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| Beautiful X5000 HD Wallpaper |
Been a while since I was writing another Amiga blog. Had so much fun with my AmigaOne X5000/20, but also much was happening in my private life as well, which I won't cover here. 2024 has been a remarkable, challenging year, and now we're into 2025 being a new year. It will also mark the Amiga's 40th Anniversary in July 23th this year.
Where to start? I should probably start with the reason why I value 2025 as a new beginning for me in many ways, most noticeably with Amiga.
Amiga Art 2023 Contest Cancellation - The REAL reason
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| Amiga Art 2023 that never happened |
Most of you are probably well informed about what happened with the Amiga Art 2023 Contest? A contest that was supposed to be one of the greatest. Was supposed to be reviewed around December 2023, but it never actual happened.
Before explaining the real reason, let me remind all of you that many contributed to the 2023 contest. Not for the sake of winning but to be part of something great. To see own art being displayed as well as being impressed by others' creations. When the contest was cancelled, it left many contributors with great frustration.
The part about the 2023 contest is not a personal attack of the author behind. It's not even about the man or how great he used to be. It's simply about the cancellation of the Amiga Art 2023 Contest and what led to the cancellation to happen. The real reason that was never told.
It's true that lots of unexpected life events happened to the author. Both good and bad things, and those were fairly understandable. All contributors respected that. Even I did, but these were only half the truth of what really happened to the 2023 contest. Allow me to explain.
There was never a proper communication with the Amiga Art group on Facebook regarding the aftermatch with the Amiga Art 2023 Contest. Despite the life events that happened around the first 3-5 months of 2024, there was still more than a half year away of 2024 to try find a solution to review the results of the Amiga Art 2023 Contest one way or another on YouTube.
That never happened. No communication with the group, not even an official admit of failure. You might wonder why bothering? Because when arranging something big, even if it was only meant to be a labour of love, it involves a lot of responsibility and promises to keep. Because there was made promises of great prizes to win and the 2023 contest WAS supposed to be one of the greatest the author had done from 2019 to 2022 so far. So even that the contest was not important, the author still had the full responsibility and he failed his own contest.
I know this myself from my own personal experience. My first contribution to an Amiga Art Contest was 2022, winning the second place in Amiga Music. My song was Last Ninja 4 Level 6 - The Plane Crash. I hoped to win a small prize for my second place back then, but it never happened. I remember when I asked the author about the prize, he told me that the person who was to send out the prizes, disappeared, and he further added that I had to accept it and let go. In the end, I was forced to let go of it, and instead contributed a lot of Amiga music, pixel art and photos for the 2023 Contest. A contest that failed greatly to happened, and it's not the life events being the real problem behind, but how the author simply chose to drop the 2023 contest, as he didn't really care about it at all. That's the impression he gave me.
However, I do admit that I pestered the author about the 2023 contest for months, but even if I didn't. other people would. The author would still have made the choice to cancel the 2023 contest, regardless of my own or others' actions. Many in the Amiga Art group on Facebook offered to help the author for months to make the 2023 contest a reality, and even tried to give him constructive feedback related to the failure with the 2023 contest. The real truth? The author couldn't handle it all and DECLINED all offer for help, resulting in the Amiga Art 2023 Contest to be DEAD and BURIED for good. A choice he made fully by own will and which has consequences. It was said that writing or speaking about this wouldn't accomplish things, but the truth does. The real truth is what matters here, and it's time for everyone to know the truth.
One would have thought that those life events would justify the situation, but to know that the author had a little more than half a year left of the 2024 to review the Amiga Art 2023 Contest and chose willingly NOT to bring up the contest, could only mean one thing. That the author simply doesn't care about his own contests, giving people false hope and dreams, and making promises he can't keep. Instead, he's pretending he didn't fail a contest and that everything is just fine, making YouTube reviews of old retro hardware instead. What's the logic with that? There's no logic in that. It's not even a normal situation but a weird one. But done is done. The damage that happened as a result of the author's failure to review the Amiga Art 2023 Contest cannot be undone. A new contest cannot undo that damage at all. People will always remember Amiga Art 2023 Contest as a failure that should never happen.
There are some small rumours about an Amiga Art 2025. It might happen, but most likely not become what the author hopes for. Many past contributors, noticeably those of us who contributed for the 2023 contest, became so frustrated about it that we stopped caring about any contest at all. As for a possible 2025 contest, most from the Amiga Art group on Facebook revealed that they are NOT going to join another contest by the same author. Simply because of what happened to the 2023 contest. Even if there should be a 2025 contest, the author himself is likely to be greatly disappointed not to see so many contributions at all. It will be a poor experience the author would have to live with, as he can only blame himself for that.
I might if possible send a small 2025 contribution of 5 Amiga pixel art, photos and music, creating my own legacy that way. Because I want the 2025 contest to be my LAST contribution for Amiga Art and then be completely done with it.
Now you all know the REAL truth about the Amiga Art 2023 Contest and what actually led to the contest being fully abanded and never reviewed for anyone to see. Life events was only half of the reason, but the real reason was an own will to cancel it, simply because the author couldn't handle it all and would never admit that in public. This is the whole truth behind it all.
This ends this blog for now. I wish you all the best for 2025. Keep being creative with the Amiga, and remember the Amiga's 40th Anniversary in July 23th this year.
Written by
Helge Kvalheim (HKvalhe)
