Analog, Galleries, and Game Arts

March 16, 2026 Newsletter

Dearest Prattlers,

Happy Spring Break <3

I hope you all get the chance to take a break this week, even though I know thesis deadlines are approaching for my fellow seniors. 

On a slightly-unrelated note, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to “go analog” as a kind of creativity-inducing lifestyle, especially when it comes to generating enough inspiration for my thesis. I’ve been collecting cassettes, CDs, and vinyl for a long time now because I love to have physical copies of my favorite things—but I still use Qobuz to stream my music. I use the library frequently and will buy books that I’ve read and know I like, but I still illegally download books from the internet on my Kindle and listen to audiobooks. I really want to go to the theater but end up pirating movies on my computer instead. I think what it comes down to is this: analog media is often better than digital because you can own it, engaging with it is a more involved activity, and the act of collecting it is a hobby in itself.

But, buying analog media in hordes is a problem in itself, as detailed in this substack post. The point is to not overconsume physical media to avoid Spotify or SHEIN or other unethical platforms—the point is to use what you already have, and once it is used up, make the choice to replace your media with something analog. For instance, if I had a pair of shoes from SHEIN and then realized how terrible SHEIN was, it would be rational for me to wear them until they break (which won’t be long) and replace them with a second-hand pair from somewhere else, or a new pair from a smaller company, etc. If my Macbook was getting old and I didn’t want to support Apple any longer, I could opt for a non-Apple and non-Dell option after it is no longer usable. The key to this kind of sustainability is to not throw away things that work just because the place where you bought them from is unethical, but to make corrective choices in the future that do not lead to more waste. 

I’ve been doing a mix of CD-listening and Qobuz-ing, library-ing and book buying, going to concerts and pirating movies. It is important to be realistic about what you consume, and to be mindful about the future of your consumption. I’ve been boycotting Amazon for about two years now, and I have found a way to use my Kindle that doesn’t give Amazon money (shout out to Calibre and Anna’s Archive!!!). Even though my Kindle is made by an unethical company, throwing it away would be more wasteful than jailbreaking it. 

I have noticed that the tendency of our generation to fetishize the analog comes from an earnest place of being tired of big corporations owning our lives via subscription service and planned obsolescence. Yet, it is important to remember that buying more things to combat the corruption of capitalist monopolies is not really the smartest move. Work with what you have, use the public library, trade things with others, donate, and remember that the important choice is the choice you make to discontinue your use of unethical platforms, not to waste the things you’ve already purchased.

In other news, there have been significant cuts proposed to the Architecture Writing Program at Pratt. Here is a link to a signable petition with more information about the cuts and the program. Here is an excerpt:

We, the undersigned, write to express our outrage at, and principled opposition to, the proposed cuts to contact hours in the Architecture Writing Program (AWP) in Humanities and Media Studies at Pratt Institute. The Architecture Writing Program demonstrably embodies and delivers the innovation, transdisciplinary values, and high-impact practices that are key to Pratt’s mission and emphasized in the Strategic Plan: breaking down disciplinary barriers, amplifying student design agency through collaborative writing and communications practices, and building strong and supportive learning community, all culminating in a capstone thesis project.

If you’re interested in keeping writing and humanities alive and funded at Pratt, I recommend you sign the petition! Especially when our President is making $1 million yearly and our board is making concerning budget cuts. It is important to let Pratt know what we value as a community.

In this newsletter, we have two contributors: Daisy Quan and Kaeden Green. In “The Habit of Circulation: How Art Students Learn to Look,” Quan tackles the responsibility of the art student to engage with artwork in a meaningful way, not in a way that emphasizes hierarchy and the commercial, especially in institutions such as the gallery. In “Pratt Game Arts: A Tipping Point,” Green details the coding-heavy curriculum of the Game Arts major and proposes a portfolio-friendly solution. Both of these pieces brought me great insight, and I hope they enlighten you too.

Here is Daisy Quan’s

The Habit of Circulation: How Art Students Learn to Look

Art openings in New York operate as both exhibitions and networking arenas. Students often feel like auditions disguised as parties. You enter a gallery and instinctively read the room before you read the work. Who’s here? Who matters? Who should I be seen speaking to? The art may be the reason for attendance, but the social field frequently feels more urgent. This isn’t hypocrisy. Its structure. The contemporary art world runs on visibility, proximity, and circulation. An opening is a site where symbolic capital converts into opportunity. Within that logic, attention becomes currency. Being present, being recognized, being photographed — these are forms of participation. Pratt students don’t invent this choreography; they inherit it. At many openings, attention splits. The eye moves briefly across the work, then returns to the room. Conversations stay broad. Language defaults to abstraction: “interesting,” “conceptual,” “engaging.” These terms allow participation without committing to an evaluation.

The issue isn’t networking itself. It’s displacement. The social field begins to organize the experience more than the artwork does. Circulation — who is present, who is speaking, who is visible — structures attention. The work becomes peripheral, even as it remains physically central.

In that environment, presence starts to substitute for encounter. One can attend several openings in a night and still avoid sustained looking. The structure rewards speed, adaptability, and legibility. Depth is slower and less immediately valuable.

Looking closely requires duration and the willingness to articulate a position. Specificity exposes taste, knowledge, and uncertainty. Abstraction protects against that exposure. What interrupts this pattern is sustained focus: a question tied to form, scale, material, or reference. When conversation anchors itself in the work rather than the room, the tempo changes. The opening shifts from social circulation to aesthetic engagement. Openings are not critiques, nor are they meant to be. They are ritualized gatherings embedded within a market structure.

Performance will always be present. But when performance becomes the primary mode of engagement, something erodes. The ability to look — not glance, not register — but look, weakens.

For young artists and writers, the long-term consequence isn’t just superficial conversation. It’s perceptual atrophy. If attention is constantly divided between the wall and the crowd, the eye trains itself toward speed rather than depth.

The room will always be loud. The system will remain commercial. But the work does not disappear unless we allow it to. Choosing to stand still in a space designed for circulation is a small act, but it reorients the opening back toward art rather than self-presentation.

Here is Kaeden Green’s

Pratt Game Arts: A Tipping Point

I’m sure you can spot us Digital Arts kids from across the room. Many of us have pins from fandoms we’re a part of, or wear alternative clothing matching the aesthetics we love. Many of us want to work for the large companies that shaped us into who we are. I joined Game Arts after transferring from another school with the bright eyes of one day creating artistic concepts for games like Overwatch. Though once I got my schedule, I was quite disappointed. What do you mean, I had to do a coding class? Is this game ARTS? Throughout the following semesters, many of my new friends and I, who had joined to do art, were swept up by the coding for our classes. Leaving many of us at the end of our sophomore year without any artistic portfolio pieces, and the games we did code were not strong enough to show off either. 

As a tour guide, I now make sure to reiterate that Game “Arts” is not as Artsy as many prospective students think. When someone asks my major, I go “ oh, I’m Game Arts,” and when I’m met with a blank face, I say “We do coding and 3D modeling for video games.” Which sounds technical, doesn’t it? It definitely impresses parents, but that doesn’t paint the whole truth. 

In reality we are generalists, we are responsible for the coding, every single thing you do in any game has code behind it, game design, all front loading work of coming up with game play ideas, concept art, designing maps to tutorialize your players and creating new characters to interact with, and art assets, including both 3D, 2D, and the user interface (UI). Being trained as a generalist is a trend in the other Department of Digital Arts majors as well. 3D animators are also trained as generalists, and talking to a lot of 2D animation majors, many of them feel as though they have not been given the drawing skills to produce the work that they want. This leads to Pratt graduates, especially Game Arts grads, becoming jacks of all trades, which is good for smaller indie studios that may not have a budget to pay many specialized individuals. Since jacks of all trades are masters of none, large companies that have the budget for large teams of employees put out specialized roles, looking for experts in their fields. Many of us were dreaming of these big roles but with our lack of specialization we are instead being passed on.  

By my senior year, I had given up hope. Even after having a couple of conversations with our teachers, only little changes to the curriculum were being made, but for us seniors, it was too late; we had to make do with what we were given. Then, at the beginning of this semester, I saw an email about a Google Form event that DDA was hosting, and also conveniently had free pizza for anyone who filled it out. (I’ll do anything for free food.)

The Google Form touched on things from visiting lectures, that I’m sure DDA noticed only Art and Tech people go to, to the dreaded AI. For me the most important thing was our opinion on whether or not DDA should continue to focus on being a Fine Arts program or switch to becoming more vocational.

Though I do not want us to lose our artistic voices, it’s clear that many of us do not have the skills to fully express them. Pratt should live up to its emphasis on teaching us foundational skills before setting us free; that's what the Foundation year is for. We DDA kids learn very technical applications, many of which we had never had enough money to use before, and foundation year does not give us any basic skills that translate to these applications. Many of my classmates and recent Grads agree with the possibility of adding Game Arts related classes to the foundation year, such as Coding. Which can be and has been a big hurdle for people in the program especially since most of us are artists. Though a Game Design 1 class could also help set expectations for the Major, as we know the name Game Arts attracts artists rather than Indie Developers. This class would also allow us to experience different aspects of games before specializing. I say this because some people have expressed to me that they came in hoping to do 2D art for games but ended up loving 3D more, though with jacks of all trades methodsƒ these people still do not have a proper portfolio. Whether or not that gets implemented I also believe Game Arts should allow us to specialize in one of these specific skills, similar to other schools. This would allow us to gain in-depth skills that we need and graduate with a portfolio that is specifically tailored to the jobs that we want. This could be through elective classes or encourage us to create games in larger groups, 5-7 people rather than maxing at 4. Games are multifaceted and it should not be expected for us to go from level 0 to 100 in every aspect of a game. Having more teammates allows you to gain skills in a specific task or aspect of the game and allows games to be more polished for our portfolios. 

This would also necessitate a need for teachers who are highly skilled in their fields. I do not wish for future students to go through the appeals of having their teacher watch a YouTube tutorial before class to then “teach” us (repeat exactly what the video said) that same information. Specializing will also help us in Professional Practices. It has been jarring learning all these skills over 3 years, to then be told, when making our portfolio websites and resumes, to narrow down and be specific about what role we want in the future. On the first day of Professional Practices we were asked to fill out a google form gaging what we were expecting from this class and a general check in about what we hoped to achieve in the future. Many of my classmates were unable to answer the question “how would you define yourself” which was followed by multiple answers describing common Game jobs you may find in the industry. They said that they didn’t know what they wanted to do in the future and that they chose multiple answers or none at all. A larger portion of my class also couldn’t answer the 5 year plan question because they weren’t sure what job they wanted in the future. Arguably this could be fixed by incorporating Professional Practices in the Sophomore or Junior years, allowing us to be introduced to specific jobs before it’s too late to craft a portfolio. Though if we had been able to specialize in specific topics our portfolios would already be curated. 

At the moment, the Game Arts major is for those who want to create their own indie games, but there is no reason to go to a private university to learn those skills. YouTube has so many videos about how to code and model at every level, and those skills can create a game and give you those jack of all trades skills that Indie teams are looking for. Some justify it saying they are making great connections and Yes many of my teachers have been able to connect me with job opportunities and producers, but those same people are going to Game events all over NYC and the United States. Why spend the money on school when you can spend money to go to these events instead? Going into college we figured we would be getting taught advanced skills or, at the very least, upper intermediate. We were hoping to have strong portfolios to apply to those jobs that we wanted, and we hoped that Pratt's 90% job placement rate would apply to us too. My roommate and I have been supplementing our education with online courses, but we shouldn’t have to! A four year degree should prepare us for the industry. I urge Pratt and DDA to teach us specialized vocational skills. 

If you feel similar to me, please contact your teachers and department heads. I do not wish future Pratt students with the same starry eyes and empty bank accounts to go down this current path. And if you’re an upper classman remember, C’s get degrees, and at the end of the day, a Portfolio gets you a job, not your GPA.