This narrative poem is arranged on a darkly atmospheric virtual world designed to both creep you out and pull you in through curiosity. Like the proverbial moth, the reader’s attention is drawn towards the brightest things around: white words float in the air, static or rotating. And the lines of mezangelle verse both heighten the dread by telling fragments of a ghostly narrative prefigured by the bus crash site the reader finds herself in and soften the tone with hints about the interface that nudge the fourth wall.
Navigation takes a moment of adjustment, as you explore an interface similar to first person shooters (gamers are likely to experience phantom sensations) and you get the hang of the physics of the place. Don’t worry, you’ll find that moving around is easier than the steep landscape suggests, and that a little disorientation heightens the dread produced by the setting and music. Explore with confidence that you won’t get lost in this space, its psychogeography will guide you. Two more bits of advice: patience and vantage points are everything when you want to read some of the ghostly texts, and the scrolling wheel on your mouse will help you zoom in and out to read better. It won’t take long to discover that everything is readable in this textual environment, best experienced in a dark space with good speakers or headphones on.
There is a vantage point in a room in the tower that is going to fulfill some expectations raised in the text. And it’ll leave you wondering about unanswered questions and wanting to return to discover more.
Featured in Dreaming Methods. ELO 2013: Chercher le Texte Virtual Gallery
