In 2021, I kept a spreadsheet containing most of the art I experienced during the year with descriptions, categorizations, and reviews for each item. I enjoyed the process and carried it over to 2022, but in October I abruptly fell out of love with keeping the spreadsheet and haven't looked at it since. It therefore contains many partial entries - things I experienced and meant to review after I'd spent more time pondering them. I'm not going to do the spreadsheet in 2023.
Instead, I'll probably do something more typical of an albums-of-the-year list: just the things I enjoyed the most, described. As always, you can listen to my monthly playlists from the year to see what I was focused on musically at each point, and I've also created a playlist of my favorite songs released in 2022.
A side effect of the list fiasco is that some of my favorite pieces of art i experienced this year are not actually described at all, because at the time I logged them into the list, I felt that I needed more time to consider them (& writing this, I have no desire to dive back into describing all the entries I neglected). Oh well! You'll have to check them out yourself :-)
Two of my projects this year were watching every David Cronenberg movie and compiling albums in which the artists abruptly shifted from a more traditional style of music to something cutting-edge and electronic. I will talk more about these later.
FAVORITE PIECES OF ART I EXPERIENCED IN 2022 THAT WERE ALSO RELEASED IN 2022
Crimes of the Future 2022 dir. David Cronenberg (film)
Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief (music album)
Once Twice Melody by Beach House (music album)
Manifest No by Kaemi Velatet (interactive fiction)
Phenomena by Dawn Sueoka (interactive fiction)
Everything Everywhere All At Once dir. Daniels (film)
Whatever the Weather by Whatever the Weather (music album)
Ugly Season by Perfume Genius (music album)
Preacher's Daughter by Ethel Cain (music album)
Aethiopes by Billy Woods (music album)
The Archivist & the Revolution by Autumn Chen (interactive fiction)
Glass Onion dir. Rian Johnson (film)
FAVORITE PIECES OF ART I EXPERIENCED IN 2022 THAT WERE NOT RELEASED IN 2022
Crimes of the Future 1970 dir. David Cronenberg (film)
Split Second dir. Tony Maylam and Ian Sharp (film)
Poison by Aurat (music album)
Titane dir. Julia Ducourneau (film)
Rabid dir. David Cronenberg (film)
Midnight Mass dir. Mike Flanagan (tv miniseries)
Memoria dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul (film)
Here is the spreadsheet.