CanCan is a creative project. CanCan is an art project. CanCan is a game. Now CanCan the Game is an App!
As far as I’m concerned, I have completed the project. My goal was to get CanCan out into the world, as living art accessible to everyone. “Everyone is an artist” is the tag line. It is done. It expresses what I set out to express. It’s out there,it’s available, it’s in the app stores, it’s on Google Play, and the Apple frikken store. I did it!
Here are the links to get it:
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.CanCanElectronic.CanCan
Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cancan-the-game/id1356591352?ls=1&mt=8
But nobody knows about it, hardly.
The original impulse was “You can read the world”. Long ago I created an oracular deck of cards that consisted of just National Geographic photos, to that end. (I have been reading those cards for many years.) But you can look out your window and read the world, if you are looking. Everything you see consists of color and shape. Everything. Color and shape communicate feelings and qualities. Look, feel, and know.
“Everyone is an artist” is a subset of this knowing. Given units or increments of color and shape, and a method for connecting them, everyone can make pictorial art of an open ended and sophisticated and surprising quality. Everyone can participate in the divine project of creating something from nothing. Something of beauty, to boot. It is a game, because it is alive and moving, ever-changing.
But who wants to do this? Certainly I do, I have been going in and playing CanCan the Game quite habitually for thirty odd years as a board game, and of course since I finally launched it as an app. So have a few others.
Now, there is a significant part of me that does not care if anyone gets it, or buys it.
This is the artist part of me, the part that continues to create, and doesn’t linger sentimentally on that which has been created already. The part that understands that life is a sand-painting. Persuading others to look at what you have created is an entirely different part of you than the creative part. The creative part is on to the next thing.
This is the issue I must contend with now. Because another part of me does of course care, and wishes to extend the reach and range of this wonderful activity, and also to create some revenue and pay back my investors, at least! This part of me understands that we must promote and market the game app.
To that end, here is the plan.
Make a How to Play video… Tweak the game design to be even more beautiful, even less compliant with the dominant cartoon-y, gadget-y aesthetic of many apps… Hone my perfect user, who is of course me and others like me:
Female, introverted, stare-y, dreamy, sensitive, arty, serious, conscientious, successful, powerful, bossy, creative, intentional, beauty-loving and -making, restorative, healing, smart, brilliant, good…
Right?
We are successful creatives in a linear black and white world, who can do the STEM stuff, do the left brain stuff, run the company, run the government, close the sales, deliver the argument, but want and need color and beauty and flow and complete release also. We care. That’s us. Any comments to help me finesse this vision will be much appreciated…
So if you’re reading this post, and you haven’t yet, download the app, it’s free, with in-app purchases available. It is maximized for the user who will never pay a dime. It contains ads. But you can buy your way out of those. Most people don’t. So if I get enough users, one day the ad revenue will start to come in.
Tell your friends.
