Mise en abandon

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Mise en abyme[1] is french for placed into the abyss and it describes an art technique of placing an image within the very same image, often in a way to create an illusion of infinity. It could be seen after Bolter/Grusin(2000) as an hypermediate practice, because "In every manifestation, hypermediacy makes us aware of the medium or media…"(p.p.:34). The computer game "Stories Untold: The House Abandon" places the player while she is sitting on her desk on a computer onto an old desk in a dark abondoned house with an old 8-bit home computer. The gamer could see the screen with in the screen, an old lamp and some photos. It is first person so she didn´t see the character whom she is playing. This set let no doubt that this could not end well. The game starts and the gamer is thrown back on her own situation. In conscious of her used and reflected media quickly the game tries to immerse you into the spooky feeling. The experience should now become more immidiate "…by removing the programmer/creator(situation) from the image(game), it can also be promoted by involving the viewer(gamer) more intimately in the image(game)."(Bolter/Grusin(2000), p.p.28) The House Abandon directs the player trough the story to herself. Step-by-step the story leads the player of the text adventure thru the player in the game. So at the end you are standing behind yourself. This is masterly made and enhanced with sounds(you could hear a breath behind you) and small animations(lights are flickering when the person in the text adventure starts the generator). The abyss is widening itself and at the end your falling into it. One sound in particular was interesting through the eyes of Bolter/Grusin the game mimics your spacebar stroke with the sound of an old spacebar stroke sound from such a 8-Bit computer. I think this is geniously and it is in a way hypermediacy because it refers to the media but it has the effect of forgetting it as well. Because at first it is hard to realize. And it as well remediates the good old times of 8-bit computers with this kind of iconic spacebar sound. "Stories Untold: The House Abandon" shows the old medium of an 8-Bit text based computer in a newer version of graphic based adventure but as well "…, ensures that the older medium cannot be entirely effaced; the new medium remains dependent on the older one in acknowledged or unacknowledged ways."(Bolter/Grusin(2000), p.p.47) It becomes a text adventure based adventure game and it gave me nightmares.

by A. Krause


Literature:

Bolten, Jay David & Grusin, Richard(2000). Remediation. Understanding New Media. MIT Press.