Dead City

2020fiction45'Virtual Reality na KFF (2023)

"Dead City" is a narrative experience with elements of singing, contemporary and operatic music, based on the eponymous poetic libretto by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Understated visual style alludes to contemporary graphic forms popular on the Internet – vaporwave, GIFs and the aesthetics of independent video games. The entirety is presented in the formula of three degrees of freedom (3DOF) that enables the user to interact with digital environment. We are transported to the reality of a desolate contemporary metropolis of the pandemic times through Paweł and his reminiscences. The protagonist tries to say goodbye to his recently deceased wife Maria, looking for consolation in front of a TV screen and in pills prescribed by the doctor. On a dating website he meets Maria’s lookalike. Memories and imaginings begin to blur and the pain of loss merges with the fear and anxiety about the future in a world which becomes harder and harder to live in.