Meet Michael Overton Brown | Artist & Game Designer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Michael Overton Brown and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Michael, is there something you can share with us that those outside of the industry might not be aware of?
Video games are a seriously artistic medium. It’s funny because I feel like that statement is either extremely obvious or extremely surprising to people, without much middle ground.

Very mainstream games like Call of Duty or FIFA have a lot of visibility, but they are terrible examples of the artistic potential of video games as a medium. Even The Last of Us, which is a great, highly narrative, game and was the basis for a good television show, doesn’t show the full potential of games as a medium.

I think that games really shine when they stop trying to be interactive movies. Because our world is so digitized, video games, through their interactivity and because they are digital systems themselves, can be used to surface systems and dynamics of our modern world that frequently remain hidden. And they can be used to implicate the player and to show their complicity in these sometimes horrible systems.

There is a whole universe of amazing indie games along these lines easily accessible on Steam (a digital games storefront on PC). Shout out to Cruelty Squad, Cocoon, and How Fish Is Made.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I see myself as a digital artist whose work manifests in a wide variety of forms. Sometimes I make games. Sometimes I make 3D animations. Sometimes I work in virtual reality. Sometimes I make immersive experiences. Underlying all of these different expressions is an obsession with three things: game engines (or TouchDesigner), procedural tools (Houdini, TouchDesigner), and interactivity. I use these tools to build artistic systems with large possibility spaces, and then I experimentally probe the spaces for emotional or unexpected results. I am very fixated on (and disappointed by) the broken systems governing our world, and I tend to make interactive experiences that reflect, subvert, or question the broader systems of our world back to participants. I think that interactive media, by being so highly systemic and digitized, is the perfect medium for exploring the most pressing questions related to our hyper-systematized world.

This summer, my work has found some recognition, which I’m very honored by. A virtual reality experience I created called We Become Something Else was nominated for a student BAFTA. Also, a game I made called Perfect World (available on Steam!) was nominated for the “Digital Moment” Award at A MAZE. Festival in Berlin this year, and it also won an award at the 2024 Design Awards at the A+D Museum in Mid City.

These successes feel so validating because my journey has been a pretty windy one. For many years, I worked as a software engineer while pursuing creative endeavors on the side, and my move towards art and game design full-time is relatively recent.

I think that for a long time, I confused “what I can do” with “what I want to do.” Software engineering and working with computers come pretty naturally to me, but that isn’t all I want to do. I want to use computers subversively and expressively, not build an app for ordering wine for your dog. I think the stability and safety of corporate jobs for me was a trap and made me docile. I need to be feral.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I’ve lived all over the city, and there are so many fun spots, so I think this theoretical friend is about to have a chaotic week!

Right now, I live in Echo Park, so we would have to do one Echo Park day. In the morning, we get a pastry from Clark Street on Glendale, then cross the street and get an ube latte from Laveta. Then we grab some orange wine from Psychic Wines and drink it in Echo Park. Later, we get Chinese food from Woon.

We also have to get in some K-town time. Start the day off by going to Wi Spa until you can’t handle it anymore, then grab a coffee from Yeems Coffee. Later, grab some delicious noodles from Yuk Dae Jang.

Finally, on the west side one day, we go for a surf in Topanga and get yelled at by some overly aggressive locals, despite the fact that it was our wave. After the surf, we get sandwiches at Bay Cities Deli and possibly pick up some hummus, dips, and bread from Tehran Market in Santa Monica. On the way back to the east side, we catch a re-run of a sick movie at Brain Dead Studios. Brain Dead is seriously one of the coolest spots in LA. I can’t get enough.

I also just want to shout out a few of my other favorite spots. Flor de Yucatan, near USC, makes such good, zesty Mexican food. The Museum of Jurassic Technology is absolutely trippy and mind-bending. And Northern Thai Food Club has such good Thai.

I should really try to live out this itinerary now.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
First, I have to dedicate this to my partner Bee. She sees things I don’t. She is so inspiring: she has a strength of character, an empathy, and a selflessness that I aspire to. The world is a better place because she is in it.

I also want to dedicate this to my sisters, Kacky and Annie, and my mom, who all see me, sometimes too much.

Website: https://michaelovertonbrown.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michaelovertonbrown

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-overton-brown/

Twitter: https://x.com/skkeyl

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@michaelovertonbrown

Other: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3008520/Perfect_World/