[NetBehaviour] [domestic] by mary flanagan

[marc garrett]

[domestic]

[domestic] explores personal memories and spaces in a 3D computer game 
environment.

read about [domestc] in the 2006 book As an artist’s computer game 
modification, [domestic] breaks visual conventions by creating a 
claustrophobic, conceptual environment in which images take on iconic 
readings. The picturesque family snapshot, for example, is mingled with 
the crisp square framework of computer game level geometry, creating a 
particular sense of scale and abstracted sense of space. A mix of 
photographic images and unstable texts layer the environment to reframe 
the act of memory, specifically, of childhood experience intersecting 
with spatial, temporal, and visual conventions within an interactive 
environment.

The work approaches interactive storytelling conventions by loosely 
depicting a childhood memory of a house fire. Created primarily of texts 
from within and extruding out of the walls, the work’s creation of the 
virtual house becomes a container for memory, a movements from the 
memory. Players shoot “coping mechanisms” at the walls and at the 
growing fire within the space in order to contain it as it threatens to 
consume the world -- and the player.

This personal, ethnographic work on memory poses the question, what are 
the ways space and memory are cognitively tied, and can such ties be 
re-experienced? What is the role of narrative and memory in computer 
games, and how do game environments, particularly the physical 
architectures constructed in game environments, radiate cultural and 
social meanings?

more...
http://www.maryflanagan.com/domestic/