99 Rooms
What a beautiful site!
99 Rooms offers an amazing view of an abandoned building through the eyes of an explorer, sometimes flâneur and other times an active force in the narrative. The user in encouraged to explore, to stroll through this space and mouse around. She is not provided with any direction, just the assumption that mousing will do something, as will clicking. However, the user is experiencing a sick and twisted version of the life flâneur, because the environment the user is in (regardless of if we're experiencing it with someone in real life) is so hauntingly empty. The hustle and bustle of the city which normally makes unhurried strolling enjoyable is now replaced by an empty, hallow, perverse world. This turns the world of the flâneur upside down, causing the user to interact with seemingly non-interactive elements (there isn't much feedback visually to tell the user that someone can interact with an element).
Another interesting part of 99 rooms is that it experiments with the concepts of ghosts. Images like words once created immortalize a concept (see: Shakespeare Sonnet #18, Spenser#75). The graffiti on the walls immortalize their representations but are presented here as ghosts of the ideas. Their presentation haunts us, their movements leave us unnerved, and these character stay in our heads and chill us to the bone. Graffiti, even though only semi-permanent, has a haunting quality in that it immortalizes its subject and the authors emphasize on this quality by animating the images. They often breathe, blink, or even moan. They are no longer passive wall art but living parts of an environment.
I also can't help but see the connections between ecology and technology. Often the graffiti is of animals (for this purpose, I think we can consider humans as animals) which are maniulated to appear surreal and frankly, creepy. Often they have body parts amputated, or appear coming out of another object. These representations are closely connected to machinery in many of the rooms. We see in room 81 that machinery is a vital part of the animal, it keeps it alive and moving. Perhaps this is a dystopian representation of our future? A place where nature depends on technology to exist - a sick and twisted Disneyland. However, we see a critique of this vision later in room 87, where we see an animal get poisoned (it changes a sick green color) by the man-made watering trough it is stuck in.
I'm also a little confused by how the narrative moves through the space. Sometimes it feels as if we are looking at an outside wall of a room, and other times we are looking inside. The feeling of space is confusing because of the straight on, non-navigational space. Even thought the narrative is interactive, it isn't immersive since we are still somewhat limited by the authors.
For a great history of grafitti, check out Style Wars.
More dystopian visions of the future via Mike Davis. (ps. Mike Davis' book The Ecology of Fear is a great read for anyone fascinated with natural disasters, idiotic humans and environmental amnesia, and Blade Runner!)
99 Rooms offers an amazing view of an abandoned building through the eyes of an explorer, sometimes flâneur and other times an active force in the narrative. The user in encouraged to explore, to stroll through this space and mouse around. She is not provided with any direction, just the assumption that mousing will do something, as will clicking. However, the user is experiencing a sick and twisted version of the life flâneur, because the environment the user is in (regardless of if we're experiencing it with someone in real life) is so hauntingly empty. The hustle and bustle of the city which normally makes unhurried strolling enjoyable is now replaced by an empty, hallow, perverse world. This turns the world of the flâneur upside down, causing the user to interact with seemingly non-interactive elements (there isn't much feedback visually to tell the user that someone can interact with an element).
Another interesting part of 99 rooms is that it experiments with the concepts of ghosts. Images like words once created immortalize a concept (see: Shakespeare Sonnet #18, Spenser#75). The graffiti on the walls immortalize their representations but are presented here as ghosts of the ideas. Their presentation haunts us, their movements leave us unnerved, and these character stay in our heads and chill us to the bone. Graffiti, even though only semi-permanent, has a haunting quality in that it immortalizes its subject and the authors emphasize on this quality by animating the images. They often breathe, blink, or even moan. They are no longer passive wall art but living parts of an environment.
I also can't help but see the connections between ecology and technology. Often the graffiti is of animals (for this purpose, I think we can consider humans as animals) which are maniulated to appear surreal and frankly, creepy. Often they have body parts amputated, or appear coming out of another object. These representations are closely connected to machinery in many of the rooms. We see in room 81 that machinery is a vital part of the animal, it keeps it alive and moving. Perhaps this is a dystopian representation of our future? A place where nature depends on technology to exist - a sick and twisted Disneyland. However, we see a critique of this vision later in room 87, where we see an animal get poisoned (it changes a sick green color) by the man-made watering trough it is stuck in.
I'm also a little confused by how the narrative moves through the space. Sometimes it feels as if we are looking at an outside wall of a room, and other times we are looking inside. The feeling of space is confusing because of the straight on, non-navigational space. Even thought the narrative is interactive, it isn't immersive since we are still somewhat limited by the authors.
For a great history of grafitti, check out Style Wars.
More dystopian visions of the future via Mike Davis. (ps. Mike Davis' book The Ecology of Fear is a great read for anyone fascinated with natural disasters, idiotic humans and environmental amnesia, and Blade Runner!)
posted by Unknown at 10:57 PM
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