it and maybe a sort of comfort almost in the discomfort **robert what**: i don't find anything in your garmes remotely disturbing or uneasy. and as for the notion that religion isn't escapism well **michaël samyn**: maybe that's part of our mission: to broaden the spectrum of what humans can accept in ir lives to be open to things that they're not use to **robert what**: wasn't "the mission" is a bad 1986 british drama film about the experiences of a jesuit missionary in 18th century south america written by robert bolt and directed by roland joffe? get over yourself mate. you're acting like a failed garme developer not the second coming of peter molyneux. when you go to church what do you get out of it? **auriea harvey**: for me i'm going to church in a big cathedral. its foundations are romanesque. i go there during easter christmas or randomly. i go there to draw. i go there to sit when there's no service **robert what**: i know what you mean. the thing is the vast scale epic design and control of light are precisely managed to bring out pre-existing human tendencies to see more in what is there - to literally evoke the concept of g0d or some higher seemingly spiritual entity or sublime aesthetic effect. yet what is there even without g0d is already strange and beautiful. that so many careful hands - probably underpaid by the church - built something so magnificent seems strange and beautiful. but this is not a g0d achievement but a human one. nonetheless it could not have been built without the viral meme of religiosity being deliberately transmitted by fellow carriers to the unwitting **auriea harvey**: but i talk to maria. i mean it's weird because i just started talking to ir. sometimes i'll light a candle. i know nothing about catholicism hardly. i go to observe. i'm there way more often than michael probably. and if i go to a service i'm there to observe to learn and to understand **robert what**: probably very little you couldn't understand by reading the wikipedia entry or pole vaulting disinterestedly around the cathedral in assassin's creed for ten minutes **auriea harvey**: but when we go to other countries we always go to church together. if there's a service we'll sit there in the back and we'll wait. it's the atmosphere in these places **robert what**: but its precisely the culturally stage managed ambient effect polished by hands dripping with religious ideology which also draw you in. there might well be something holy and unfathomable and entirely non scientific in some churches but this kind of personal sensitivity to infinitesimal artistic noumenon is overwhelmingly overshadowed by the church as a central icon of an age-old system of cultural mind illusion. it might not be your 'personal baby jebus' your feeling sitting on that pew but the raw power of a human system of self aggrandisement and control over others **auriea harvey**: i mean we've always said that garmes are more like cathedrals than they are like movies. it's a narrative environment an environment that immerses you in a story in a time. it's a time machine. it's made over hundreds of years. i mean i have a lot of respect for this process that it's been through **robert what**: there's certainly something in that. a collective space for contemplation - a scenius as brian eno describes it - rather than an instant sweaty michael bay explosion of buttery popcorn fake breasts and brain damaged cgi / sfx **auriea harvey**: i guess i don't think about it so much as what i'm in now but more as a connection to people throughout time. i look at paintings that way too. i just imagine everyone who has stood in front of this before and been inspired by it. i'm connected with them **robert what**: what you've just described seems similar to what philosopher slavoj zizej means by the holy spirit - a community of believers - believers in people that is. the people that are a part of that community what do they think of your work? **auriea harvey**: sometimes people ask us if we are religious at all because they believe we must be. that's when we sort of roll out with "yeah well we are. we believe in everything." i'm happy that some people can read a lot of spirituality into what we make **robert what**: perhaps some are unhappy because they can now clearly read it **michaël samyn**: our work is not massively popular so i think it's only going to appeal to certain christians and not to all of them **robert what**: i remember when i first discovered your work i think it was around the time of the path. i started looking into it and just because of the name of your company i was like "are they christian?" i thought it was a good example of how christians attempt to do art - but pass it off only as art as not to offend atheists **auriea harvey**: for a long time when we were doing the stuff that had the names of the bible: genesis exodus all this stuff people would just be like "what the heck are you doing?" because it was so untrendy so-to-speak **robert what**: by 'untrendy' you really mean no longer morally philosophically or socioculturally acceptable in a modern secular world that has moved on from believing its right to kill thy neighbour if ey disagrees with your holy reading of some old dead book written by men to control others **michaël samyn**: many of our friends are militant atheists **robert what**: the term 'militant atheists' is used by the religiously holy to shut down debate. here's conservative reactionary richard dawkins militant atheism ted talk // video here besides the 'league of militant athesists' sounds cool (wikipedia link) **auriea harvey**: yeah and we were just like "let's not be afraid of this. this is our culture too. we can't deny that part of ourselves" **robert what**: word **michaël samyn**: i think it's very important and helpful for westerners to realize how much of this culture is christian and not deny that. you don't have to be a formal believer to understand that there's a lot of value in this christian ideology i mean most of it has been translated into atheist ideology anyway. i mean humanism is mostly christian. i find it kind of nice to be able to embrace that and i'm disgusted by people who are so aggressively atheistic that they have to reject everything even if it's only loosely related to the church. i find that disgusting and i find that to be a kind of denial actually **robert what**: the mere idea that "humanism is mostly christian" is so stunningly nonsensical as to border on the religious. rather to be a humanist is firstly abandon useless religious myths of some imaginary 'higher power' that does infinite good and instead directly concern oneself with expressing human compassion and understanding on a daily basis. after all good isn't something you are - a cultural badge of religiousness you wear with ugly pride and pseudo humility - but something you do **auriea harvey**: i mean you don't choose your religion. you're born into it actually. it's a part of you because of the environment that you're in the world that you're in and the people you're around **michaël samyn**: yeah and if you grow up in the west at all you're a christian whether you believe in god or not **robert what**: sheer balderdash. children certainly don't get to choose ir religion but have it forced upon them which as richard dawkins clearly states is tantamount to a form of abuse. and as for 'being christian whether you believe in g0d or not' - that's something only a blind believer in (obviously culturally-arbitrary) christianity would say **auriea harvey**: it's so funny when you stop and think about it that people would deny that is just wild. so we were just like "well we're not afraid of it." i mean we may not be practising christians but we're not afraid to be called christians or something. that's not a problem **robert what**: it is indeed funny whenever one stops to actually think. it is also a real problem however because you hide your insidious religious beliefs and illusions by stating "it's not a problem." religion superstition having faith not questioning the authority and power of religion are a real problem for humanity and have plagued it for thousands of years by stating you're "not afraid" to be called whatever speaks volumes about the way all creepy religious scams especially christianity it seems operate. ir core ideology is to constantly claim to being under attack by (oh-so-ironically) unseen forces - just like the way departments in the military are labelled "defence" and not "the attack department" // video here by doing so by constantly appearing meek and mild they actively seek to draw attention away from the fact religion acts precisely like a military operation christian (or whatever) soldiers marching onward in ir righteous holy cause. in fact the reverse is true - it's everyone else *without* the g0d prefix permanently installed in ir warped space monkey skulls who are near constantly under attack by conniving religious wack jobs forever posing as innocent and pseudo-humble as the vicar's sunday cucumber sandwiches mind you while it may see seem simple to demand something like "keep uncritical belief out of interactive art!" what about interactive art itself as another form of uncritical belief? **update patch: a holy kickstarter** > but he loves you. he loves you and he needs money! he always needs money! he's all-powerful all-perfect all-knowing and all-wise.. somehow just can't handle money! > ~ george carlin on religion in a pious (business) move worthy of himself (elvis) or your typical new age = sewage guru tale of tales are now holy hustling on kickstarter where they are (apparently) offering 'contemplation in a digital age'. sukka please with its pious special pleading for mammoth mammon (€35,000 for this heaven sent turkey?) and cutting edge vr cheese-tech - freakishly soft spoken michaël samyn leering out at us through this accidentally hilarious kickstarter video - it's a heady contemplative mix.. of mirthless christian insidiousness and creeping religiousity dressed up the fresh (allegedly) secular robes of modern garme development the 'heavenly rewards' on offer tell the righteous everything they need to know; in the sparkling angelic eyes of tales of tales just €987 makes you 'divine' pitched as (some kind of) means by which to 'explore spirituality in a contemporary way' it's really nothing more or less than just another timeless religious farce. why you'd have to be a flemish primitive to believe it all update two: tale of tales breeze through kickstarter congratulations on tale of tales breezing through ir kickstarter goals - must of been another case of divine (capitalist) intervention. religion as a business and business is good! and so another ideologically swollen garme camel threads perfectly through an uncritical needling-eye and nobody gives a damn - perhaps they're too enraptured by the techno-utopian glory of it all spread the good word folks - do not support religious garmes // republic of bob