After my chat with Amanda last Friday, we agreed that I would have to stop fooling around, and make up my mind about The Twilight Zone until today. I really don’t know why I have had such troubles in coming up with a final idea for this task. Probably because there is so many cool things one can do, and because I have been way too tied up in the exact wording of the assignment, thus disabling my creative mindset.
Anyway, I have come up with an idea. An idea I personally like, and would love to create. This is the deal:
I’m going to stage a funeral for Aegis Gainsborough, a virtual character in the highly popular computer game Final Fantasy VII. The game is widely known as one of the best games ever made, and the death scene of Aegis is one of the most famous scenes in any computer game.
Aegis’ death has been described as “the scene that taught gamers how to cry” and “one of the most tragic deaths of a game character”. Even now, 10 years after the game’s release, people are still talking about Aegis, her death and the impact her tragic demise have made on their lives.
Death is not an uncommon happening in computer games, so why did the death of Aegis bring such an impact to the gaming community? How could a virtual character bring tears to the eyes of young people worldwide, people that have already experienced thousand of tragic stories, both in games, movies, books and real life?
In my assignment I will celebrate Aegis, the art of computer gaming and the ability the medium has to bring real, heartfelt emotions from a virtual world. This can also be seen as a comment to the recent debate in the media regarding “robot sex” (http://www1.vg.no/teknologi/artikkel.php?artid=176346), where certain scientists have claimed that in the future, people will have sex with robots, and perhaps also make love connections with robots. These scientists have claimed that robots can resemble humans in appearance, personality and knowledge in such a manner that people can fall in love, and even be desired for marriage. Is it true that love is not a human thing, just a reflection of our own egos?
So let’s arrange a funeral session for Aegis of Final Fantasy 7. I’d want funeral music, flowers and a brochure with pictures from her life and death, combined with quotes from the internet where people mourn and remember her. I’d like to make a quiet and “holy” moment, where everyone gets their own brochure which they’ll flip through. I guess the whole session will take about 5 – 10 minutes.
Please let me know what you think of this. For me, this is an idea that I’d like to see through. Also, it’s actually a mish-mash of all my previous ideas: the book, the audio part, dream/emotions/fantasy, gallery and so on. I think it could be cool and somewhat wicked moment. Also, I found my content 
