#last_exception

Last Exception (2025)

is a machinima, my first attempt in bridging my long-lived hobby and (troubled) love, the sims, with my artistic practice. besides the mysterious joSim, who i introduced in this post some months ago, the machinima stars sims by @cloudellesims, @daminini, @folkling, @kuolemankukka, @mrsimqle, @pearlean, @veone, and @virtualfolk in the main cast •ᴗ• <3 I wanted a cast of sims that each expressed a unique art style. in the end, all the stylistic differences—also counting in the side cast which is a mix of my own sims and a lot of sims downloaded from all over tumblr kinda makes sense together!

This sim is called JoSim Buys. It is my attempt to replicate Joseph Beuys, a German artist, teacher, performance artist and art theorist who lived from 1921 to 1986. In 1974, he travelled to America for the first time. Upon landing, he was completely wrapped in felt and transported by ambulance to a gallery loft in SoHo, NYC. He was then confined to this space for eight hours a day for three consecutive days, accompanied only by a coyote. After these three days, he was wrapped in felt again and taken back to the airport by ambulance, having never touched American ground. He named this performance piece I Like America and America Likes Me. It is my favourite work of his; There are so many aspects of this work that draws me in, from the setting to its symbolic value to simply its title. And when I, a couple months back began thinking about an artwork idea about the sims it was, indeed, the title of his performance that inaugurated it all as I named my project I Like The Sims and The Sims Likes Me.

So, in the beginning of this process, when all I could be sure of was that there had to be a Joseph Beuys replica sim in my project, I commissioned two of my favourite CC-creators and artists Alex @sims3melancholic and @cazhan, asking if they could make, respectively, the skin and the felt suit for this character and were amazing to say yes—and they definitely delivered; the evidence is right here in this post! 🩷

Most of what I'll post for the next month (or have been posting recently) will be related to this project in one way or another. The first output is a film, at once inspired by the longliving machinima legacy of The Sims, at once a self-reflective (and pretty meta) exploration of the multifaceted frictions between The Sims 4's creators and users... much more on this later!