Grief of the Horizon.
Duytschaever, Camiel.
2017
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Virtuality seduces the escapist who thinks the horizon has something to offer. Unlike a wall, in its defining surfaceness, a horizon implies infinite depth. Where the daily life spent indoors can feel stifling---a series of containers within containers---virtual worlds offer a promise of abundance and fulfillment through the illusion of immersion. Unity3d is a creative video game design software c... read moreapable of producing virtual worlds for stereoscopic screens. When the software is opened to a new project, the workspace defaults to a grey horizon. In the beginning, I was compelled by the ease with which I could create pleasing fantastical game environments. Over time, however, the system of language and signs which structure the game-making software became more interesting to me than the content of my own projects. I am not interested in creating simulations. By exploring how we imagine and produce technology we learn more about ourselves than we can by what we produce with it. To me creating the game environment is the true game and so I have created an unstable game space that is generative and filled with reference to the program of its own making. The player will also have the ability to manipulate the game·s appearance, changing the game environment each time it is played. It is and will always be in midst of its own construction. Ultimately, my work is engaged with ideas about the process and limitations of virtual world building. Especially interesting to me in this work is the role of the horizon. The game-playing escapist will never reach the horizon because the horizon is defined by distance, though we can only see it as flat image. Every new development in cinema tries to transcend the surface by simulating the horizon as the promise of the real, but virtual worlds are a ship in a bottle: the horizon contained. They are either viewed through the screen or through a headset, which is basically a screen tied to the face. Escapism, the desire for what cannot be fulfilled, is a form of grief. Simulated horizons are the product of the denial stage of this grief. The work I produce materializes through a process of multiplication and feedback. where it expands through the appropriation of itself. To me, this sort of internal exploration is the least violent and most fulfilling way I can express my grief and mourn that which was never there: the real.
Keywords: new media, virtual reality, horizon, psychoananlysis, cinema, film studies, video, dreams, technology, software, landscape, phenomenology, existentialism, 3D, video games, immersion, fantasy, sci-fi, science fiction, simulation, semiotics, art.read less - ID:
- s4655t163
- Component ID:
- tufts:23247
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