When we first got the assignment “The Twilight Zone” at the beginning of the semester, several ideas flew through my head: an interactive photo gallery? Some sort of sound collage? An interactive collage? A game? To capture the feeling of having woken up from a bad dream? Also, for some time I worked on the concept of an interactive children’s book.
None of these ideas were very good. One of the projects I spent a lot of time on was the concept of a book accompanied by sound. I wanted to create certain feelings out of the visuals and sound. However, the idea lacked substance, and I found myself spending lots of time walking in circles, eventually feeling that I wasn’t able to find that one project I wanted to see finished. I generally think of myself as a creative person, so I couldn’t understand why I had such a hard time getting this right.
That state of mind felt useless at the time, but was actually an eye-opener to me. I had to think “out of the box”, to be able to discard the ways I usually work, to trust myself and the idea that I eventually came up with. It was a learning process and a interesting time. Amanda gave me a deadline to come up with my final idea, so I sat down on a coffee shop in Trondheim, and decided that I would not leave before I had come up with something that I wanted to work with. And here I came up with the idea of a brochure that would celebrate the life and death of Aeris Gainsborough.
From there, the idea was further developed into the shrine that was presented on the final viewing last Friday, where “The Flowergirl” was shown for the class and curator Per Platou. This time, I had made the installation bigger, as I had put the cloth over two tables instead of just one. Also, I had lots of candles and two lilies for decoration and to make the setting more sacral and dramatic, something which was further enhanced by the emotional music. In addition, I had got my brochures fresh from the printing works, and they definitely looked better on professional paper.
As the class had already seen the video and brochure before, they were now more reluctant to stand in front of the table to watch the video and read the brochure. I had turned the lights off, and the room was quite dark, so the audience would have to stand in the light from the candles in order to read the brochure comfortably.
As last time, the audience watched the video twice before starting to read the brochure. I had handed them out during the beginning of the session, so I was sure that everyone got the chance to read them. The moving pictures on the laptop took much of the attention, so I wanted to “force” people into reading the brochure. After all, it is the main ingredient in the installation. This time around, I had kept the audience’s cheering at the end of the music, something that provided for an interesting “glitch” in the memorial service, maybe reminding people that this is actually not a real service.
Per commented on the video and said that it was maybe a bit too revealing to show the actual death scene in the video. He meant that the brochure would be more interesting without knowing how the death actually happened, and that people would perhaps check it out for themselves afterwards. He is probably right that the installation would be more mysterious this way. On the other hand, the death scene is what made Aeris and FF7 so famous and important, and that’s why I deliberately put it there, and probably would like to keep it there. Of course, I know that showing someone’s death in a memorial service probably isn’t very “correct”, and there are many elements that were supposed to be not “correct” in “The Flowergirl”. The first impression of the brochure is that it is a funeral brochure. However, when opening it up, it comes clear that this is no regular funeral brochure, but rather a collection of internet quotes, fan art, screenshots and conspiracy theories concerning Aeris’ death. At the same time, the physical installation in itself could look perfectly normal at first sight. Just as the emotions we could feel from the death of a “false”, virtual character, the look of the installation and brochure could be described as deceiving. Is this a genuine memorial service, or is it also something else?
I mentioned to Per that I saw the installation as a prototype, and I had been thinking about other elements and props that could eventually be added to the installation. His comments were that he’d rather see the installation without these elements, and that it was a good thing that I had not dressed up as a funeral agent. He said that he felt that such elements would be too obvious, and leave nothing to the audience, just as showing the death scene gave away too much. On reflection, I absolutely get his point. The installation probably works best on a more reflective level, and the brochure already explains in detail what my work is about. If I had put the installation up on a public place (like Outland, which Per suggested) with no further explanation, I would’ve liked the audience to explore “The Flowergirl” for themselves, walk up to the shrine, watch the video, flip through the brochure and make up a mind of their own what the piece is about.
For what is it about? This have already been explained in the brochure and on this blog. First and foremost, I see “The Flowergirl” as an exploration of the feelings and obsession certain people could feel for a virtual character. My Twilight Zone is where fiction, and more exactly, interactive fiction touches into our very real hearts. The feelings of hopelessness when realizing that she can not be saved or resurrected, and that we have just as little power over life and death in this computer game as we do in the real world. However, there’s hope to be found as some decide to hack the game in order to bring her back into the gaming world, finding out that she actually has some dialogue lines even after her own death! An interesting aspect, indeed, one could almost draw religious parallels to such an act.
Apart from the in-game screenshots, every image in my brochure is actually fan-art, and the quotes are all selected from a few of the many pages speaking of Aeris’ death on the internet. The brochure is thus a tribute to computer games and their unique worlds, the culture of the internet, and its language and aesthetics. It’s a documentation on the amount of work that regular people are willing to put into what they’re interested in, and that the “nerds” out there are not a faceless, cold-hearted mass with no regards for others than themselves. The internet is an abstract place, but is also a place where very real people meet, interact and communicate. It is a twilight zone between our digital and physical lives.
As a conclusion, I have to say that The Twilight Zone has been a very interesting and rewarding process for me. I have learned a lot about myself, how I work and my creativity, and it has been interesting working on a project that is very different compared to what we’re usually working on in OPIM. Judging from the comments on the first and final viewings, the audience captured the essence of what I wanted to communicate, and that the installation worked on a reflective level, so the audience would have to use their minds in order to interpret it. Also, I am satisfied with the feedback, and that the installation captivated and stirred people’s feelings. It’s interesting to see that something this “fake” is perceived as serious, sacral and moving.
To become emotional in a memorial service for a virtual character from a computer game – that’s gotta be called a Twilight Zone, eh?
