On the thirty-fourth day of my voluntary self-isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I realized that my life had a clear scenario, consisting of a limited set of scripts. Each day goes exactly the same as the previous one, as if waking up I choose the “start the game” button and blindly follow the recommendations and instructions, knowing perfectly well where this will lead.
I have a constant feeling that,since I had locked myself in the walls of my own apartment, I have been placed into the world of a very poorly written visual novel, where only an illusory choice is given and any deviation from its rules threatens with an instant game over.
Trying to visualize my feelings, I turned to photography, making it look like a kind of eight-bit graphics with the help of generative art software. The lost details of the image at the same time make it possible to seek coincidences with other peoples’ experience, because everyone who was in self-isolation observed nearly the same picture.
In most cases, there are no real, permanent consequences of failure in gaming. The player realizes that he is able to do whatever he wants, thereby increasing his own urge to activate the mental state. Accordingly, people usually expect from computer games such kinds of impressions that are impossible or not desirable in real life. But what happens if the gamer is immersed in a virtual model of the situation, which is in fact the current reality?
June 2020
St. Petersburg, RU
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