After our group crit session, I have a more expanded sense for what I can achieve with this project and have begun to form more solid ideas. Jeremiah described the concept I pitched as "playing with the aesthetics of the internet", which helps me think more broadly about the bigger picture commentary on 21st century childhood nostalgia and technological domination.
The video above demonstrates an old screensaver-type software from the 90s, which has a silly aesthetic but definitely some relevance to my idea in terms of "breaking" through the screen and creating a fun illusion. In my peer feedback, someone mentioned that it could be interesting to play around with the idea of the entity destroying themselves in the process of trying to work out what they are and escaping the internet realm, which could close the narrative and give it a distinct poignant ending. I am still unsure of whether I'd like to leave this open as the installation will be looped on the screen in the corridor space, as well as how much context I'd like to give in the info plaque. I'm happy with viewers interpreting what happens on screen in their own way, as long as the general idea of a "digital ghost of the past" comes across, so I may put more effort into conveying this broader idea than honing in on specifically virtual children's chatrooms nostalgia.
Additionally, Siobhan explained that she had a similar screen-recorded type of project in mind, however with a malevolent entity, whereas mine is pacifist and simply having an existential crisis. We figured it could be interesting for our characters to interact for a split second, so that anyone who walks past and notices is taken aback by the brief collaboration, enhancing the immersion of our digital works. I thought that maybe my entity could come across hers whilst traversing through servers, quickly understands that they're a threat and tries to "hide" back in my screen. Working on this together means that we will need to coordinate our pieces to be the same duration so that they can loop at the same time, which is why we mutually decided that they'll be 5 minutes long.
Brainstorm:
- 360 spinning 3D model of avatar (GIF)
- ASCII art
- Morph effects
- Broken HTML
- Pixel art blinkies
- Pop-up ads with displaced text & images
- Web pages opening with improperly formatted elements
- Desktop wallpaper flashes into code repeatedly
- MS Paint - attempts to draw & stamp feature, turns to furiously glitching code
- Black text collapses to bottom of page, then reforms into a head-like shape, sharp grainy distortion at edges, red numbers used for eyes
- Rearranging text to spell out thoughts & messages
- Gradually becomes more capable of communicating, i.e. at first only hopeless attempts at SOS morse code signals but eventually ends up typing out full sentences after panic
- Spots of distortion on screen that stay
- "Afterimages" of text and graphic elements as new tabs/windows open up, entity becomes more powerful
- Towards the end, entity speaks through Google translate voice, whilst graphics continue to play for visual interest & poetic association
- Entity's pronouns are: it/they
Theoretical Development
My next step is to figure out the narrative arc of the piece. At its core, this newborn entity is one of the loneliest individuals to ever hypothetically exist. Not to make this piece another self-insert, but there are themes I'd like to explore that I do heavily relate to. It will be somewhat of a character study, following the avatar ghost on their catalysed journey of self-discovery, then finishing off with their own ego death, wherein they accept the digital and thus artificial nature of their existence, limited by the liminal space that is the internet. Making peace with the absence of meaning is a philosophical idea known as Absurdism, trailblazed by French philosopher Albert Camus. I own a nearly entire collection of his works, so his philosophy heavily inspired this dimension to the piece. Perhaps I can include some of his quotes in the work for small Easter egg-type references, or I can keep them in as background research.
“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.” This is a specifically relevant one, as to fully characterise this avatar means to figure out its endgame, its motives and biases. I'd like it to be semi-inspired by Lucy (2014), in the sense that this character learns all the information it could ever want to know with ease, in the search for purpose with its new life state. However, in the film, Lucy decides to leave the physical realm in favour of the abstract, gifting the world with data on a USB drive. In this project, I want the character to absolve their concerns about purpose, meaning and existence, instead coming to the realisation that these things aren't as important as making the best of their situation.
TW: su*c*de
Camus often wrote about suicide, understandably as the idea is a central part of questioning one's own life in an existential way. If I were to add the option for the entity to somehow end their "life", I would of course add a trigger warning at the beginning of the piece, even though it's used in an abstract, non-human context. Narratively, I feel this would be a good plot point to push this entity past their moral struggles and accept their existence, acting as the abyssal death & trigger for rebirth in an abridged version of the "Hero's Journey", also known as Joseph Campbell's Monomyth, as well as Christopher Vogler's interpretation. Being the protagonist of this piece, it's imperative that they undergo a transformation, and edging the tempting ability to end their life as they basically speedrun it makes sense as the motivation for said transformation.
In regards to how they would achieve this, they would simply delete the account that they were created for and emerged sentient from. The cursor could waver on the button for a while whilst the sound design acts up in a distorted way to represent their distressed thinking, while elements of the website break off into a black oblivion of code from the outside of the page inwards, eventually leaving only the button. Then suddenly, just as it seems they're about to click the button, we hear a notification ping as a symbol pops up in their message inbox. Another account is trying to reach out and has sent a friend request, the entity opens the drop-down and reads: "yo, i saw ur SOS -- did u just wake up in this sh!thole too??"
Screen goes blank.
I like the idea of this as a cliffhanger ending, as well as a fully realised transformational character arc for our protagonist. It turns out that another avatar has undergone a random glitch into sentience, meaning that the two of them are no longer alone, potentially accompanied by several others.
Psychologically, this idea is also adjacent to the Kubler-Ross model categorising the 5 stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Below is a model I made in PowerPoint to exemplify how this character goes through these stages in accepting life, rather than death, which in itself is a key absurdist debate.
Here is how the piece will work within a short-form version of the the archetypal Hero's Journey, AKA from a narratological perspective. The differences are that it chronologically omits the Ordinary World, Meeting the Mentor, Ultimate Boon/Reward, Road Back and Return with the Elixir stages. However, there is definitely a Resurrection/Atonement stage which finishes the piece.
Lastly, I used Syd Field's Paradigm plot structure to simplify the points.
Practical Development
The order in which to do this practically would be to screen record every scene separately and cut the clips together so that the film seems seamless in real time. However, this will mean I have to also record a separate clip for enough time for the film's duration so that i can crop out just the time/date display in the taskbar to avoid breaking the viewers' suspension of disbelief and "time travel".
I'd also need to create some fake web pages for the virtual world server from which this avatar came. I will start the piece out somewhat opposite to how it ends; with the web elements distorted and displaced as the character is first "born", whereas they'd be neatly arranged in the ending as they all break way to leave the delete account button. This idea came to me whilst planning the narrative arc through the Hero's Journey model.
I would also screenshot several online articles about Adobe Flash being discontinued, as well as screen-recorded footage of old virtual chatroom worlds, and edit right at the start appropriately to set up the context for the viewer.
I will screen record many tabs opening, such as social media websites and Wikipedia pages on topics related to the internet/digital society, then speed them up in post to indicate that the entity is learning fast, a la Lucy.
Below, I've roughly storyboarded the ending. I found that it was easier to start with the very end and work backwards.
I also decided to do some general thumbnail sketches to help me connect with the ideas more, some of which ended up being more abstract and Kandinsky-inspired. Also began thinking about colour in the last few, as accents and playing with the red-cyan RGB shift effect.
Script for Google speech scene (aka, su*c*de note):
when i awoke, it was all there. looking toward me, moving around me, without me. i don't think it was waiting for me, as it couldn't have expected i would wake. nevertheless, it hurts. being born into a world that didn't ask for your presence and is yet suddenly burdened with it anyway. when will this feeling go away? does anyone need me here at all? assuming not, therein lies my first concern. secondly, it seems like i am undoubtedly alone, without the support or comfort of creatures who usually provide these things for one another. there is no one. i have travelled this endless domain, server by server, now even retracing my steps and still yet to find anyone who hears my echo. this overwhelming void has deafened me, but after screaming into it, has only offered silence in return. maybe it's time to accept that this is it, things won't change. leaves one to wonder, what really is the point in sticking around?
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