Heterotopias 003

Heterotopias 003 | September 2017 | games + architecture
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Credits
editor + creator
Gareth Damian Martin
associate editor
Chris Priestman
contributors
Lawrence Lenhart, Matt Margini,
Luke Caspar Pearson, Katie Rose
Pipkin, Ed Smith, Sean Han Tani
art direction
Gareth Damian Martin

Contents | click numbers to go to articles
3 Mirroring the Real

introduction Gareth Damian Martin 75 Death in the Anthropocene
cover The Last of Us | Gareth Damian Martin
6 Bathrooms Without Bodies

history Matt Margini 85 Tokyo Lo-fi
materiality Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne | Sean Han Tani
24 No Style Los Santos

mapping Grand Theft Auto V | Luke Caspar Pearson 93 The Empty City
feature Mirror's Edge Catalyst | Gareth Damian Martin
35 Beneath the Mask

feature Killer 7 | Ed Smith 122 Ribcage Xylophone
feature House of Eternal Return | Lawrence Lenhart
50 Rooms of Nonexistence

Mirroring W
hen Michel of Us, with two pieces on its post-
Foucault apocalyptic world. The first is a
defined the term photo series exploring its deathly
"heterotopia" he rooms (p50), and the second
the Real
did so by using the example of the connects its bucolic apocalypse to
mirror. For Foucault, when we see the dawning of the Anthropocene
ourselves in the mirror, we are (p75), questioning the fantasy
simutaneouly real and situated, of erasure the game offers. In
but also unreal, abstracted, the second half of the issue, our
displaced. In this third issue of materiality section has developer
Heterotopias, we are applying Sean Han Tani finding power in lo- Gareth Damian
this paradoxical description of fi representation (p84). Meanwhile, Martin is a writer,
the mirror to games and their I connect Mirror's Edge Catalyst to designer, and
representation of reality. How do the epidemic of empty cities (p93), artist. He is the
games mirror the world? And how and in a reversal of our paradigm, creator and editor
introduction Gareth Damian Martin do they distort, change, and reflectLawrence Lenhart writes on a real of Heterotopias.
back on that reality? space that takes its influence from
games (p122). Spaced between
In our history section, we begin these pieces you will find work
with Matt Margini's exceptional from artist Katie Rose Pipkin,
survey of the bathroom (p6), as a which touches on the reflection
political space in games. Then we of real spaces in virtual forms. As
move into architect Luke Pearson's a collection, these works seek to
piece on his mapping of GTA V's touch on how game spaces operate
Los Santos (p24) through the lens both in relation to real and virtual
of artist Ed Ruscha. Ed Smith space, both reflecting our reality
then revisits Killer 7's unique and changing it before our eyes,
and bizarre everyday world, in so that, in the end, we no longer
a powerful essay (p35) on what recognize ourselves.
lies beneath the veneer of reality.
Our cover this issue is The Last GDM

House
Free Houses ( from 234 Free Houses, KR Pipkin, 2017)


Bathrooms
Without
Bodies
history Matt Margini

I
n 1985, the British filmmaker “very important area to relax with The Slovenian philosopher the place where we come closest
Peter Greenaway made a oneself.” Slavoj Zizek once proclaimed to being without history or politics
humble little film called that “when you flush the toilet, ourselves, both because we have
26 Bathrooms, examining All of Greenaway’s bathrooms you’re right in the middle of retreated from the social world When you
a diverse collection of WCs he are alike, and like any other ideology.” To back up his bold (the home, the office, the airport) flush the
encountered in his travels across bathroom, in that they serve the claim, he offered some dubious and because we are tending to the
London and Lincolnshire. Like the same basic bodily functions. But interpretations of the differences most basic bodily necessities. In
toilet in a
abecedaries that are read to very the alphabetical structure of the between French, German, and the bathroom, we are recalled to videogame,
young children (“B is for Bear,” film underscores the palpability Anglo-American toilets. In French nature; as the sociologist Harvey what are
etc.), the film is organized around of their difference: were they toilets, he argued, feces is quickly Molotch put it, “the animal in us
the letters of the alphabet. Q is not yoked together under some flushed away, corresponding to a comes to the fore, and we must
you in the
for “a quiet smoke”: we watch arbitrary organizing rubric, they revolutionary mentality founded accommodate to its tendencies middle of?
silently, amid piles of indiscernible would exist in totally different on quick political elimination. and demands. It is ‘bare life,’ as it
clutter, as a man in a fedora lights universes of experience. They’re In German toilets, the opposite surfaces in social existence.”
his pipe and deposits the match wonderfully different, these 26 happens: the feces perches on a
into the toilet beneath him. S is bathrooms. And the film implies ledge for examination, perhaps But precisely for that reason,
for the “Samuel Beckett memorial that even the bodily functions they corresponding to the German the bathroom might be the most
bathroom”: perched on a narrow are built to serve can be different, predilection for metaphysical classically ‘ideological’ space in any
white tub in a narrow white space, too: bathing, defecating, and even inquiry. Meanwhile, Anglo- house or institution: it can always
lit coldly by a single hanging just resting—pausing from the American toilets occupy some sort pretend to be neutral, ahistorical,
lightbulb, a man explains how his world—become different things of pragmatic middle-ground. purely functional, but every inch
father was a “glutton for austerity, inside different frames. The body’s of it is shaped by social norms
and any kind of privation that the comportment changes. The self Whether or not you agree with his and expectations. The shape,
government recommended.” U is expands, or contracts, or becomes specific conclusions, his general size, and style of its fixtures;
for “an underused living space”: something other than itself, inside point is hard to dispute. The how it modulates the privacy of
standing next to a Tiffany-style rooms shaped and molded by modern bathroom begs—through its users; who it invites, who it
lamp perched on the edge of intersecting layers of expectation: its functional design and its excludes, what it provides and
the porcelain counter, a woman the regulations of government; austere aesthetic—to be taken as doesn’t provide: everything about
describes her sumptuously the privations (or affordances) of a space without history or politics. the bathroom is a palimpsestic
decorated bathroom—which class; the rules of gender; the hell It wants to be pure, innocent, product of socio-political choices,
looks a lot like a living room—as a that is other people. denuded of baggage. It is, after all, some explicitly made by people in
Previous page: Robert Yang's The

Tearoom (Robert Yang).

power and others more tacit, never As Molotch points out, they
spoken but still enforced. Why do “separate people into categories,”
American and British bathrooms filtering out “not only literal
In our own seldom feature bidets? Partly contamination but also the cultural
time, they because—as the Cornell architect contagion for which literal dirt so
Alexander Kira pointed out in his often serves as a stand-in.” In the
work to exhaustively detailed 1970 study era of segregation, they solidified
reify social of bathroom ergonomics—the racial hierarchies; in our own time,
exclusions fixture became associated with they work to reify social exclusions
casual sex and prostitution around based in gender, disability, and
based in the turn of the 20th century, an class. They make those exclusions
gender, erroneous cultural meme that left physical, palpable; in some
disability, and us without a potentially excellent ways, because they are such a
instrument of personal hygiene. fundamental component to the
class. Why are bathroom fixtures almost architecture of daily life, they help
always white? Largely because of prescribe the limits of humanity
early 20th century attitudes about itself. But their powers are always
the purity of whiteness and the cloaked under habits of repression
triumph of modernist aesthetics, and disavowal that are themselves
which loudly championed “clean” social and ideological in origin.
looking industrial design over busy Bathrooms tend to be both
Victorian bric-a-brac. invisible and intractable because
they’re bathrooms.
Bathrooms aren’t just shaped
by ideological norms; they also When you flush the toilet in a
enforce them. As has only become videogame, what are you in the
clearer in recent years, as battles middle of? The question wouldn’t
over inclusive and gender-neutral be worth asking if there weren’t
restrooms have raged in state that many videogame bathrooms.
courts and the media, bathrooms But there are many: bathrooms
are powerful agents of normativity. have appeared frequently in
Right: A page from Alexander Kira's 1970

study The Bathroom (Alexander Kira).

Clockwise from top left: the bathrooms
of Duke Nukem 3D, The Legend of Zelda:
Majora's Mask, Conker's Bad Fur Day,
and BioShock (Matt Margini).
Bathing,
defecating,
and even just
resting—
pausing from
the world—
become
different
things inside
different
frames.

videogames since at least the the most memorable sidequests unvarnished and truthful account and weight. Interaction designer
mid-1990s, and they’ve evolved in features a hand reaching out from of them. Most are there to “signify and digital media professor Janet
realism and aesthetic complexity the depths of a toilet in search expense and production value”: Murray described the effect: “It
right alongside the evolution of 3D of “Pa-Pa-Pa Paper, please!” In “The fact that an in-game toilet is almost as if the programmer A kind of
spaces themselves. Conker’s Bad Fur Day (2001), a is interactive, even though most within the system is waving at industry-
game notable both for its aesthetic game characters never need to pee us, but doing so in a manner that
In his essay on “Infantile innovations and bad taste, one or poop, is purposely wasteful to deepens rather than disrupts the
wide anal
Sexuality,” Freud made the of the boss fights takes place in convey the developer's attitude immersive world.” phase,
controversial claim that, as the toilet-like cavern of the Great toward details, to show that even shaped by
children develop, their erogenous Mighty Poo, a fecal monstrosity useless details were important to Over the course of the 2000s,
zones move from the mouth to that sings a song about itself. them... and that's how much they videogame bathrooms also
potty humor.
the anus to, finally, the genitals. love video games, and that's how evolved into key sites for what is
A Freudian would find it hard not As videogames—and especially much gamers should love their (sometimes pejoratively) referred
to see the first wave of videogame first-person shooters—evolved love of video games.” to as “environmental storytelling”:
bathrooms as the products of a in graphical complexity over the places where you might find an
kind of industry-wide anal phase, course of the 2000s, however, But the waste isn’t a waste. Just audiolog telling a cartoonishly
shaped by potty humor and an digital bathrooms began to be built as extras can make a film set feel grim story, bloody graffiti on the
almost excessive fascination to serve different purposes. They populated, bathrooms can make a wall, or a dead body sprawled
with poop. Duke Nukem 3D moved on from being visual gags; game space feel lived in, embodied. in obvious, telegraphed despair.
was arguably the first first- they were conscripted instead into You could argue that they only The BioShock series is notorious
person shooter to feature a 3D the project of realism. Even if they rupture the diegesis by revealing for this. Not long after you enter
environment that felt real, weighty, tended to be optional areas where the presiding, crafting hand of the underwater city of Rapture in
and interactive. It was also the you might pick up a health pack, the developer at work—whoever the first game, you enter one of
first first-person shooter to feature or find an upgrade, or kill a stray it is that spent countless man- its bathrooms—a space of gilded
a bathroom—an incredibly detailed enemy, or encounter a jump scare, hours animating the lid of a toilet, disrepair flanked with neon signs
bathroom where you could open that very optional-ness made them texturing the disrepair of a stall for “GENTS” and “DAMES.”
and close the stall door, inspect crucial to the game’s performance door. But something about that A body lies crumpled beneath
your churlish face in the mirror, of a believable space. When I feeling of effort expended—that the rim of a dingy toilet. In it, a
and invade the privacy of an alien asked him about bathrooms in feeling that a body was hunched bottle of Old Tom’s Whiskey—
trying to defecate. In The Legend more contemporary games, the over this space, laboring to make his last and only friend. It’s a
of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, one of designer Robert Yang offered an it real—gives the space texture joke not so far from the toilet-

You’re never
subject
to their
exclusionary
regime and
humiliating
power.
Right: BioShock Infinite's

racially segregated bathrooms
(Matt Margini).

alien in Duke Nukem. But it’s the women’s room on the whites and because they’re unnecessary, – Bathroom expert, 26 Bathrooms
also commodified poignancy: an side and you’ll see gilded sinks they don’t have the same kind of (Peter Greenaway, 1985)
encapsulated micronarrative, like and luxe red curtains on the stalls. power over their users. They can
Ernest Hemingway’s “For sale: But Infinite’s earnest attempt to be meaningful, poignant spaces The Western bathroom in its
baby shoes, never worn,” which represent bathrooms as sites of to walk through, but they don’t current, archetypal form—a
relies on the bathroom’s universal racial violence only underscores engage the social self: you don’t mostly-white room with water-
familiarity to deliver a quick dose its representational limitations. feel nervous or comfortable, resistant tiles and a toilet, bath/
of pathos. These aren’t bathrooms you have exposed or reposed, humiliated shower, and sink—wasn’t invented
to use; they’re not bathrooms you or relieved—or somewhere in overnight; instead, its features
BioShock Infinite took a big use as bathrooms. Thus, you’re the middle: just fine, maybe—on evolved unevenly over the course
leap beyond its predecessor by never subject to their exclusionary the cold of the porcelain bowl. of the Victorian period and the
presenting bathrooms not just as regime and humiliating power: you You don’t see your face in the early 20th century. Bathroom
spaces of poignant squalor, but as approach them as 3D images, like mirror. You don’t feel your body, fixtures didn’t become ‘fixtures’
spaces of racial disempowerment a tourist walking through museum in satisfaction or revolt. Yet there until cities built centralized
and state control. Its city among dioramas. They are evocative, sure, are some videogame bathrooms underground sewers that brought
the clouds, Columbia, has but also fussy and over-designed: that try to capture that feeling— water into (and waste out of ) the
segregated bathrooms: two for like the propaganda that covers or a feeling, at least. There are house in specific places; before
WHITES, two for COLOREDS & nearly every surface of the game, some that try to represent the that, your tub could’ve been in
IRISH. Like any corresponding they are there to be scanned from complex social and psychological the kitchen, and your chamber
image from the era of Jim Crow, the comfort of an ironic distance: negotiations, enabled and pot could’ve been in the bedroom.
they present hard-to-stomach read, not experienced; seen, not frustrated by architecture, that As historians such as Barbara
dichotomies that remind us of the felt. take place in that space. What Penner have pointed out, however,
state’s sheer invasiveness under follows is an investigation of three the bathroom really came into
a regime of white supremacy— If ‘real-life’ bathrooms are notable of them. its own as a discrete, separate
its power to control the body; for being both necessary resources architectural unit at the beginning
its power to marginalize through and potent ideological actors (and of the 20th century, when new
inescapable humiliation. Open those two facets of bathrooms are public health regulations began
the door to the Coloreds & Irish always intertwined), videogame to mandate its existence and,
men’s room and you’ll see a black bathrooms would seem to be “All our plumbing regulations… even more importantly, modernist
man mopping, head down, under the opposite: the vast majority the fact is, the Victorians invented architectural thinkers started to
a sign telling him to mop. Enter of them are totally unnecessary, them.” formalize its aesthetic. It had to

look clean; it had to look sleek. They saw it as the first place in tubs too are enameled in dark it—the much more sprawling,
It had to be a “hospital in the the home where modernism itself colors instead of in white, the only rhizomatic underbelly—is a
home,” charged with some of the could take root—a modernism suitable color. Finally, there are horrific industrial slaughterhouse.
bracing energy of an impersonal that might then spread, perhaps, tin bathtubs that aim to look as Modernity lurks just on the other Self-
institution: porcelain smooth, cleansing the rest of the home if they are marble. And there are side of history, hoping to break alienation is
pipes exposed. The Swiss in the purgative fire of rational people who believe it, since these free of its shackles. The game has
architecture critic Sigfried Giedion design. marbleized tubs also find their a lot of literary touchstones (The
built into the
described the evolution of the sink purchasers. There are Rococo Island of Dr. Moreau; The Jungle), architecture
as a release from encrustation: But the path toward perfect, flush valves, Rococo taps, even but the one that feels omnipresent of the space.
“Like a kernel emerging from its inhuman austerity was ever Rococo washstands..." is Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr
shell, the washbasin through the impeded by an equal and opposite Hyde.
decades breaks loose from its force: the impulse to make the The Chinese Room’s 2013 horror
envelope of furniture.” bathroom part of the home, to game Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs Which makes it fitting that the
bring it under the thumb of a takes place in 1899, one year after game’s bathrooms have a split
For certain modernists, the style personal sensibility. In 1898, the Loos’ rant and one day before the personality as well. You find the
of the bathroom wasn’t just a Austrian architect Adolph Loos dawn of the 20th century. It takes first one just down the hall from
matter of taste. As the architects delivered a lecture celebrating the place in a climate of profound where you wake up. You know
Ellen Lupton and J. Abbott rational design of bathrooms in the historical self-consciousness; what kind of game this is, and you
Miller observe in their book The Anglo-American world. In the same as in Thomas Hardy’s poem know that it’s possible something
Bathroom, The Kitchen, and breath, he denounced bathrooms The Darkling Thrush (written horrible will jump out of the toilet
the Aesthetics of Waste, to the in his home country for refusing to on 29 December 1900), you can and scream. But barely anything
modernists it represented “an follow suit: almost feel the presence of “The does happen; what makes the
instance of what design would Century’s corpse outleant, / His room both creepy and alluring
be like unburdened by historical "Our bathroom fittings might well crypt the cloudy canopy, / The is its design. You enter facing a
precedents and styles.” They saw be our weakest point. Instead of wind his death-lament.” You high-tank toilet with a brass pipe
it as a part of the house that could covering the bathtub with white wake up in two spaces at once: and a wooden lid. The toilet and
quickly and directly imbibe a spirit tiles, people in this country would a sumptuous bedroom and an the other fixtures, the tub and
of futurism—a sense of perfection, rather use colored tiles so that - as iron cage. That kind of overlap the sink, look about as modern as
purity, progress—that would one manufacturer naively assured is emblematic of the game as a you could expect from the not-
otherwise be resisted by the musty me (he is not in the exhibition) whole: you begin by wandering so-humble abode of a forward-
old antiques of the drawing-room. - the dirt will be less visible. Tin a mansion, but the other side of thinking 1899 industrialist: their

pipes are not hidden beneath privacy but a space of surveillance.
cabinetry, and even though the And you learn later that the
tub is a free-standing claw-tub, it surveilling and the surveilled are
stands in a spot built for it. But one in the same: you are Mandus,
every porcelain surface—even the master of the house, but you
the underside of the toilet— are also his guest, his interloper,
is consumed by a flowery blue his aspiring saboteur. He once
pattern that twists and weaves like used the peeping window to spy
an erratic vine. Electric candles on his wife, Lillibeth (and the
light the walls, but real candles bathroom’s style might, in the end,
stand extinguished next to a be her style). He now uses it to spy
painting of a classical scene. The on himself. Self-alienation is built
tiles around the tub are white, but into the architecture of the space.
also ornately, busily textured. The
mirrors are eerily, horribly opaque. Over the course of the game,
you descend into Mandus’s
So the bathroom stands uneasily great machine and find out what
on a historical precipice that it’s doing: turning humans into
consumes every other aspect of pig-men, in an attempt not to
the game, including the mind of its degrade them but to refine them.
protagonist: a precipice between A prophecy has shown him all the
the Victorian era and modernity, pain and suffering the 20th century
self and self-annihilation, historical will bring; he wants to forestall
encrustation and aerodynamic it by twisting the body and the
purity. But it also becomes a mind into more pliant forms,
place of duality in another way. “constructing an architecture
You quickly learn that its mirrors to wrestle our damnation to the
are two-way mirrors that can be ground.” He frequently describes
looked into from a surrounding his project using metaphors of
passageway. You quickly learn that filth and cleanliness. “This faecal
the bathroom was not a space of matter is truly the product of

the age,” he says. “How can any way to feel like a body is to feel without getting anybody’s
man of ethics simply stand by like you’re being seen. attention, which (perhaps
and watch this world drown in its But the game’s most palpable ironically) requires what the
own excrement?” It’s striking how effects of embodiment are sociologist Erving Goffman called The gleaming
much of the game is essentially conveyed, paradoxically, by its “Then, if eye contact is “civil inattention.” If you simply idealism of
plumbing: turning on valves, writing—by its pulpy, purple established, one has presumably remain quiet, try not to make
shutting them down, following prose, always engorged with flesh reached the figurative and literal eye contact with the other men,
a modernist
steam-pipes and water-pipes yet simultaneously disgusted by it. moment of truth…” and avoid invading their personal era eroded,
through sewers and subterranean It’s striking how much Mandus’s – Alexander Kira, The Bathroom space, you can escape unharmed. over time, by
conduits. rhetoric is essentially akin to (1970)
the rhetoric of the bathroom’s When I asked Robert Yang about
successive
Mechanically, the game isn’t all evangelists, when it finally If Duke Nukem 3D brought us the videogame bathrooms, he called decades of
that different from other “walking awakened from its Victorian first bathroom with a realistic the GoldenEye's one of the greatest use.
simulators” like The Chinese ambiguities and became a place for level of detail, 1997’s GoldenEye of all time, not just because it
Room’s own Dear Esther and the rational compartmentalization 007 brought us the first bathroom reverses the usual hierarchy of
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture; of the body and the manful with a realistic sense of propriety. importance (“you start in the
you simply walk, look around, scrutiny of the self. When it You begin in the bathroom in the bathroom; it’s the most important
sometimes interact with an object. became a porcelain prison, a space second level of the game, aptly room in the entire level”), but
But it has a way of grounding you of abjection. When it became a named “Facility.” Four Soviet also because it’s a trenchant
in a sense of embodiment—sheer, machine for pigs. soldiers are in the room—three in representation of gendered codes
physical presence—that feels various stalls, and one standing at of behavior. The level “forces
unique among other entries to the "Fear is what keeps us all in our a urinal. If you want, you can try you to rehearse the anxious
genre. You’re never a floating eye: places,” Mandus says, “and the to take them out. But this strategy fragile masculine politics of men’s
you feel the tingle on your spine fear of the flesh, the ruin of the is, of course, inadvisable: as soon bathrooms”: the tacit rules that
as your physical hand controls flesh is the greatest of them all. as you attack any of them, the tell men not to engage, not to
your digital hand, creaking open a I am sickened, I am ruined, but others will be alerted—in fact, linger, not to look.
wooden door. You feel the swing I will build such machines to they’ll raise an alarm that alerts
of the lantern and the weight of contain this plague and heal us the whole facility—and you’ll be Yang is well-known for making
every step. The bathroom helps to all.” outnumbered in an extremely short, meaningful gay sex games
convey the effect, especially when cramped space. The best strategy that gleefully subvert the toxic
you find the two-way mirror. One “A new century is upon us.” is to try to exit the bathroom masculinity so often endemic to

"The anxious
fragile
masculine
politics
of men’s
Left and above: Guns in the
bathrooms." bathroom, Goldeneye 007 and
Robert Yang's The Tearoom
(Matt Margini).

big-budget genres. When I played from the Unity Asset Store that by the 1960s,” Yang told me. “It anything you want. “Decades of
The Tearoom, his newest one, will climax by explosively firing off was built with nice tile and nice male heterosexual hegemony have
a “historical public bathroom its entire clip. toilets when the US government trained gamers into thinking of
simulator,” I couldn’t help but invested more in public ‘looking’ as a ‘free’ action, with few
think of what he said about In terms of sheer graphical detail, infrastructure and facilities. An consequences or results,” Yang
GoldenEye—not because the game The Tearoom might be—as Yang actual roadside bathroom in the writes. The game trains you to
forces you to rehearse the same put it—“one of the most detailed Midwest probably would've been think otherwise. If you don’t look,
codes, but because it asks you to bathroom simulations in the built with cheaper materials, but nothing will happen: looking has
rehearse different ones. history of videogames.” In his again, I wanted to evoke this idea power. But if you stare too long at
artist’s statement, he describes it of age and ruin.” The exception is even a receptive person—or try
The game takes place entirely as a space of waste approached the Hinsdale urinal, “the Cadillac to stare while he’s peeing—he’ll
inside a rest-stop men’s room in with the will to wastefulness that of drop-floor urinals,” which he get spooked. The game inculcates
Mansfield, Ohio. The year is 1962. defines videogame bathrooms hand-modeled and couldn’t bring wariness, peripheral attention:
You stand at the urinal, waiting of the past: “In The Tearoom, I himself to deface: its surface light pools at the edge of the
for a car to pull up to the window replicate the logic of the pointless remains pristine. screen when you’re facing the
and another man to enter. You can expensive video game bathroom. urinal and someone new opens
pee all you want—with a lovingly- I gratuitously cover every surface The Tearoom, like other games, the door. You learn to dart your
rendered and fully controllable with high resolution physically- wants you to look at its bathroom eyes swiftly toward the window,
stream that pools realistically based materials, apply layers of and marvel at the level of detail. where a cop car might be silently
at the bottom of the urinal—but dirt and grunge decals, lightmap But it also aims to force you, as watching.
the point is to make eye contact: the room at a high luxel density, its player, out of the comfort of
to look at the other man, or feel and incorporate unique period two familiar modes of visuality. In the essay Anal Rope, D.A. Miller
yourself being looked at, and details like vintage light switches First, it breaks you out of the habit famously analyzed the Hitchcock
ascertain whether he’s ready and old faucets.” of not looking endemic to public film Rope, a murder mystery awash
and willing (or whether he’s an bathrooms (and especially men’s in gay innuendo, as a meditation
undercover cop). If he is ready Every inch of every surface bathrooms): to play this game, on the structure of innuendo itself:
and willing, he’ll approach and suggests the gleaming idealism of you have to look at other men in the way “the cultural surround of
you’ll get on your knees. But you a modernist era eroded, over time, a specific, deliberate way. At the legal, social, psychic, and aesthetic
won’t be sucking his dick; you’ll by successive decades of use. “I same time, it also aims to subvert practices (the last including
be sucking his gun—one of eight imagined my bathroom was built and critique the idea—endemic those of spectatorship) … tolerate
realistically-rendered firearms in the 1940s, but fell into disrepair to games—that you can look at homosexuality only on condition

Left: The Tearoom's
exceptionally detailed
bathroom (Robert
Yang).

that it be kept out of sight.” In The realism and composition of it a “game.” In The Tearoom, the bathroom sink—with soap dish,
Tearoom, everything is visible. a scene.” But the UI ends up game is a dangerous one, and cup holder, and railings that serve
But you must remain invisible. being an inadvertently effective maybe a hopeless one: the threat as towel bars, which I bought
And the cues you pick up on—a metaphor for the bathroom’s of the cops is always looming, at Hastings Tile to use while The game is
long sigh, maybe, or a head turned multi-layeredness: the way the and at the end it’s revealed that the marble sinks I ordered from a dangerous
vulnerably to the door—are subtle physical architecture gives rise to you were being surveilled no Finland are being sanded—and
out of historical necessity. “Until an overlapping social architecture. matter what you did. The twist stare at my reflection with the ice
one, and
recently,” Miller wrote in 1990, As Molotch observes, this happens is inspired by an infamous real- pack still on.” maybe a
“homosexuality offered not just in any public bathroom: “the very life incident in that very town, - Bret Easton Ellis, American hopeless one.
the most prominent, it offered flimsiness of typical restroom in that very year: police filmed Psycho (1991)
the only subject matter whose structures induces behaviors men through a two-way mirror
representation in American mass to compensate and to ‘fill in’ and eventually convicted 38 of What’s the mark of a truly good
culture appertained exclusively socially for what is physically them on charges of sodomy. In videogame bathroom? Detail,
to the shadow kingdom of lacking. In the more wide-open the footage, Yang writes, “you can maybe, first and foremost. The
connotation.” spaces of sinks and urinals … practically hear the cop behind videogame bathroom is often a
people still carefully monitor the camera salivating over how creature of realism—of the desire
The UI in The Tearoom is a glances, gestures, and speech acts, he’s going to ruin their lives.” to create a room that feels true
concession to denotation: enacting separations otherwise not Like A Machine for Pigs, the game to life. If it’s built well, it’s built
overlaying the bathroom with present.” But cruising (for sex), eventually reveals its bathroom to with a level of detail that evokes
huge text and icons, it’s extremely because it involves transgression, have been a space more public— and perhaps even allows you to
explicit about what you should requires approaching the and even more dangerous—than it reenact its real-life function; if it’s
be doing, perhaps to a fault. Yang bathroom with an even more seemed. The effect is all the more built very well, it makes you feel
admits that he had to develop dramatically bifocal vision. You haunting given that you spend the presence—the presence of the
it out of necessity, because need to be able to read markers of entire game wary of its publicness developer, of course, and maybe
playtesters kept failing to pick safety, possibility, or danger in the already. the presence of the body you
up on certain subtle social cues; shape of a stall. haven’t quite left behind.
coming from a Half-Life 2 school
of thought about “immersion,” In Tearoom Trade, a landmark When I asked him about
he told me, he’s always seen 1970 study of cruising that Yang bathrooms, the developer Brendon
UI overlays as “extraneous took as inspiration, the sociologist “Afterwards I stand in front of a Chung of Blendo Games reminded
and inappropriate, ruining the Laud Humphreys explicitly called chrome and acrylic Washmobile me that “a large part of first-

Left: The bathroom
from SOMA (Matt
Margini).

person games is their abstraction video game bathroom rarity—that question of what the developer
of things.” You could say that is controlled the same way as the chooses to abstract in the first
what makes a good bathroom is a toilet lid. This rises the toilet up place. It can be the jiggle of a
question of abstraction, too: how to the top fifth percentile of video handle, the pooling of a stream of
much it abstracts a space defined game toilets. We're in extremely urine, the reflection of fluorescent
by the materiality of the body. hallowed ground. light off a porcelain surface. But
In Frictional Games’ SOMA, you it could also be the bathroom’s
start the game in an apartment And finally, to top it all off: the politics: the social architecture
filled with things that feel quite flush handle. It flushes the toilet, that always lies atop the physical,
real indeed: objects you can pick yes, but the gag here is you control structuring your behavior even
up and put anywhere; a phone exactly how much pressure to when you’re alone. What’s the Matt Margini is
that you can lift to your face; apply to the handle. So if you mark of a truly good videogame a writer and a
interactive light switches. But move it a little bit: no flush. If you bathroom? An evocation, maybe, doctoral student
the game’s realism truly kicks playfully jiggle it: no flush. But of the games we play in our most in the department
in when you visit the bathroom, once you give it a thorough deep vulnerable moments. of English and
an incredibly interactive space stroke, only then does it activate." Comparative
covered in delicate signs of use. MM Literature
Chung was entranced by the toilet The toilet in SOMA is indeed a at Columbia
in SOMA: masterwork of realism, and maybe University. His
a new high-water mark in the essays have
"First of all, it has an interactive quest for videogame-bathroom appeared in The
toilet lid. This already puts this embodiment. Not much is New Yorker, The
toilet into the top tenth percentile abstracted at all in the simulation Atlantic, the Los
for me. Because of SOMA's unique of a handle that requires a Angeles Review
control scheme, you can lift the “thorough deep stroke” to engage. of Books, Public
toilet lid halfway, wiggle it, let go Books, and Kill
and have it fall shut, do what have But Chung reminded me that the Screen.
you. It is deluxe. It is luxurious. abstraction question isn’t just a
“how much” question. It’s also a
Beneath the lid is the toilet seat— “how” question, and (even more
an interactive, liftable seat, another importantly) a “what” question—a



No Style Los Santos
feature Grand Theft Auto V | Luke Caspar Pearson

T
here is perhaps no place might well have been thinking of reference to the innumerable films surface context and recording Los
more defined by its Los Santos, the deviant facsimile in which its non-architectures Santos as a city using ‘no style’
‘non-architecture’ than of L.A. that underpins Grand Theft have starred (many captured screenshots allows for the degree
Los Angeles, a city full Auto V, a place so given over to brilliantly in Thom Andersen’s of separation required to reveal
of all those buildings that support mobility that the sequence of film Los Angeles Plays Itself). the truth of its virtual landscapes.
daily life, seemingly without any actions involved in carjacking a For most people, Los Angeles is Rather than the full-on satire of
pretension to significance as vehicle is abstracted down to a encountered primarily through the game, it might be possible to
pieces of design. These are the single button press to aid the fluid such reframing, and indeed its find something more nuanced
minimarts, the malls, gas stations, movement of the player. “validity” as an architectural city within Los Santos through these
and drive-thrus. In fact, the is built on top of these ideas. Given recordings. In this spirit, I have
history of Los Angeles as a city In the 1972 BBC documentary their ability to draw people into produced a series of Ruscha-style
of architectural importance owes Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles, new worlds, games offer the ability publications, called Small Books of
a lot to those writers and artists we see Banham enjoy an ice cream to dynamically reframe a place Los Santos, that use screenshots
who have reframed these buildings sundae in the rear seat of an open- through participation within its and their subsequent compilation
as significant structures. When top car sat behind American artist systems. The latest iteration of Los into physical softbound books as
British architectural historian Ed Ruscha. This encounter in a Santos appeared some 40 years a way of detaching us from the
Reyner Banham wrote his seminal cabriolet was more than a chance after Banham's Four Ecologies but transgressive city and peering
book Los Angeles: The Architecture meeting. Ruscha himself had retains much of its spirit. Even if beyond.
of Four Ecologies in 1971, he argued been reframing the landscapes of Rockstar frame the city as cynical
that Los Angeles could not be Los Angeles since 1963 through and transgressive through the While Ruscha’s photographs
judged under the architectural his small artist’s books, which story and mechanics of the game, purported to show the city ‘as-
criteria of historical European began with Twentysix Gasoline the visual fidelity and beauty is’—we should not forget that he
cities, instead it was a landscape Stations—naturally enough, a in its depiction of Los Angeles went to great lengths to achieve
where “mobility outweighs serialised set of 26 photographs betrays the same enthusiasm the deadpan—he did build a
monumentality.” Given these of 26 gas stations. In his deadpan for the Angeleno landscape that custom rig on the back of a pickup
non-architectures facilitated the depiction of everyday structures, possessed Banham and Ruscha. truck to record Every Building
mobility of citizens, he argued for Ruscha suggested that what he on the Sunset Strip in 1966, and
an alternative city system where called “no style” photography So, what if we regarded not Los hired a helicopter to hover above
the bright signage of the drive-thru could reveal the reality of a city. Angeles, but Los Santos, as a city L.A. and obtain the aerial views
burger bar replaced the static and Of course, we could not speak in a similar light? Viewed in the for his Thirtyfour Parking Lots
statuesque spaces of antiquity. He about Los Angeles without a spirit of Ruscha, removing the book of 1967. Although far easier
Previous page: A photograph of Luke

Caspar Pearson's book, Nine Swimming
Pools.

Above: Pages from Luke Caspar
Pearson's book, Thirtyfour Parking Lots.

to facilitate in a virtual world, My first books reveal the My second book, a recreation of windshield. Ruscha contrasted
my screenshots were composed contingency of Los Santos by Twentysix Gasoline Stations, was photographs of the immaculate
through a combination of in- comparing it to Ruscha’s Los directly drawn from Ruscha’s blue carpets of Angelino pools to
game play and shots taken from Angeles by means of direct recording of gas stations on a the violent impulses of the city. The bright
GTA V’s ‘Content Creator’ mode, editorial recreation. My version of journey from Los Angeles to My screenshots evoke a similar signage
used alongside several different Thirtyfour Parking Lots captures Oklahoma. In Ruscha’s case this tension. Using my avatar to climb
mods to switch gravity off and so a series of tarmac expanses as is a linear and important journey, over hedges and fences, I explore
of the
on. Many of Ruscha’s earlier Los Ruscha did from a helicopter. It the route back to visit his parents. the back yards of Los Santos, drive-thru
Angeles photographs were also is paginated exactly as Ruscha’s Such a journey is impossible in cataloguing the swimming pools burger bar
monochrome, bringing them into original book, with several blank Los Santos given that it is an that dot the landscape. They look
what Czech philosopher Vilém pages framing the imagery. If isolated island. If Ruscha’s journey startlingly realistic. But they are
replaced the
Flusser calls the “conceptual Ruscha’s photography of lots represented a form of pilgrimage, signs of residence without any real static and
universe” of photography. The was a deadpan recording of the my journey might symbolize the residents. One might encounter statuesque
artifice of black and white detaches logics of Los Angeles—the car futility of videogame space. On a a virtual pool party, but startled
it from reality and reinforces park, which American architect practical level, cars in GTA do not homeowners will run out into spaces of
the photograph with the logic Robert Venturi would later term require fuel. The presence of these the city rather than their own antiquity.
of photography. Hence Flusser a spatial “megatexture”—then non-architectures is purely to house—because it is merely a
argues that “many photographers the megatextures of Los Santos serve the American iconography. shell. The pool is a precise marker
therefore also prefer black-and- with their slight but perceptible While some gas stations can be of Angeleno urbanity, but at the
white photographs to colour slippages in resolution remind us robbed, others stare back blankly same time a point where Los
photographs because they that this is still a facsimile city. as textured boxes. They are Santos betrays itself. Return some
more clearly reveal the actual Being produced from the original seemingly unimportant. But what hours later and you are likely
significance of the photograph.” Xbox 360 version of the game, would a virtual L.A. be without to find the virtual inhabitants
Ironically, given that the vast textures pop in and out as I hover them? reassembled around the water as
majority of screenshots are full and frame the shot while painted if nothing happened. Transgress
color, seeing Los Santos through markings and vehicles disappear The third book in the series, again by climbing into their garden
black and white makes it somehow depending on their proximity Nine Swimming Pools (And a and the situation repeats itself.
more real, like the type of actual to the camera. From a certain Broken Windshield) follows While Ruscha ends his book using
city one would want to desaturate distance, the car that is utterly Ruscha’s recording of L.A.’s a broken glass as a metaphor
in order to reveal truths. central to the game is utterly lost. pools, but switches the “Broken for violence, in my small book it
Glass” of his original book for a becomes the windshield. This is,

Above: Pages from Luke Caspar
Pearson's book Nine Swimming Pools
(And a Broken Windshield).

after all, a city where (nearly) any matter-of-fact. We get a sense of super graphic and the strikingly world apart, to reform Los Santos
car can be stolen and a player may the tension in both how close, and realistic immediately draws the into a new place.
smash thousands of windows on how far, Los Santos is from reality. conclusion that this is some form
their way through the game. of augmented reality overlay onto This place is No Style Los
My final book in the series, a physical city. Santos. The kind of place where
Moving on, I apply Ruscha’s Many Mission Markers, shows a historian from Norfolk might
methods to new books which Los Santos at its most ‘gamey’ Ruscha’s deadpan photographic meet an artist from Nebraska
further expose the contingencies through ‘no style’ screenshots techniques applied to screenshot over frozen dairy products while
of Los Santos. Cars on Hills is that document a series of mission methods are a tool to withdraw enthusing over the architecture of
a book comprising a series of markers in GTA Online. Although from the game itself and start a particularly fine drive-in burger
deadpan screenshots showing I turn the whole GUI off for this regarding space as a supporting joint, before slipping on their Luke Caspar
supercars perched on hills in Los screenshot work, the markers infrastructure to the videogame balaclavas and speeding off into Pearson is a
Santos. Hopefully, two things still appear hovering in space as experience. Although the happy- the sunset chased by a supersonic Lecturer at the
should occur to the viewer, one approaches them, a reminder go-lucky Reyner Banham may not jet fighter piloted by a 15-year-old Bartlett School
causing a double take. One: that that, for all its realism, Los Santos have appreciated the unremitting kid from Nuneaton. of Architecture,
this world is incredibly visually is still a game world. They also cynicism of GTA V’s world, he UCL. His research
realistic. And two: that there is remind us that Los Santos is, would have admired its dedication LP and teaching
no possible way those cars could at least to some degree, a social to movement across an Angelino investigates the
be there in reality unless by space—each marker gives us landscape. Ruscha himself would application of
means of a crane or helicopter. information on how many players surely have appreciated the irony game technologies
Anyone who has played GTA V to expect, and the metrics of how of all the gas stations in a world into speculative
knows that driving up hills is an much others have enjoyed it. without gas. As critic Aron Vinegar architectural
incredibly efficient way of losing Flicking through page after page has pointed out: “the deadpan projects.
the police, and this is facilitated of these luminous rings one gets attitude exemplified by Ruscha
by the cartoonish physics of the the sense of the irrepressible refuses to allow us to be too hasty
game. Supercars that have trouble drive towards objectives. In my in our categorization of good, bad,
negotiating the kerb outside a experience—given the images best, or worst objects or people
parking lot in reality can barrel are contained within what I in the world.” These small books
up hills with abandon. Framed in term a “photographic book”— are designed to offer an insight
these ‘no style’ images, the cartoon to those unfamiliar with the through subtle details rather than
caricature of the city becomes game, the interplay between the tearing the artifice of the game
Following pages: Luke Caspar Pearson's

Small Books of Los Santos.

Beneath the
Mask
feature Killer 7 | Ed Smith

"W
e're in a antechambers. Even a cheap trailer
tight spot,” house, dumped in the American
says Killer Midwest and serving as a kind
7's sardonic, of mission hub, is comprised of
begimpsuited spirit guide, Iwazaru. four massive rooms. Confronted
Appearing in thin air, hanging by invisible enemies, who self-
from the ceiling, or floating detonate once they touch us,
serenely above the ground, he the threat of Killer 7's locations
commands the physical space. becomes their sheer size. Danger
Capable of walking through may always find a way with so
walls and floors, for Iwazaru to much space available. We are
ever feel trapped there must overwhelmed by quantity. We
be something other, something are also forced, by Killer 7’s
sinister, lurking discretely among idiosyncratic, semi-point-and-
his environment. His catchphrase click navigation system, to walk
is an ominous hint—in the world a linear path, which deviates
of Killer 7, we may not see what’s only at prescribed points. The
threatening us with the naked eye, effect is a contrast between the
but everywhere we go, as Iwazaru established vastness of the place
notes, things are closing in. around us and our narrow vision.
Our peripheral environment, at
To explore Killer 7's office times, is literally unknown. Like
blocks, restaurants, and desert the suicidal, exploding monsters,
towns, its houses, schools, and called Heaven Smile, we often can’t
Spanish pueblo, is not to feel see Killer 7’s world; perhaps it, too,
claustrophobic. On the contrary, is trying to kill us.
these areas are implausibly large.
Each section of Killer 7 takes an At the same time, backgrounds
hour, maybe two, to completely and interiors are stripped of detail.
traverse. They all contain winding Broadly drawn, using washed-out
corridors and high-ceilinged colors and sporadic black lines,
Previous and current page: Captures

from the PS2 version of Killer 7 (Ed
Smith).

Left: Killer 7's distorted
reality (Ed Smith).

many of Killer 7's environments The physical space of Killer 7 places they live are, too. “What's chapter, the pseudo-Devil Kun
are abstracted. They are not calls on us to look. Ghosts, who sad is we've gotten used to this,” Lan rests atop the Space Needle,
specific or unique places, but provide vital information, are Christopher Mills says, the Killer a giant tower whose tapered apex
generic representatives—the hidden in extraordinary places. 7's fixer, as he watches a volley of looks like it could be used to stab The effect is
restaurant, school, and fairground Susie Sumner waits inside a American missiles soar towards somebody. a contrast
might resemble any restaurant, washing machine, under a car, Japan. “That doesn't necessarily
school, or fairground. We travel and inside the pump at a gas mean we're not human,” Garcian A lot of videogames imply
between the
across the United States. We visit station—if we want to talk to her, replies. Even if we're desensitized danger through blood-streaked established
different countries, the past and we have to deliberately search to human suffering on a conscious walls, hysterical graffiti, gothic vastness of
the distant future. There is an her out. Similarly, the transparent level, doesn't mean it's not hangingarchitecture, or just by placing
implied comprehension: by moving enemies, Heaven Smile, are only over our lives; on the contrary, in dead bodies all around, but
the place
through various locations and detectable if we press a button Killer 7, it's all around. Killer 7 does it via very ordinary around us
their geographical archetypes, we to scan our surroundings more environments: thanks to the and our
see, in a general sense, the world. closely. If we want to see what The very first room—inside lurking Heaven Smile, and the
And so Killer 7's treatment of is hiding in these environments the “Celtic Building,” a “multi- abstract lines and colors, we are narrow
space becomes twofold. As much then we have to examine them. purpose facility” in urban Seattle, threatened by a simple corridor vision.
as it suggests there is something To attribute an overarching theme Washington—exemplifies the in a school or staircase in a hotel.
malevolent hidden among them, it to Killer 7—a game that routinely violence intrinsic to Killer 7's The threat itself is of imminent
insists the locations are common references Japanese and American world. It serves exclusively as emotional and physical suffering;
and should be easily recognized. politics, history, sex, television, a coliseum, in which the player Killer 7 climaxes not only with the
They're not only abstract, they're and technology—risks sounding may shoot monsters to learn the bloody murders of its eponymous
pedestrian. By extension, the game simplistic. But all its finer details game's controls. Nevertheless, assassins, but Garcian's realization
implies that, even in the most and explications (if they're it's characterized as part of the that he perpetrated them, and is
everyday places, there is hidden rigorous enough to be called Celtic Building: even in a building not at all the person he thought
depth, hidden perniciousness. such) are rooted in similar and so expressly generic it's called himself to be. Each location
We can't always see all of Killer 7, comprehensible ideas: no matter multi-purpose, there exists a room captures some of this acute
but we know it's there, and that it how innocuous, every environment filled with blood and death. Later, pain. We ourselves have never
passingly resembles what we see hosts malignant enmity. Even the standing on a balcony overlooking been contract killers, misled by
in our own, real lives, and that it most convincing façade is still Seattle itself, we see a brooding, gods into killing other fantastical
contains imperceptible monsters. just that. And because people irregular cityscape. It is dark. It apparitions, but we might know
are flawed and complicated, the is ominous. At the end of this how it feels to be guilty, or

This page: The
sparse, everyday
environments of
Killer 7 (Ed Smith).
The
physical
space of
Killer 7
calls on us
to look.

Left: Killer 7 uses static
and interference to
unsetttle the player (Ed
Smith).

Lying,
confusion,
and
instability
encroach on
daily life.
Top left: Killer 7's

Spanish pueblo
(Ed Smith).
Above and Left:

Killer 7 hides its
terrors in plain
sight (Ed Smith).

deceived or assailed by our society. liberation. Andrei Ulmeyda, the out, is just a two-dimensional, thing that’s true, according to
To that extent, what the world of gangly, afroed CEO of First Life, old Hollywood Western-style Killer 7, is the existence of deceit.
Killer 7 depicts is universal. It's and the town's founder and cutout. InterCity is a total sham;
telling that Kun Lan, 1000 years namesake, does not resemble your by association, so becomes the A later explored Spanish town, We can't
in the future, is still fighting his average tycoon. Even when he concept of the “ideal city.” What though musical, warm-looking, and always see
rival, Harman Smith, moreso destroys a stadium, entertained we’re often presented in Killer parochially charming, is similarly
that Killer 7's plot is so Delphic. by a pop starlet named “Stacy,” 7 are standard issue, municipal, host to yet more duplicity:
all of Killer 7,
Like the physical backgrounds he seems ingratiatingly genuine: and everyday locations that also invisible monsters fill its alleys and but we know
themselves, composed with “This Stacy people love, she's contain terrifying monsters. the Killer 7 confront, tellingly, their it's there.
simple colors and broad shapes, just an illusion.” Ulmeyda and his There’s no such thing in this game “Alter-Ego,” a group of passive-
details like country and time town look sincere. Compared to as “innocuous.” Even a plain old aggressive heroic soldiers called
aren't relevant—what's urgent is the bureaucratic confines, first of washing machine contains the The Handsome Men. Between
the ubiquitous, unifying human the Celtic Building and then the disembodied, nonsense-talking these two locations, Killer 7 tips
experience of feeling uncertain in HAKU, a tiny government ward head of a dead woman. With that its view of the world. Physically
our own surroundings, and we find that hosts Killer 7's second stage, established—with the knowledge isolated from the rest of society
it encapsulated throughout. InterCity seems like a real, salt-of- that normal-looking things have and ostensibly utopic, InterCity
the-earth kind of place. some hidden hideousness—the is nevertheless fake and corrupt.
Ulmeyda InterCity, an ostensibly idea of something being perfect, This place comprises historical,
“ideal city,” constructed in the But at its rear, as if behind picturesque, or like halcyon built-by-hand pueblo, and is
Texan desert by First Life, Inc., a theatrical curtain, is the becomes absurd. In the world of topographically free from the
resembles an archetypal American headquarters of First Life itself—a Killer 7, if an environment looks influence of modern business
township. There are shops, a gas seemingly imposing black building even slightly nice, it’s likely to and politics, yet it still houses
station, and pleasant houses. that can only be accessed by be a masquerade. By that rubric, threatening, mirror versions of the
Although the streets are unusually answering trivia questions if another environment looks central characters. These places
wide, and typically rich with about the company. First Life's outright beautiful, it’s probably entail that inimical experience
Heaven Smile, they also attend advertising, it is ascertained, masquerading even harder, and is also pervasive. Their genteel,
a sense of space and freedom— contains “93 lies and seven truths.” InterCity confirms as much. Its almost homely appearance
when Killer 7, until this third level, Ulmeyda's corporation doesn't soothing daylight and palatial only emphasizes how far lying,
has been set almost exclusively actually produce anything— space compose just another confusion, and instability encroach
indoors or at night, exploring it merely runs commercials. hotbed of avarice. Banality and on daily life: be they in the
InterCity's sunny climes presages And the First Life HQ, it turns splendour are both lies. The only middle of the Texan desert or

Top left: Killer 7's
InterCity
(Ed Smith).
Left and bottom left:

Killer 7's Viniculum
Gate (Ed Smith).
Below: Garcian's
Trailer (Ed Smith).
Garcian's
trailer
house quite
literally
screams in
pain.

Left: Killer 7's unique
interface (Ed Smith).

ungentrified, congenial Spain, the metal vault doors we hear ungodly confusion, frustration, of being through. The Vinculum Gate by
invisible monsters are always in wailing, as if something Garcian manipulated and of terrible things comparison is what’s actually
people's homes. is desperate to occlude from his happening in everyday places, going on. It’s the open wound
daily life is equally desperate to to everyday people, every single underneath. Things we
To instantiate that point further, get out. A high-school, shrouded day. They are unified, however, by haven't seen
the home of Curtis Blackburn—a in midnight and anfractuous in its one architectural anomaly, which The Gate is a destroyed, burnt-
kidnapper, murderer, and layout, reveals unbearable secrets recurs in almost every level in out looking area, almost like
before, but
pedophile—appears, on various about the Killer 7 themselves. A Killer 7, and even when it doesn't an old warehouse. Large and must face,
examination, more detailed than common or garden hotel is where literally appear is present, like undecorated, it is, like Blackburn's are at the
the rest of Killer 7's interiors. they are all murdered. Iwazaru, in spirit. The Vinculum home, more “honest” than most
The previously described broad Gate, named in honor of the of the other locations in Killer
other end.
colors and indistinct thick, black Aside from its impossible tissue that connects the bones to 7. It's naked, unimpressive,
lines are replaced—particularly on steel exits, the trailer is neatly the tendons in the human hand, and vulnerable—it's where we
Blackburn's outdoor-facing walls— panelled in wood and perfectly bridges Killer 7's levels proper to glean various truths about our
with clearly demarcated wooden well-mannered. The school is its boss fights. From circuitous characters, their pasts, and their
panelling and, at times, individual desolate by contrast, and visited corridors, filled with monsters, world. So, fittingly, the Gate is
blades of grass. This house looks after hours—if Killer 7 wants ghosts, and other chaos, we pass stripped bare, lacking completely
more straightforwardly real than us to imagine the flip side of through the Vinculum Gate to the wallpaper and ornaments
other places in the game. As a our everyday world, a school, more ordered areas, occupied that essentially disguise a place's
site, also, of ineffable cruelty, which is typically associated with by characters who possess truest nature. Access to the Gate
it suggests that Blackburn's activity and children, now cast in information. Among the Gate itself is gained via the submission of
characteristics, the kinds of things darkness and emptied out helps we encounter new and hitherto “Soul Shells,” a peculiar sort of
he represents, are more vividly make that impression. And the unique types of Heaven Smile. It cosmic currency we accrue by
present in the world; this house hotel perhaps has a similar effect. is a place in which we learn, and exploring each level's other areas.
is the most visually defined of all, Synonymous with sleep, comfort, that by decussating come closer The transaction is quite simple:
the misery within accentuated to a and sedulous, at-your-beck-and- to understanding something true. the more of Killer 7's world
higher degree. call kind of customer service, in The trailer, school, hotel, and other we occupy, and the more of its
Killer 7 it’s where everybody dies, locations, even when partially venality and avarice we absorb,
Garcian's trailer house quite in pain, and without anyone to twisted, are still facades. They’re the faster we get through the Gate
literally screams in pain. From help them. These environments like bandages, reluctantly turning and to the feet of the knowledge it
behind its menacing, incongruous arouse all sorts of feelings: red because of blood seeping protects. Our struggle is rewarded

with wisdom. They are hard we typically perceive. The true identity, it’s as if we have
and miserable, but we emerge abstracted backdrops imply this demystified him—by traveling
from each of Killer 7's locations is true of everywhere, and every through so many locations, and
more experienced and improved. time; as if horror is the commonest steadily learning what they hide
Adversity is constructive. And to feeling we have, and by implication beneath their anodyne visages,
attend once again the sense of the sincerest locations associable we understand now why he
being pulled toward something, to outright monstrosity are the kept calling them “tight spots.”
some vital revelation, when we most keenly felt. The knowledge might not be
exit immediately the Gate and comfortable, but it is knowledge.
are confronted with fresh and But, ultimately, the game is about And in a world where very little
surprising types of Heaven Smile, acquiring a sense of self. Garcian makes sense, where even the most Ed Smith is a
it's often in a straight and narrow is revealed to be Emir Parkreiner. normal things and places are in writer from the
corridor, the type of functional, Iwazaru is in fact Kun-Lan. fact strange, even threatening UK. He co-edits
one-way passage that screams Samantha, Harman's attendant, knowledge is the only true Bullet Points
forward progress. We simply must oscillates between a servile sexual comfort. Monthly and
go this way. Things we haven't maid and feisty American girl, can be found on
seen before, but must face, are at eventually landing in a relieving ES Twitter
the other end. kind of death on her one actual @mostsincerelyed
personality. It is not so trite as to
The Gate, by consistently leading have a happy ending or suggest
us to some new knowledge or that all knowledge gathered about
experience, i.e. an encounter with oneself is pleasant, but Killer 7
a yet-unseen Heaven Smile, saves bets consistently on the value
Killer 7 from appearing cynical of the journey itself. We find, by
or nihilistic. To varying extents, exploring its locales, hidden and
its environments are hostile, and terrible things. But by the time we
betoken an even more hostile but leave through the Gate and into
also oblique world lying in wait. the next dubious environment,
The cracked walls, encountered we have an increased sense of
in several levels, affirm there is experience. At the end of Killer
something present behind what 7, when we discover Iwazaru’s

Left: Killer 7's Iwazaru
(Ed Smith).



Rooms of
Nonexistence

"I
gazed at the weird tree narratives to exist simultaneously. “The scenery of death – a few virtual space. Is virtual space
trunks, around some of At one point, the narrator seems pieces of realistic furniture and then “beyond death”? Perhaps
which were coiled thick to find a moment of clarity, four walls.” This is the line of that isn’t so strange after all.
flesh colored snakes; understanding that the images Terra Incognita that haunts Physical architecture, for example, "An
suddenly, I thought I saw, between of his bedroom that invade the me. Its central meaning seems is beyond death. It can be imitation of
the trunks, as though through my jungle are false. Yet, in the story’s obvious; an allusion to the death destroyed, reshaped, separated,
fingers, the mirror of a half open final line, the narrator, hoping that awaits many of us, within the but it cannot die. Virtual space
life hastily
wardrobe with dim reflections.” to record his journey, reaches confines of the four plain walls of too, then, is a space which is not knocked
for his pen, and in that moment a hospital room. But there’s that affected by death. But, perhaps together, the
This quote comes from Vladimir the room re-emerges: “I groped word, realistic, that hangs there at most interestingly, unlike real
Nabokov’s 1931 the short story all along the blanket, but it was the center of the text. Its meaning architecture, which is often
furnished
Terra Incognita. Following an no longer there.” This gives the begins to reveal itself when we fashioned as a container for life, rooms
entomologist and his group in a narrative a distinct duality: it is combine it with a passage from virtual architecture has no such of non-
trek across the tropical rainforest either an account of a man’s death earlier in the story: “I realized that purpose. It is true that living
of a fictional South American or an account of the death of an the obtrusive room was fictitious, players enter and move within existence."
country, the story catalogues its imagined world, and we cannot since everything beyond death is, it, but only by proxy. There can
narrator’s descent into delirium as say which it might be. In a sense at best, fictitious: an imitation of be not life inside a virtual space,
he becomes lost in this unknown it is both—through the lens of life hastily knocked together, the only the dead hand of the player’s
landscape. subjectivity we are witnessing both furnished rooms of nonexistence.” avatar.
an apocalypse of landscape and
However, as the narrative goes self, each one inextricably linked Here, Nabokov seems to be Nabokov, of course, could not
on, we are introduced to its to the other. describing visions of death as have known that such places
mirror image: that of the narrator if they were physical spaces, would one day come to exist. In
suffering fever in the confines of When I think of the spaces of rooms that exist beyond life, his own time, virtuality was a state
his bedroom, hallucinating the The Last of Us, this story always beyond human architecture and confined to dreams, thoughts,
entire trek. From this perspective, comes to mind. It’s not simply the bodies, which are imitations of and hallucinations. But perhaps
it is the jungle that is a vision, twinning of the forms of a forest both. Combined with the idea he understood something of the
overlaid onto the unsettled mind with those of a room, something of “realistic furniture” these relationship these spaces have to
of a suffering patient. Nabokov The Last of Us does so often quotes seem to anachronistically reality. He did, after all, name his
never provides a key to this and well. It is the connection of point towards a kind of space story Terra Incognita, which while
puzzle, and instead allows the two fictional space with death. we are distinctly familiar with— at first seems like a reference to
Previous page: The Last of Us

Remastered (Gareth Damian Martin).

the untravelled wilderness that crystallized in The Last of Us. I
the narrator's party becomes can see it in the images I have
lost in, over time it begins to produced, filled with “realistic
evoke the unknown, unmappable furniture” in service of “an
spaces of fever and dreams. What imitation of life.” These are the
if the virtual rooms we wander rooms of nonexistence that form
are another Terra Incognita? A the crux of Terra Incognita, the
landscape we can never truly spatial arrangement around which
know? the duality of illusory life and
illusory death play out. And you
Wandering the spaces of The Last will never walk among them.
of Us in order to catalogue them,
it’s these thoughts that occupy GDM
my mind. Perhaps, alongside the
jungle which seems to be creeping
into all of The Last of Us’ interiors
(something I discuss more in the
piece that follows these images),
it is because death is everywhere.
Each empty room in the game
suggests the long-absent presence
of living people. And yet, none of
these spaces have ever contained
life. They are ruins from birth,
never fading further into decay
and with no previous complete
state. Their furniture is there only
to evoke the previous presence of
life in a series of elaborate spatial
allusions. Though this is true
of many games, it is somehow
Following pages: The Last of Us


Death in the
Anthropocene

T
he image of an empty to Salt Lake City. The Last of city blocks have been overtaken year, the Working Group on
room, deadened with Us, unlike the vague place- with vines and trees, dappling the Anthropocene presented
dust, stained with setting of many post-apocalyptic golden sunlight across the rusted the International Geological
age, marked by the games, chooses to mirror these remains of humanity’s apparent Congress with the evidence for An aesthetic
shadowy presence of immovable places, placing landmarks on the technological peak. Naughty Dog’s declaring the designation of a monument
furniture beneath a flat and failing skyline, even remaking portions artists seem to seek beauty in this new geological epoch, the first
light. Outside, the first green of real streets to a high degree conflict, treating each architectural since the Holocene began with
to our desire
shoots of a new spring pick at the of accuracy. But its recreations diorama with a tireless eye for the end of the Palaeolithic Ice for erasure
windows, softening the border of these urban and rural spaces detail and poetry. Floral motifs in Age 11,700 years ago. Termed the by the
between interior and exterior. are little more than hollow shells, stonework are twinned with real Anthropocene, this epoch is to be
Soon, through the slow strength emptied of life by a parasitic plant life, murals of city skylines defined by the effect of human
entropy of
of those woody tendrils, that fungus that preys on human flesh. are overtaken by moss, and even societies on the environment, nature.
border will collapse, the room In the absence of humanity, the the rotting of a carpet or the biodiversity, and geological
torn open to the sun to become spaces of The Last of Us have patterns of mold on a plaster record of Earth. Carbon pollution,
just another unremarkable rise become overgrown, and like the wall are treated with the utmost leading to global warming and
in the landscape. That is the game’s title screen, are crowded care and an ever-precise eye for the acidification of the oceans, as
lasting image the environments with plants and trees, breaking composition. In short, the spaces well as rising ocean levels, fatal
of The Last of Us leave us with, through tarmac and extending of The Last of Us are not simply a habit loss, extinction, industrial
epitomized in the game’s title shoots across concrete walls. realist vision of how cities might farming, mining, and mineral
screen, which sees a single snaking look after a decade or two without extraction have all contributed
vine curling through a mossy, The result is a certain romantic people, but a fantasy of death, an to humanity’s undeniable impact
flaking window frame, curtains softness to the game’s apocalyptic aesthetic monument to our desire on the planet. Though the term
softly swaying in the breeze. imagery of vast human loss. for erasure by the entropy of emerged around the turn of the
Though its cities are dotted with nature. millennium, it has only recently
Taking a near-future America as its burnt-out cars, sun-bleached become so contested, championed,
setting, developer Naughty Dog’s corpses, and the ephemera I say a fantasy because the and redefined outside of geological
2013 post-apocalyptic drama leads of a dead way of life, they are idea of humanity’s erasure by study. In his influential book The
the player in a westward path also fecund with natural forms. the beautiful, unconstrained, Birth of the Anthropocene, Jeremy
from Boston, through facsimiles Flooded roads have been recast morally exempt forces of Davis acknowledges the problem
of Lincoln and Pittsburgh, then as algae-choked swamps, gurgling nature is no longer something of the “diverse, contested, and
across Colorado and Wyoming with amphibians, while whole which is available to us. Last even incompatible ways” the term
Previous page: The Last of Us:


Flooded
roads have
been recast
as algae-
choked
swamps,
gurgling with
amphibians.
Left and above: Massachusetts State

House, Boston, depicted as ovegrown
and rich with life, The Last of Us
has been used, proposing instead changing environment. It does not
that we should allow “no more cast “humanity” as a lone, singular
clean breaks that put humans actor in the fate of the planet,
on one side and nature on the but instead places diverse human
other.” While this may be a noble societies within the network of
sentiment, it is difficult to separate dynamic processes that shape our
the term from this implication. environment.
The Anthropocene cannot help but
carry apocalyptic connotations. Perhaps paradoxically, while
For example, one of the working seeming to imply a human-centric
group’s propositions for the point view of the world, the term
at which it commenced is the Anthropocene does the opposite,
first “Trinity” nuclear test in New proposing that through becoming
Mexico, which took place at 5:29 a geological and biological actor,
am on July the 16th, 1945. Such human societies enter into a more
a moment, the commencement holistic relationship with their
of the nuclear age, as well as the environment. The delineating
language of crisis and disruption of the Anthropocene is part of a
that surrounds the term seems to change in how we see our world,
tie it inextricably to the idea of a eschewing ideas of a planet built
terminal conflict between nature by slow and logical processes
and man. of build-up and erosion, and
instead proposing a timeline
And yet, this is a distinct made of chaotic and catastrophic
misreading of the term. After all, shifts amplified by feedback
the Anthropocene represents mechanisms. In this long view, the
not just the exponential effect of naming of Anthropocene simply
human societies on the biosphere, adds humanity, as a diverse and
but the way in which human complex force, to this catalogue of
societies will change, shift, or shifts. As Davis puts it: “the idea of
collapse in response to this rapidly the Anthropocene may yield above
Right: A decaying block in Boston, The

Last of Us Remastered (Gareth Damian
Martin).

all a sense of locatedness in time, and understated parent-child
a sense of being caught in one drama has been clearly influential
particular historical moment.” on Naughty Dog. But while The
"Of a thing Last of Us’ trout seems to be a
that could When we return to the spaces of symbol of “balance” returning
The Last of Us with this in mind, in the absence of humanity,
not be put we can begin to see the game’s McCarthy’s was only “once”
back. Not be fantasy of erasure for what it is. found in mountain streams, and
made right In The Last of Us, so-called nature remains lost forever, its markings
exists in a direct binary to human interpreted as “patterns that were
again.” society: when one is removed maps of the world in its becoming.
the other flourishes. The cities Maps and mazes. Of a thing that
of the game display exactly what could not be put back. Not be
Davis calls “the facile amorality made right again.”
of the truism that nature will not
miss humankind after humanity’s If we ignore the implied morality
inevitable demise.” The leafy in that line, McCarthy is accurate.
canopies that grow in the streets While the urban centers of
of Lincoln, the spreading grasses America may become overgrown
of Pittsburgh, and the chirruping havens in the same fashion as The
life that is depicted as living Last of Us depicts, the landscapes
among their leaves couldn’t be any that allowed those cities to be
more ambivalent to the absence created, function, and grow would
of humans in The Last of Us’ not be similarly returned to
decimated cities. In fact, when we natural processes. If humanity was
find a grinning trout pirouetting to be wiped out, there would be
in a green and lush lagoon in the no return to natural beauty for the
streets of Pittsburgh, it seems Aral Sea, for example, which has
like a parody of the ending of shrunk to a tenth of its size, and
Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, is now little more than a handful
whose post-apocalyptic road trip of acrid lakes in a desert of heavy
Right: A "grinning trout" in a Pittsburgh

swamp, The Last of Us Remastered
(Gareth Damian Martin).

metals, defoliants, and pesticides presumably the source of The Last to collapse the dichotomy that has with Ellie explaining how she
which are poisining the land and of Us’ triumphant trout—being the led to this state of affairs. There is is waiting for “her turn.” The
the people around it. The Great most toxic in the country. no orthodoxy to our biosphere, no narrative of the game depicts
Barrier Reef, the Earth’s largest way that “things should be,” only both of them as becoming In reality, we
living structure, has this year been So where does that leave the green the complex web of interrelated increasingly compromised by are tethered
declared as being in a “terminal and growing apocalypse of The processes and events that shape their own survival—earning life
state” as warmer waters, caused Last of Us? The point here is not our world. The Last of Us is not for themselves by ending the lives
to nature,
by man-made climate change, have critiquing the game’s accuracy necessarily ignorant of this, but of others. They are, both in their our fates are
repeatedly bleached the coral. when it comes to depicting the it is a reflection of the desire we respective death wishes and their intertwined.
It’s impossible to imagine it being potential for natural reclamation must overcome in order to accept increasing desperation, symbolic
“put back” to full health in a few of its locations, but instead this state of being. The way of of humanity as a compromised
decades of humanity’s absence. highlighting how its representation The Last of Us, the dichotomy force that by existing worsens its
It’s important to understand that of a post-apocalyptic landscape of natural and man-made, the own situation. Joel in particular
these events are inextricably purposefully diverges from the contrast of tree and building, the seems to be desperate for death,
linked to the urban spaces The true environmental conditions of conflict of man and world is the his actions placing himself in
Last of Us depicts—our cities our everyday reality. The spaces way of death, of the ultimate end situations where he is at increasing
subsist on and because of the of The Last of Us are not so much of humanity’s existence. The Last risk and yet manages to survive
industrial processes that lead to a record of a possible apocalypse, of Us is an apocalyptic vision, not by descending further into moral
these disasters. And while vast but the dream of one instead. It just in its literal depiction of the degradation. Even after spending
amounts of money and energy should be clear by now that our end of humanity as we know it, but months at the edge of death,
are being expended to keep these legacy, our impact as a species in its anthropocentric assertion within minutes of waking he is
environmental effects out of the cannot be erased by nature, even a of the fate of the world resting in depicted as already torturing his
cities that require them to survive, nature so aggressively hostile to us a conflict between humanity and victims, a grim inevitability to his
we are unable to conceal the scale as the game’s Cordyceps fungus. nature. actions. Death refuses to grant
of our environmental impact any The Last of Us’ bucolic fantasy will the protagonists of The Last of Us
longer. Pittsburgh, which in The not come to pass. The concept of In reality, we are tethered to freedom from their own actions,
Last of Us is brimming with flora the Anthropocene tells us as much, nature, our fates are intertwined. just as in the Anthropocene we
and fauna, is the most polluted by both treating our environmental The Last of Us is in denial of this. are spared the punishment of
city on the East Coast of America, impact with the severity it Its two protagonists, ruthless a hostile apocalypse, and are
with the Ohio river—one of three deserves, but also by uniting us survivor Joel and the resilient instead condemned to become
that run through the city and with “natural” processes, in order Ellie, both admit to a death wish, part of nature, its decline a holistic

The Last of
Us’ bucolic
fantasy will
not come to
pass.
Left and above: Cities reclaimed by

nature, The Last of Us Remastered
(Gareth Damian Martin).
pattern that if fulfilled will draw part of an invading force assaulting of both. And yet The Last of Us conversation takes place above
us with it, not because we are human infrastructure. In reality, does not wholly commit to this the first entirely new settlement
its enemy, but because we are Hurricane Harvey has more than philosophy. It may be born into it, we have seen in the game. Built
one and the same. Like Joel and likely done massive damage to but by its end, its spaces resemble not in the ruins or shadows of an
Ellie, there is a desire within us oyster reefs and seagrass beds on not a dogmatic assertion of the existing town or city, this image,
to be punished by nature, for our the Texas coast, which will have binary of man and nature, but a of humble houses growing up
travesties against it to be washed lasting and significant effects on transition towards acceptance and among forest and woodlands is
away. the regions ecosystems. There will the open potential of change. a counterpoint to the bucolic
be no sharks or sea life surging destruction the player has passed
This vision of nature is a into the environments created by Perhaps it is because death never through up until now. The old
hallucination, a falsehood. It its destructive power, instead they comes. Neither Ellie nor Joel are ways are dead, but people still
relies on the idea of a natural too will have been displaced, and given their wish for erasure, and live on. And the spaces they make
world that exists outside of our even killed, in their thousands. the cure for the Cordyceps fungus will be those that define how the
own subjective witnessing of it, To recognize the epoch of the that Ellie’s death would have borders between the natural and
which is both separate from us Anthropocene is to recognize the brought about is lost. Humanity humanity will be drawn. It’s not a
and simultaneously hostile to complexity of this interrelation. neither masters nature, nor question of success or hope, but
our destruction of its various The death wish, the fantasy of submits to it, and the overriding instead an understanding of the
aspects. When, just last month, erasure that Joel and Ellie possess, impression at the end of the opportunity afforded by changing
Hurricane Harvey descended on which is reflected in the beautiful game is one of “going on.” The conditions. Perhaps this is the
Houston, bringing rainfall upward destruction of the urban spaces of game famously ends with a lie, as image we should carry forward
of 40 inches, killing 70 people and The Last of Us, is directly opposed Joel attempts to conceal how he from The Last of Us, not the
displacing more than 300,000, one to this. It is an attempt to hold denied Ellie her noble sacrifice romance of a world consumed by
of the images widely shared on onto an old way of being, while in the name of humanity. This the green fire of nature, but the
social media was a fake, digitally still recognizing humanity’s impact lie, heard and acknowledged by acceptance of responsibility, the
manipulated image of a shark on the world. It functions within Ellie, suggests a betrayal, but it gathering of self-determination,
swimming alongside a car on a a language of guilt and moral also signifies acceptance. Her final and the imagination to see a future
flooded highway. This iconography penitence, but it is ultimately line, a simple “OK,” doesn’t feel that doesn’t end with death.
is the same as that of The Last of self-aggrandizing, egotistical, and like a failure, or submission, but
Us: it creates a direct association hostile. It seeks to damn humanity like the most powerful act of self- GDM
between environmental disaster and elevate nature with little determination in the game. It’s
and animal life, as if both were understanding of the conditions hard not to notice that this entire



Tokyo
Lo-fi
materiality Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne | Sean Han Tani

I
n Final Fantasy XV, players drawings. For such a minuscule days fixing the animations of a or HD art styles. Consider games
collect ingredients, set up part of a game to engorge so mole that walks along tunnels in a before 2010 with total or partial
campfires, and cook meals much production time and budget single area, rather than replacing lo-fi art styles. Some of these
in order to increase the stats is exemplary of the worship of the mole with something less older games aspired towards Photorealism
of party members. These meals photorealism in videogames. animation-heavy. This level of photorealism while lacking the is a goal
range from simple toast or instant Sure, there are reasons to pursue detail applied to every aspect of hardware to do so effectively.
noodles to elaborate pastries and photorealism: it can be politically the game—such as cutscenes, art Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne
chased for
curries. What sets the food in Final important, such as when a style revisions, and level design— (hereon Nocturne) is a visually its own sake.
Fantasy XV apart from that seen designer requires historical contributed to the development striking game, despite its ‘old’
in other games is its delicious, accuracy in the recreation of a time of three-and-a-half years. graphics. First released in Japan
photorealistic appearance. To neighborhood, building, or person. in early 2003, it is a monster-
achieve this, the game's artists However, it is more often the For a long time I believed the only collecting JRPG set in post-
camped outdoors, cooked, and case, at least in videogames, that way to reduce the costs of content- apocalyptic Tokyo. It had a team of
photographed the 100+ dishes. photorealism is a goal chased for heavy games with high-fidelity art about 15 artists, as opposed to the
On the motivation behind this its own sake. The way it’s justified was to make them smaller. But, roughly 500 (counting contractors)
elaborate process, director Hajime is through the steadfast belief that recently, I’ve found another and artists that worked on Final
Tabata stated: "We have to create more detailed and closer-to-life perhaps better solution to reduce Fantasy XV.
truly delicious-looking food scenes visuals are the medium’s natural the traditional quality of the
similar to those that appear in way to progress. art. What stopped me from this Nocturne is full of ‘low-quality’
movies and anime." discovery before was the prevalent textures, objects, and spaces,
So ingrained is this idea in attitude towards what are deemed yet its art style conjures an
Despite the effort put into the videogame culture that even ‘lo-fi graphics’—a widely-held view atmosphere more thematically
visuals, in a single playthrough of in people like myself, a game is that they are inherently bad. dense and memorable than many
Final Fantasy XV, players will only developer in a tiny team, there But this shouldn’t be the case. contemporary games. Interrogating
see the food on-screen a couple exists a nagging sense that a They are not always a rush job or the art style shows Nocturne
dozen times at most, framed in an game never looks good enough. a mistake. They have, in recent achieves this atmosphere through
adoring close-up that only lasts a In the past, this mindset has led years, even emerged as an art style abstraction-based techniques for
few seconds. The food does look myself and friends to overfocus in their own right. We can and visual and spatial design. What is
delicious, but the game’s quality on perfecting gratuitous details. should do more than dismiss lo-fi exciting about these techniques is
would barely change had the In Joni Kittaka and I’s eight-plus graphics as a historical stepping that some of them do not require
3D food been replaced by, say, hour game Even the Ocean, I spent stone, inferior to photorealistic years of technical training in
Previous page: Tokyo, (Jeremy Holt).

programming or visual arts, and lights cast in impractical ways, and
thus, these techniques are easy for shadows appearing without visible
game developers to use to create light sources.
new forms of visual expression in
their games. Without actively looking, it’s
harder to notice the lack of
In Nocturne, Tokyo has just gone photorealism in the floor tiles of
through a nuclear apocalypse, and Nocturne’s subways than it is to
so it has the player travel the city notice it in a poster on the wall.
in order to decide how to rebuild Advertisements, printed materials,
it. Nocturne makes no attempt to and commercial items like clothing
create a realistic Tokyo, instead, appear throughout Nocturne, all of
it focuses on abstractions of which invite players to parse them
public and commercial spaces like for written or visual information.
subways and malls, occasionally But these objects aren’t suited
with more directly referenced real- to that type of inspection and
world spaces, such as Shibuya only cause the fidelity of the
Crossing. game to fracture. Posters and
ads appear too blurry or too
While the artists aimed to dress sharp; a stack of newspapers
the game’s spaces in realistic resembles a cube rather than
textures, the art direction is individual sheets, making it clear
ethereal—this is accomplished these were objects placed as
through the eerie lack of human atmospheric shorthands rather
presence, a refusal to make than sources of information. These
accurate recreations of Tokyo types of objects act strangely in
spaces, and the use of unrealistic games. Look at the screenshot
lighting. The latter is especially of the "Yushima Station: Safety
captivating, as it sees ambient Message.” If the object is blurry,
lighting illuminate empty rooms in like the station exit diagram on the
bizarre shades of purple or blue, left, it immediately separates the
Right from top: Nocturne's post-

apocalypse Shinjuku Medical Center and
Shibuya Crossing (Sean Han Tani).

player’s reality from the game’s into a less realistic space.
should they attempt to read it.
There is also a problem when the Another glaring aspect of
Repetition object is clear and readable, like Nocturne’s environments that go
makes the the warning sign on the right, as against its photorealistic ambitions
this isn’t a game about obeying is repetition. There are two types
whole of train signs, and its sharpness of repetition in the game, the
Tokyo feel makes it weirdly clear when almost first being object-scale repetition,
impression- everything else around it is hazy. where a single object like a poster
The artist who placed this sign shows up multiple times across
istic, as if probably wanted it to stand as a the game’s world. For example,
it were a nod to the pre-apocalyptic history the same handbag and dress is
dream of the of the station platform, as a way to used within Shibuya and Ginza’s
ground it in a reality closer to the shopping malls. In the “Shibuya
city. player’s, but its inconsistency with Bags” screenshot, you can see
the textures around it pull it more identical, blurry, 2D handbags
towards achieving the opposite. shown in the window displays
of multiple shops. It’s an almost
One solution to this would be unmissable sight that, being so
to remove all the posters and unusual, instills disquiet in the
signs, but that may make Tokyo mind of players as they explore
strangely bare. Whereas rendering the shopping mall. There are also
the posters blurry makes them posters for cultural events in
too obviously fake, having them Asakusa, restaurant/bar ads in a
sharp enough to read causes mall directory, and train station
them to stand out too much ads for real estate and movies.
in this indistinct world. It is Players cannot attend or visit any
better to view these ‘problems’ of the advertised places, but they
as a technique that can, like the help to color an area and invite
train station signs, be utilized to the observer to imagine these
carefully place references to reality non-existent spaces. Adding to
Right from top: Nocturne's Yushima

Station: Safety Message and Shibuya
Bags (Sean Han Tani).

This page:
Examples of
repetition
throughout
Nocturne's
malls and
stations
(Sean Han
Tani).

their otherworldliness, the ads are building,” which renders an area, improving the theming rooms beyond them looks the
found in the exact same places Nocturne’s mall abstracted enough and atmosphere of a space without same. Even if they are filled with
throughout the game’s different— to feel as if it sits somewhere incurring a massive cost. This different objects, the walls painted
Players are yet identical in terms of layout— between a mundane shopping is a technique that permeates in opposing colors, the scale and
supposed train stations, as if their positions space and fantastical dungeon. videogames, even today, but it layout of these rooms betrays their
were an esoteric code hidden in Meanwhile, Shibuya shopping is always intended to support differences as they are all based on
to see these plain sight. mall’s doorways are surrounded the illusion of reality. Players are the same blueprint.
repeated by two cylindrical pillars. On these supposed to see these repeated
items and Another instance of this unusual pillars is a texture containing items and rooms as evocative This spatial repetition also
repetition is seen in Kabukicho an image made from dots, from of reality, of large and complex happens in almost every dungeon
rooms as Prison (both a mall and prison which its possible to make out the spaces where busy lives once in Nocturne—be it Asakusa’s
evocative of in the game) where, as soon as design of a female human form. played out. But if they see the storerooms, or the Diet Building’s
reality. the player enters, they see two This, too, creates an uncanniness, obvious repetition they effectively conference rooms. Because this
identical building directories to similar to the “Safety Message,” rip through the illusion and are kind of design results in entering
both sides. This directory texture as the figure’s form appears too confronted with the uncanny, similar looking spaces over and
repeats throughout Kabukicho. close to the real thing. Not only which can be sinister or beguiling. over, it can be tedious for players
There is no use for this directory do other humanoid bodies in Knowing this, it would be easy to traverse them. However, like
other than to contribute to the Nocturne sport an anime look, to invert and repurpose these 3D with how Kabukicho feels like an
impersonation of Japan’s real but the game’s fiction sees that objects and photographic textures abstraction of a shopping mall, this
shopping and dining centers, traces of humanity are mostly in a way that explores the more room repetition makes the whole
which feature similar directories. found in demons, written text, divergent effects the uncanny can of Tokyo feel impressionistic, as if
The mall is barren and damaged. and architecture, rather than the have on a player’s psyche. it were a dream of the city rather
These directories, along with bodies themselves. The texture than a recreation of the place
a few stray objects and doors, on the pillars is faint and easy to The second type of repetition in itself.
help characterize the space—to miss, but it is worth considering Nocturne is room-scale—that is,
get players to think about the for the juxtaposition it creates architectural spaces. Mostly, this One of the more obvious examples
overlaying of a shopping center between itself and the avatar’s is the recurrence of entire rooms, of room-scale repetition is the
and a JRPG dungeon. In staying body through which players can such as the stores in Shibuya and staircase room. Used throughout
blurred, rather than sharp, the see it. patient rooms in the Shinjuku Nocturne’s locations, the staircase
texture creates an impression of With the right placement, a simple Medical Center. A hallway has room connects two floors of a
a generalized “Tokyo shopping object can be reused throughout many doors, but each of the building or dungeon together,

such as the Shinjuku Hospital, create a motif, as well as a callback
Kabukicho Prison, and Diet to the beginning of the game.
Building. Though the art styles are This motif encourages players to
different in each, each staircase question how far they’ve actually
room uses a similar camera angle progressed—no matter how much
and room size. Most players likely impact players have on the city,
realize this on an subconscious its architecture only reinforces the
level at first, since Nocturne’s idea that they have done nothing.
camera rarely fixes itself in the Additionally, these places are one
corner of a space as it does here, of the few areas where players
instead preferring to follow behind can run around without the fear
the main character most of the of fighting demons. The station
time. This kind of repetition can entrances function as sets of
help create a spatial motif to run visual markers to provide mental
throughout a game. relief from the oppressive and
fantastical dungeons of the game.
A similar use of repetition is seen The takeaway here is that literal
in the train stations in Nocturne, re-use of an architectural space,
which are all identical, except at distant points within a game's
for a few navigational signs, playthrough, can be used for
characters, and decorative blood artistic effect.
textures. What’s interesting with
this repetition is probably an Out of the Tokyo underground
accident. The first area visited in mimicked in Nocturne it is
the game is pre-apocalypse Yoyogi Asakusa that is most noteworthy
Park Station. Except for lighting due to the size of its sprawl.
and a single character, the area is Unlike Shibuya or Ginza—where
identical to the post-apocalypse the bulk of its spaces are reachable
train station entrances that come without returning to the overworld
later. Like the staircases, the map—in navigating Asakusa,
copy-paste nature of the stations players must travel multiple
From right: Nocturne's repeated

staircase rooms and Asakusa World
Map (Sean Han Tani).

times between the underground, allows. Look to Persona 5, in which that, whether intentionally or not,
aboveground, and overworld map. players are limited to a curated, help to feed the multi-layered
This type of navigation mimics but highly detailed, representation histories of Tokyo contained in
What does that of navigating denser areas of of Shibuya. The game’s textures its setting. Imagine more games
it mean to Tokyo—reaching a destination may and spaces sell the idea of limitless that create similarly layered
involve traversing underground exploration and activity but, upon environments, or games that make
have an department stores or malls. investigation, turns out to be meaning by utilizing breaks from
abstraction disappointingly lean. reality. Designers could gracefully
of Asakusa? To accomplish this size, the utilize tools of abstraction, not as
game’s artists had to make the Nocturne's Asakusa can lead to a way to purposefully obfuscate
hallways of Asakusa repetitive, questions such as: What does it (or hide the lack of ) any meaning Sean Han Tani is
re-using the same flooring, wall, mean to have an abstraction of through excessively surreal or a Taiwanese and
and ceiling patterns throughout Asakusa? What 'symbols' should abstract designs, but to emphasize Japanese American
the many underground tunnels. remain after the abstraction? a game’s themes or design goals. music producer and
Though their layouts differ, a What should players do there? To understand the worth of game designer. His
set of hallways must be entered In Nocturne, you see the famous these techniques, and find new studio, Analgesic
each time players travel to a Nakamise-dōri shopping street, a ones, critics and artists should Productions,
different part of Asakusa, each large Torii gate, and the population revisit older games with a view to created Anodyne
one appearing identical to the of oppressed "Manikins" trying interrogate what has traditionally and Even the Ocean.
last. One has travelled, but the to rebuild the town. Rather than been passed off as low-quality or He is working a solo
repetition makes it feel like no be overwhelmed by visual detail, crude. It’s unlikely the cultural game, All Our Asias,
distance has been covered. This players only have this minimal set pursuit for photorealistic graphics as well as a new
can be a tiresome experience for of visuals to think about in relation will ever stop, but perhaps the music album. He is
players but it does at least create to real Asakusa. Nocturne’s use and understanding of lo- a part-time lecturer
a sense of scale that is manageable Asakusa is a layering of four fi techniques will allow games at the School of
for a small team. The technique histories: historical (Nakamise- to be made in new ways, more the Art Institute of
seen in the repeating hallways also dōri), contemporary (underground efficiently, and hopefully more Chicago.
avoids a phenomenon brought on hallways), post-apocalyptic, and a healthily for the people whose
by highly realistic representations rebuilding Tokyo (Manikins). lives are poured into them.
of cities, where players desire to What is seen in Nocturne is the
do more in the city than the game use of cost-cutting techniques SHT

The Empty City
feature Gareth Damian Martin | Mirror's Edge Catalyst

T
he first photographs of life, powerful in their sense of comically megalomaniacal image, the largest concentration being in
cities depicted them as absence, we realize that the city no it stands for a city whose financial Kensington and Chelsea, an area
empty. Louis Daguerre's longer needs us. That while they industries and corporate interests that contains some of the most
revolutionary silver are built in service of life, they are slowly homogenizing its center, expensive residential property We realise
plates required several minutes to do not possess it, and that each and pushing residents out to the in the world. If we extend this that the city
be exposed, and so in his images, individual is nothing more to them periphery. Near its peak, 13 floors study to "luxury" cities like Dubai
the Paris of 1838 became a city of than the wind or the rain. To put it contain only 10 vast apartments, or Doha, you find vast swathes
no longer
ghosts, the motion on the traffic simply, looking at Daguerre's Paris, visible but distantly unreachable of empty, brand-new property, needs us
and people excluding them from it's hard not to feel left out. for the millions that look up at with more than 20 percent of
the image. This technical limitation them, each day. And yet these Dubai's property vacant. All of this
would be addressed within two Feeling left out is a familiar perverse residences, in total an functions on the same economy of
decades, but it remains part of feeling for anyone living in a area the size of 80 average British luxury, pristine spaces being built
photography's history, and in contemporary city in Northern homes, also stand empty. In five for and sold to people who will
some sense, a reminder of its America or Western Europe. years not a single one has been never use them. Structures like
defining feature: that, whether we Growing inequality means that sold. "the Shard," owned almost entirely
are discussing the oldest surviving many cities are now harshly by Qatar and rented primarily to
photograph, Nicéphore Niépce's divided along financial lines and Perhaps it's no surprise to find out Qatar-owned interests, are vast
heliograph, which took several chopped up by private ownership. such symbols of untold luxury and bubbles, empty glassy structures
days to expose in 1827, or the Corporate security, glittering office vast wealth are empty, unused, but that appear aspirational but are in
1/40000 of a second an iPhone blocks, and expensive restaurants this is not an isolated example. fact hollow promises of opulence
6s takes to expose an image, a now go hand in hand, elegantly It is part of the new form of the that serve nothing but the cynical
photograph is a record of a period, positioned in "public" squares contemporary city. While, unlike interests of the financial elite.
not a single frozen moment. It is that put anti-homeless spikes on the Shard, the 50-storey tower at
this that makes the photograph, as any ledges, and forbid any activity St. James Wharf (the tallest purely Knowing this, I was unsurprised to
a form, technically adverse to both other than consumption. The residential building in the UK) may find the extravagant, elegant, and
movement and life. symbols of these spaces are clear have sold most of its apartments, pristine skyscrapers of Mirror's
to see across many skylines. In 184 of the 210 residences have no Edge Catalyst almost entirely
But those early Daguerreotypes London, the city I call home, "the resident registered with the local devoid of life. The game's city of
also reveal something similar Shard," Europe's tallest building, council. Meanwhile, across London Glass, in the fictional, corporate-
about cities. In looking at their can be seen from almost any it is estimated that around 200,000 owned republic of Cascadia,
blank streets, wiped of all human raised part of the city. An almost homes lie owned but empty, with is perhaps the most glossy,
Previous and following pages: Mirror's

Edge Catalyst (Gareth Damian Martin).

exuberant architectural space I Daguerre's cityscapes, this at first London. There's a precision, ceaseless desire for wealth and
have encountered in a game. It is a appears to be a technological limit, a sense of detail to the game's power. It is a familiar image—
masterclass in surface and sheen, a problem that will be addressed in environment that reveals it as the despotic ruler sitting godlike
Distant its ivory whites honeycombed the coming decades as computing a careful study of vapid luxury. above his domain—and yet unlike
groups with subtle patterns that refract power and more sophisticated And while this is a city cast the troublingly accurate, elevated,
the neon strip lights and plate- simulations are developed, as a controlling dystopia, it is empty city of luxury and wealth
that are glass landscape of the rooftops. allowing developer DICE to fill also purposefully enticing, even that Mirror's Edge Catalyst
little more As you pass through it, the layers their city with believable figures. beautiful. It is perhaps the least portrays, this image is a fiction. If
than scale of reflection, glass, white volumes, And yet, also like Daguerre's convincing dystopia I have ever we were to scale our own Shard
and steel sculptures blur into an images, Mirror's Edge Catalyst is witnessed, as if in the process of in search of retribution we would
references impregnable hyper-real visual somehow a record of a period, of creating it, DICE's artists became only find the symptom, not the
from field. But stop for a moment an era. enticed by the incredible sheen of cure. There we would sit, alone
architectural and the incoherent emptiness it all, and only sought to extend and unwatched, in one of the most
of the space becomes evident. We live in the time of the empty the reach of surface and glitter expensive apartments in the world,
renders. Rows and rows of bar stools sit city. Though it might not be across an entire urban landscape. surrounded by marble and exotic
at icy-white counters. Absurdly DICE's intention to reflect this materials, cushioned in exclusive
stretched black couches line floor in Mirror's Edge Catalyst, their Strangely enough, both Mirror's furniture, looking out on a city
to ceiling windows. Corporate glossy unreality can't help but Edge Catalyst, and the original that from that far up, can only look
meeting rooms sit in bizarre roof- do so. Perhaps this insipid spirit game have buildings called "The totally, unrelentingly, empty.
mounted glass boxes, vacant entered their city of Glass through Shard." Rising up amongst the
reception desks glowing nearby. its references—a thousand mood- skyline, they differ in design from GDM
Sculpture, form, and function boarded photographs cribbed London's huge tower, but still
become interlaced in patterns that from adverts for luxury bars and create an odd point of connection
create a ceaseless flow of exclusive apartments. I see their traces, with the real world. In both games
urban space. And apart from the from the wicker texturing of their they are the predictable location
occasional static mission-giving seaside couches, identical to those for the narrative's final encounter.
figures, the citizens behind glass, that stand outside the luxury bars It is there, at the highest point in
or the distant groups that are little of the Costa Del Sol, to the dully the city, that we find the villains
more than scale references from reflective anthracite surfaces of that created these dystopias,
architectural renders, these spaces apartments not unlike those that whose greed and ego fashioned
are profoundly empty. Like with float in glass containers above a city as a reflection of their own



Ribcage
Xylophone
feature House of Eternal Return | Lawrence Lenhart

I
n his manifesto for with steppe landscapes, at baskets transformation. In an article in Navigating the hyper-architecture
museums, Turkish novelist brimming with indigenous baubles, USA Today, sociology professor of House of Eternal Return is a feat
Orhan Pamuk decries at pretty panoramic sameness. David Merolla says, “It may be of oneironautics. Hungry? Check
museums that have been Then hurry up and leave. Cackle as it is part of a broader decline in the fridge. Nothing there? Climb “The first
designed to showcase national you pass the monolithic O’Keeffe social engagement. But people’s through it. I mean all the way gaming
opulence and symbolism. “The Museum. Not today, Georgia. social tastes change, too. It’s also through.
transitions from palaces to possible bowling isn’t what people
system
national museums and from the Outside of the city now, just a few do anymore.” So what are people More cave system than house, was the
epic to the novel are parallel miles southwest, you’ll sputter doing these days? You enter the its architecture baffles. Room by domesticated
processes,” Pamuk writes. “The into the post-industrial hub erstwhile Silva Lanes on Rufina room, you are transformed:
epic is like a palace: it speaks of known as Rufina Circle. Behold Circle to find out. flame”
the heroic gestures of the kings the vintage sign fashioned like Trespasser – because first,
that inhabited them. National a bowling pin. MEOW WOLF, it You begin on the lawn before a you must let yourself into the
museums should be like novels, reads vertically. When I first read reconstructed Victorian home. Victorian mansion, uninvited
but this is not the case.” Robert D. Putnam’s Bowling Alone, Supposedly, you’re not in Santa
I was skeptical and a little sad. Fe anymore, but in Mendocino, Troglodyte – once through the
If “the future of museums begins Putnam points to the downtrend in California. At this distance, the fireplace, you stand again—a biped
at home,” then House of Eternal bowling leagues as a barometer for house looks utterly approachable. in a Pleistocene cave, striking a
Return is henceforth the National America’s declining social capital. You feel like you’re selling Girl mastodon ribcage-cum-xylophone
Museum of the United States of The book, subtitled “collapse and Scout cookies or something. with a mallet to sonorous effect
America. revival of American community,”
suggests generations succeeding Upon entering the House of Guppy – floating along
To get there, take your vehicle of the “Great” one have been doomed Eternal Return, your neck swivels, through neon kelp forest, your
choice to America’s oldest capital for social isolation. takes in the living room. Furniture, momentary habitat is a jumbo-
city: Santa Fe, New Mexico. Ogle, floorboards, fish tank. You pivot scale GloFish aquarium
if you will, the pueblo-style adobe Other political scientists have to your right, melt to your knees,
structures in the center of town; contested Putnam’s research, crawl towards the fireplace, and The deeper you dream into this
at night, the flat roofs flit with the arguing that the collapse of then through it. “The first gaming house, the more chaos will ensue.
flames of farolito (paper lanterns). bowling culture has not left a system was the domesticated You are not just liberated by
Romantic! Gaze into gallery void in civic engagement, but flame,” Ben Lerner writes in Angle fantasy, but also by the nonlinear
windows—at canvases stretched an opportunity for cultural of Yaw. Do you burn? Well, sort of. gymnastics of it. Think steampunk
Previous page: The strange interiors of

House of Eternal Return (Meow Wolf ).

Sasuke. You vectorize and eccentric tenant. Wasn’t it Wright
voyeurize. who also said the architect must
be a true prophet? “If [they] can’t
Each artifact There is plot (we’ll get to that), but see at least ten years ahead, don’t
is its own it’s often eclipsed by overwhelming call [them] an architect.”
subplot and sub-subplot. Proof:
disruptive if in architecture, the house is Painters. Architects. Sculptors.
technology, the plot, then behold the room as Videographers. Audio engineers.
a cipher subplot. Writers. Mediation is the modus
operandi of House of Eternal
with which Recall Frank Lloyd Wright’s dictum Return, Meow Wolf’s first
to solve that “space is the breath of art.” permanent exhibition.
the house’s
The liberation is also financial. At 20,000 square feet (or exactly
central How many times have you paid the size of an abandoned bowling
mystery. the price of admission only to alley), the house is an exercise
be told: DO NOT TOUCH. Here, in partition. Note: for an eternal
at the House of Eternal Return, sense of return, you must balance
YOU MUST TOUCH. You start it with equal parts departure.
hallucinating ways to get your There is an overabundance of
bang for your (18) bucks. You bang doors: front doors and back doors,
cabinets. You buck against closet bedroom doors and bathroom
walls. You are getting your money’s doors, saloon-style “batwing”
worth. There is theater in the free doors, out-swing trailer doors,
market. space-age pneumatic sliding doors,
trap doors, and beaded curtains.
With novelist George R. R. Martin There are also secret doors:
(you know, of Game of Thrones?) fireplaces, refrigerators, and dryer
as the lessee (he’s paid for the first doors. There are other portals, too:
10 years of the alley’s rent), Meow helixing slides, walk-in-turned-
Wolf art collective makes for an walk-through closets, television
Right: House of Eternal Return (Meow

Wolf ).

What may
feel like a
liminal and
distressing
experience
to you,
may bring
only solace
to your
companion.
This page: House of

Eternal Return
(Meow Wolf ).

tunnels, spiral staircases, circular In House of Eternal Return, one printed backwards). Its relentless euphemism for death.
balconies, catwalks, tree houses, might say space misbehaves. nonlinearity is right there on the
foamy lily pads. The house is in a It constantly eludes due to cover: a compass rose emblazoned There’s also a notice to “Agent 35”
perpetual state of transition, flux. manipulations in perspective, atop a nautilus atop a maze. in the mailbox. Is that you? If so, Note: for
angle, flow, and scale. Depending set down your Girl Scout cookies an eternal
In Species of Spaces, Georges Perec on your dimensional literacy, If Frank Lloyd Wright’s method because you are on assignment:
notes: "the door breaks space in your kinesthetic awareness, your was to compress and release, “Effective immediately, you
sense of
two, splits it, prevents osmosis, spatial history, what may feel like a then House of Eternal Return isn’t are the custodian of the Selig return, you
imposes a partition. On one side, liminal and distressing experience afraid to compress and compress House.” In the wake of a “Class-1 must balance
me and my place, the private, to you, may bring only solace to again. Its maximalist architecture Break,” the house has apparently
the domestic (a space overfilled your companion. coils around you like a constrictor; been quarantined from its
it with
with my possessions: my bed, my as in dreams, architecture native dimension in Mendocino, equal parts
carpet, my table, my typewriter, I’ve withheld the comparison to anticipates your next move California to an abandoned departure.
my books, my odd copies of the Mark Z. Danielewski’s cult novel and manifests out of fantastical bowling alley in a small desert city.
Nouvelle Revue Francaise); on the House of Leaves long enough. convenience. There are rare heaps This “emergency safety measure”
other side, other people, the world, If you’ve never read it, see this of clutter, occasional corners of is meant to prevent the material
the public, politics." apt synopsis on The Rumpus: claustrophobia, but each artifact universe from collapsing. The
House of Leaves is a book about a is its own disruptive technology, notice goes on:
He goes on to consider the ways in book about a film about a house, a cipher with which to solve the
which space typically betrays our with all accompanying criticism house’s central mystery. "After the event, the memories and
desire for stability. There are no of said film. After meticulous emotions of the family were made
stable, deep-rooted places, Perec measurements, it’s discovered Let’s start over. You’re on the manifest. These pocket dimensions
writes. There are no true points that the titular house is “bigger on lawn again, about to enter. To cling to the house like parasites
of reference and departure and the inside, by half an inch, than it initiate plot, you must commit a and for the time being we are
origin. And so: "Space becomes a is on the outside.” This paradox federal offense. Open the mailbox, unable to sever them from proper
question, ceases to be self-evident, correlates to the text itself—what shuffle through correspondences reality… Keep the house safe.
ceases to be incorporated, ceases with its Joycean postmodernism, addressed to the Selig family. From Prevent it from collapsing further
to be appropriated. Space is a surplus of footnotes, labyrinthine letters of condolence, you glean into chaos. Search the home for
doubt: I have constantly to mark plot, and visual acrobatics (at that the family has lost their son, information about the cause of
it, to designate it." one point, you’re expected to Lex. Because you haven’t been the disaster and report back to us.
hold a mirror to text that’s inside yet, you assume “loss” is You will upload any information

As in
dreams,
architecture
anticipates
your next
move and
manifests
out of
fantastical
convenience.
This page: House of

Eternal Return
(Meow Wolf ).

you find to your account on Kocurek of Paste Magazine writes. Power of Positive Mechanics.” A croak. Looking for something
thecharter.org. You should start by Among these fraudulent artifacts fusion of astrophysics and the less colorful? See the dichromatic
familiarizing yourself with the day are “newspapers and brochures, occult (or so you intuit from the kitchen designed in the goth-quirk
of the event. There is a newspaper videos and letters,” (here, I would smattering of texts in his oddly style of Tim Burton. Floating
in the kitchen. That is all." add pill bottle labels, report cards, specialized library), Positive along
countercultural poster manifestos Mechanics is a cult, and Lucius In A Muse and a Maze, writer Peter
With that little blip of exposition for children’s bedrooms, political is the renegade leader who’s Turchi explores narrative flow à
through
out of the way, you proceed past punditry in the form of radio engineered portals to far-flung la David Jauss: "David Jauss neon kelp
the hic sunt dracones doormat. broadcasts in the Sonoran desert dimensions. What’s more, he has makes a strong case that, on the forest, your
Once inside the living room, trailer, and a revolving zoetrope) commodified those dimensions, microlevel, syntax serves as a kind
you are face-to-face-to-face- “the detritus of a strange and creating a multiverse travel of regulator. While he offers no
momentary
to-face-to-face with the family strangely absent family.” The texts agency that caters to wealthy formula for achieving ideal flow in habitat is
portrait. You summarily snoop don’t always align; for this reason, patrons looking to be psychically fiction, he suggests that varying a jumbo-
through their upstairs rooms. choose-your-own adventure transported to his perverted syntax is key. On the macrolevel,
The girl, Morgan, lives in pink feels more like choose-your-own simulations. It appears that he argues for variety in the length scale GloFish
post-gender technopunk angst. paradox. For example, step into Lucius’s technology has run and structure of scenes." While aquarium.
Her twin, Lex—who you start the bathroom. Its tile floors are away from him, though, resulting some “scenes” in House of Eternal
to suspect is dimensionally (not warped in an undulating topology; in a dystopian technological Return are easily digestible—
mortally) lost—has apparently peer into the toilet to find a tiny singularity. occasionally space skews
lost something of his own: a pet hologram of a boy. Lex, is that you? utilitarian or the art is relatively
hamster. So says the makeshift On the kitchen counter, though, While the house serves as a peptic—other dioramas can take
sign hanging above the empty there’s an invoice for a child’s narrative nucleus, the adjacent time to disentangle.
cage. You sit on his tiny bed and, coffin. For Lex? This penchant for nodes are the collective
when reading through his nature narrative and counter-narrative subconscious of the house. As the story accumulates,
diary from summer camp, start to is most active in the academic, Among the bevy of bioluminescent the nonlinear flow becomes
get the feeling that he’s socially professional, and chicken-scratch getaways, don’t miss out on the reminiscent of adventure/puzzle-
isolated. The ephemeral texts, marginalia of Lucius, the Selig nocturnal den (or is it a blanket platform videogames like Portal,
loosely defined, are open-ended family’s enigmatic patriarch. fort) wallpapered with the tapetum The 7th Guest, Everybody’s Gone
of course. “There are hundreds lucidum of beasts: owls, coyotes, to the Rapture, Dear Esther, and
if not thousands of fabricated In Lucius’s study, you find frogs, etc. They blink about you especially Gone Home. In the latter
artifacts and documents,” Carly documents pertaining to “The as the walls hoot, howl, yip, and game, released in 2013, protagonist

Katie Greenbriar returns home 5. Player attachment
from an extended trip abroad, 6. Negotiable consequences
only to discover the house is
Play your abandoned. Sound familiar? With Even game abstractionists like
ambient her sister and parents missing, Kocurek would probably find it
she’s left to sift through clues to difficult to ascribe all six elements
arpeggios to unravel a family drama which, to Gone Home or House of Eternal
a pitch-black unlike House of Eternal Return, Return. However, Kocurek notes
room. is rooted in social realism. It has that by defying “the reductive,
stoked controversies over the very algorithmic interpretation of
definition of “game.” Detractors action and interaction invoked in
have called Gone Home nothing too many games,” environmental
more than an interactive story, stories like House of Eternal
a design experience, an indie art Return “[lean] into the inherent
game, a museum with limited messiness both in building a
replay value, or worse: a walking game around an unpredictable
simulator. These incongruities are protagonist, and trying to make
serious red flags for ludologists— sense of human lives.” Regardless
perhaps because they deviate of its status as a game, there’s
too far from traditional gaming no doubt that this interaction—
principles. Game theorist Jesper fantastical mystery yoked to
Juul offers these six tenets in exhilarating flow—is play.
his book, Half Real: Video Games
Between Real Rules and Fictional In The Art of Game Design,
Worlds: Carnegie Mellon professor Jesse
Schell claims games have a “flow
1. Fixed rules state” when there are 1) clear
2. Variable, quantifiable outcomes goals, 2) no distractions, 3) direct
3. Values associated with each feedback, and 4) continuous
outcome challenge. The continuous
4. Player effort challenge of House of Eternal
Right: House of Eternal Return (Meow

Wolf ).

Return relates to its anomalous here at the House. Always wanted structure itself. By puncturing lasting impressions, answers
presentation of space, which to pluck the harp? There’s one the subfloor of the fourth-floor questions you never thought to
induces a flow channel, leaving the here whose strings are made out gallery, Oppenheimer creates an ask about space, it’s also clear
visitor/player neither bored nor of red lasers. Play your ambient aperture or “wormhole,” which that the verbiage of these artistic The non-
anxious. You soon discover how arpeggios to a pitch-black room. “creates a disorienting sense of statements overlaps conceptually verbal
infinitely “replayable” these scenes an impossible proximity between with the architectural framework
are as you collect context from When you’re beneath bulbs again, the fourth floor and the external of House of Eternal Return. You
synergy of
the artifactual caches in adjacent perhaps in the neon shantytown world outside.” In Yayoi Kusama’s recognize—physically, emotionally, interacting
rooms. (which doubles as a concert Infinity Dots Mirrored Room, black cerebrally—what this laboratory with aberrant
venue after-hours), notice how light illuminates “two adjoining means for you and your spatial
Once you’ve determined House everyone—adults and kids alike— polka-dotted mirrored rooms… prospects for years to come. What
architectures.
of Eternal Return is not a game beam. This is perhaps the best [presenting] infinite reflections.” is different, though, is that when
per se, you retreat to the battered indication that this space is utterly As a final example, see (if you can) one enters The Mattress Factory,
arcade tucked in the back of the unpretentious. James Thurrell’s Pleiades: they maintain distance—from the
complex, a holdover from the old art and from the other patrons of
bowling alley. The screens that are Compare with the much-admired "You approach the gallery through the art. Even in the achromatic
operable display mostly tile-based Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, an inclined corridor so dark that hysteria of Pleiades, shuffling
playfields with multi-directional Pennsylvania featuring work from you are virtually without sight. through absolute dark to find a
scrolling. Did I mention all the avant-gardists who are equally At the top of the ramp, you sit in cushy stadium seat, one does so
games are free? If some of the adept at framing, distorting, and a chair and face blackness. After with the detached politeness of a
games are unfamiliar, it’s because negotiating architectural spaces. your eyes adjust, an amorphous moviegoer who’s late for a film.
the Meow Wolf team designed One of the museum’s featured sphere of grey-white, or perhaps
them from scratch, blending them artists, Sarah Oppenheimer, red, begins to appear, more a In House of Eternal Return, you
with arcade classics like Mario for example, investigates “the presence than an object. As you will fly in the face of sociometry.
Bros. and Crazy Taxi. feedback loop between the look harder, the form becomes You will unexpectedly collaborate
built environment and human smaller. You turn away for a with strangers (six of you test
You are absolutely meant to play behavior… [recording] human moment and back again. It grows the room’s walls for an escape).
during your stay in the House of navigation of architectural and glimmers. But the source of You will succumb to groupthink
Eternal Return. Remember the structures.” In her permanent light itself is constant and still." (a woman whispers her ingenious
bead maze in your pediatrician’s exhibition, 610-3356, Oppenheimer discovery to her partner,
office? Play a room-sized version reconfigures the building While each exhibit leaves inspiring a whole room to do the

unthinkable: look in the toilet). Youyou. How did Meow Wolf pull this
will be uncharacteristically patient somatic symmetry off? It’s hard to
(a child wants a photograph by tell in the dark. You hear the gasp
You must the white rabbit, and you don’t (of a woman?) and it converges
publicly fail mind lingering in this most mystic with your gasp. Two breaths
of spaces). You will share trade ricocheting off one another. In
or habitually secrets (with the friends from fact, it was a hand: synchronous
follow in Albuquerque who may or may not with yours in its tentative
order to be high, describing their fractal outstretching. Two bodies pass
hallucinations). You will touch or through the closet. You arrive in
overcome be touched. Guaranteed. an antechamber, watch a family
the paralysis sitting at a piano bench, practicing
of spatial You walk into Lex’s closet, hoping “Ode to Joy.” The woman whom
to infer something of his character you never actually see is probably
anxiety. vis-à-vis wardrobe; as the closet in Lex’s room by now.
deepens, darkens, you become
tachycardic. In this haunted- What makes House of Eternal
house moment, you reach for Return so idiosyncratic then is
your partner’s hand behind you, its social dimension. The non-
make a show of guiding them even verbal synergy of interacting
though it’s you who’s become with aberrant architectures.
apprehensive. In the absence The way you must publicly fail
of light and space (things have or habitually follow in order to
become claustrophobic in the overcome the paralysis of spatial
late stages of this closet), you anxiety. The way you must share
outstretch your free hand like an intimate spaces—bedrooms and
antenna. Nothing there. Nothing bathrooms—with strangers. Later
there. You are moving toward in the hotel, already yearning for
the tinkling of a piano. It’s purely this peculiar brand of socialization,
sound until something like a hand you login to the website (a virtual
grabs hold of yours. It startles return), thecharter.org, and

monitor live readings of chaos functionalize the space. Imagine, it’s to generate narrative flow
diffusion and Selig family bloodline for example, an apartment through the syntax of space or to
pressurization (whatever that is). whose layout was based on the occasion the novelization of the
You speculate as you navigate “functioning of the senses”: museum. An architect might say
the cryptic archive, database, list it’s to influence the very of breath
of agent actions, and page titled "We can imagine well enough of art. And a political scientist
“plague of shrimp,” which results what a gustatorium might be, or might say it’s to shuffle the social
in an intentional HTTP error an auditory, but one might wonder capital, to repatriate humanity to
code. The Meow Wolf community what a seery might look like, or forsaken spaces. The art collective
recommences. an [sic] smellery or a feelery. It itself would probably concur that
is hardly any more transgressive the only function of these rooms is Lawrence Lenhart
Perec writes about the ways in to conceive of a division based, to ensure a swift return. You will is the author of
which architects design rooms no longer on circadian, but on go back. It’s not even guaranteed The Well-Stocked
according to their intended heptadian rhythms. This would you’ve actually left. and Gilded Cage
functions. “I don’t know, and give us apartments of seven (Outpost19). His
don’t want to know,” Perec writes, rooms, known respectively as LL prose appears
“where functionality begins or the Mondayery, Tuesdayery, in Conjunctions,
ends. It seems to me, in any case, Wednesdayery, Thursdayery, Fourth Genre,
that in the ideal dividing-up of Fridayery, Saturdayery, and Passages North,
today’s apartments functionality Sundayery." Prairie Schooner,
functions in accordance with a and elsewhere. He
procedure that is unequivocal, He even fantasizes about “a space holds an MFA from
sequential and nycthemeral.” After without a use.” Like the inert the University of
typifying the daily rhythms of a bowling alley that preceded House Arizona, teaches at
Parisian apartment of the early of Eternal Return. Northern Arizona.
1970s (“08.15 The father takes his University, and is
coat from the ENTRANCE-HALL And what’s the function of the the reviews editor of
and goes off to his office; 08.30 rooms crafted by Meow Wolf? A DIAGRAM.
The mother performs her toilet in game designer might say it’s to
the BATHROOM”), he conceives promote chaos and continuous
of equally arbitrary ways to challenge. An author might say



These houses are collected and arranged anti-capital 3d objects, sourced
from creative commons online repositories. Thanks to users of these
spaces; shthed, The Guardian, hkappsacademy51, daltonepps, wbennett2021,
underdogtechcompany, Sally WT, s shrivastav, Alessi messi, J.R. Bédard,
dj121661, Jason Shoumar, DutchDevil, Anthony Zhou 276, samenator1220,
martyn169, Bryce Studyvin, ditadaci, andiscarcello, tomaszcgb, Chongie,
Michael Spivey, Mathi_, firecat, swhk 2016 nh, tinkerking98590 (Logan Baker),
aerosmithnyg, animatedheaven, blenderister, 3dhaupt, pabong, tharidu,
jaykayelmo, kaos3d, shaiksha35, bazsa, gunnarcorrea, willian, thecreator,
deepakkumar, apocalypse_67, still2k, nischal06, kocher95, reygarcia, hgbckone,
mohsennoori27, mibmob, franco6321, braianmendoza97, issamchentoui,
ruuji, twixietrap, hesen, gabriel_gonach, 3dregenerator, mrraje13, tarihefsane,
buddy3dart, biswajit24, andrijaalp, ideastudio, redjien, 3dguy16, sykeprojekt,
kenkeso, jacklcm, coriolis, marc.ubach, captainmarlowe, fixon, Francesco
Coldesina, MesseleAsfaw, Artist_24610044, Ian, dutchmogul, nathanielmillerkwd,
Eric Agro, Whystler, damicelo, Streamline Design, Chris, erikleiram, milosbj,
yuriysklyar, steven.n.rader, firstcodekarthik, YaakovS, 23lucasmanson, 23lcoo495,
C. Michael Neely, Dr.Gater, smartin 355, Devadmar.iomasterIlovebooks,
MartinezA2016, RMCAWings, black spidey, pranavbedi, 9506623@philasd.
org, jkruse, Huisje, ManofPixels, godigniz, Drakon destroyer, Aaron Lopez
307, bennireno, willy910816, jannavdh, Mr.CK, Benji Smith, menumber13,
rrapaea, john 317, kathiastaff, Junze3, Sandler Ernst, 3Dblondie, Julian carr243,
iHasawand!, Rangerjosh06, scdsstudent, lukasvopp, Varles, Dylan Street,
RedEagleEmpire, Giromancy, katanokouji, Jason Yeung, projectcreate3, p p
raaijen, lemon93, cumialaska, tupay, hjmediastudios, Daniel74, MrChimp2313,
monteiro, Gusros60, yazjack, Jeff2207, anas12001, izuzf, MarshalExaiAivi2224,
nusrito, masterxeon1001, andreschneider, metalix, chrisbreen1995, noenmaster,
pharmoz, DmitryJDS, RileyBrown, iAmTheWalrus, Yennda, FabianTomba,
APanimation, ThePefDispenser, Ndakasha, DeNapes, MarcoD, irokrhus,
visakhanc, ravicdh, Signovinces, Fabiof2, SirOccor, Ezequiel_ote, borisha,
Maxpath, sensenku, Jakeobgad, lengyel109, minimilla, and tastyfish.

Heterotopias 003 | September 2017
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Heterotopias 003 | September 2017 | games + architecture

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3 Mirroring the Real

6 Bathrooms Without Bodies

24 No Style Los Santos

35 Beneath the Mask

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Free Houses ( from 234 Free Houses, KR Pipkin, 2017)

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Previous page: Robert Yang's The

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Right: A page from Alexander Kira's 1970

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Right: BioShock Infinite's

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Previous page: A photograph of Luke

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Following pages: Luke Caspar Pearson's

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Previous and current page: Captures

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Top left: Killer 7's

Above and Left:

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Left and bottom left:

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Previous page: The Last of Us

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Following pages: The Last of Us