serial consign

This week I took some students to tour the finalist entries from the first annual Architecture & Design competition in Second Life. It was encouraging to see work which broadly embraced the possibilities of digital space rather than championing stylistic throwbacks. On the less original end of the spectrum, I always get unnerved when I encounter perfect modernist villas in Second Life. When exploring Second Life life there are moments when you find yourself in neighbourhoods that bear an uncanny resemblance to Malibu (see the metaverse for a great springboard into contemporary conversation about simulation). Specifically, I'd like to make some observations about digital space and the conventions with which we represent it.

I've spent the better part of the last several years thinking about the implications of rendering space, structure, relationships and ideas on paper and with pixels. I'm starting to wonder about what connections can be identified between the drawing board and contemporary digital representations of space. I'm not interested in talking about photo-realism (a nice place to visit..), nor do I care to dissect the minutiae of 3D modeling - at least not today. What I am quite curious about is how the history of perspectival and orthographic methods of projection in drawing might inform the discourse around gaming and space.

The drawing to the left is by Ferdinando Galli-Bibiena and is entitled Scena Per Angola. It was published in his 1711 text L'Architettura civile and proposed a new two-point perspective system for backdrops in stage design. The drawing communicates the connection between stage (foreground) and setting (background) and ironically it skews and distorts the architecture it schematizes so that the backdrop will read as a more believable perspectival projection from the vantage point of the audience. As the product of a multi-generational family of architects and stage designers, Galli-Bibiena was well aware of the potential for manipulating systems of representation towards communicating a desired effect. There is a fascinating discussion on stage design and perspective in Alberto Perez-Gomez's text Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge, from which the Galli-Bibiena drawing was scanned.

The tactics mentioned above were not only employed in set design and on the drawing board, but were also at play in numerous other eighteenth and nineteenth century systems which altered or augmented perception. The camera lucida and diorama are both examples of what could be broadly defined as representation machines. The spatial qualities of games can also be read in this manner, as a testing ground for exploring geometry, physics, interface and perception.

Echochrome is a forthcoming PlayStation title in which the player must direct a mannequin through a series of Oscar Reutersvärd's impossible constructions. Each level is an isometric projection and the interface is driven by Jun Fujiki's Object Locative Environment Coordinate System, which ties character movement to the orientation of the object. It is quite difficult to describe this gameplay with words as the levels are navigated through perceived geometry rather than actual geometry. In essence, optical illusion is the driving force in navigating the game space of Echochrome. Take a look at the trailer and see for yourself.

Echochrome is not the only title in the works which explores the idea of a reconfigurable vantage point. Indie game developer Phil Fish has recently announced a "side-scroller" called Fez in which the camera can be rotated and Julian Oliver's Levelhead project extends the "representation shifting" meme into the realm of tangible media.

The above image is Daniel Libeskind's Collage Rebus II from 1970. In this drawing Libeskind demonstrates the same prowess for isometric gymnastics that would animate his Micromegas and Chamberworks drawings a decade later. This project is interesting because the interiority that it delineates is more about arranging interlocking rooms than rendering any plausible space. Stairs and ladders lead to nowhere and edges terminate in white space. Curvilinear partition walls irrationally subdivide this assemblage of rooms and at times appear to be floating in front of the drawing rather than participating in the architecture. This design is purely hypothetical, one which needs not bother with exterior walls - or logic, for that matter. The term "paper architecture" is often (dismissively) applied to unbuilt projects, but what terminology should we use to describe unbuildable architecture?

Collage Rebus makes an interesting counterpoint to the impossible levels that populate Echochrome. Perhaps the only difference between these two modes of spatial reasoning is that Echochrome demands interactivity, the structures must be shifted into navigable configurations whereas Collage Rebus is frozen in motion and devoid of inhabitants.

Another title relevant to this discussion is the Portal mini-game included in the recent Orange Box expansion pack for Half-Life 2. In Portal, the player finds themselves immersed in the familiar architectural trappings of the stock first person shooter space. The key difference with this game from your run of the mill FPS is the tools at your disposal. Portal revolves around the use of the "aperture science handheld portal device", a tool that allows you to shoot a pair of wormholes into surfaces and then pass through them allowing you to cut through game space in a non-linear manner.

The above image conveys the crux of the gameplay experience - a player sees himself run into the entrance of a portal as he emerges out of the other side of it. Confused? This screen capture reminds me of the wonderful experience of moving through Bruce Nauman's Going Around the Corner Piece. Portal is full of these types of spatial feedback loops and this unfamiliar territory will no doubt cultivate a very imaginative relationship between players and space. Take a look at the trailer for the game - it is the second video in this great post on Super Colossal (which also waxes poetically about both Echochrome and Portal).

Portal is the descendent of a 2005 game entitled Narbacular Drop, which was developed at Digipen. Valve, the developer of Half-Life, hired the entire production team and brought them onboard to develop Portal. The game is an exciting twist on the rather stale (if well-polished) genre of first person shooters. Perhaps it will inspire some more adventurous thinking about interacting with digital space in ways that are altogether detached from everyday reality. Why not delve into abstraction? How much more "immersiveness" can the industry bleed out of photo-realism and nouveau weaponry?

Abstraction is most certainly the point of departure for The Night Journey, a project out of USC Interactive Media Division led by video artist Bill Viola. This game represents an interesting translation of Viola's rich, elemental visual language into a navigable world. Night Journey is not lacking in ambition - the game seeks to explore the quest for personal enlightenment. The following excerpt from the project profile illustrates the scope of the game quite clearly:

Procedural inspiration is based in a set of design goals that have arisen from a central question asked early in the design process: what is the "game mechanic" of enlightenment? How can we abstract and systemize such an intensely personal, yet archetypal experience?

Upon viewing the trailer, it is apparent that The Night Journey merges objective and subjective realities. There have been a number of games over the years that attempt to use psychological disturbances or flashback sequences (almost always via cutscenes) to help develop narrative, but the idea of the dream life of a player permeating "the waking simulation" is deliciously ironic. It is fantastic to see a game that has no interest in convention and aspirations to delineate the undefinable.

This text is the initial foray into a series of related posts which will explore relationships between digital space and graphical projection. There is such a rich history of dynamic architectural representation, I have no doubt that examining the methodologies at play within this work and using it to read digital space and experience will yield a provocative ongoing discussion.