Cibele
Cibele is a short video game about a unique, but increasingly common, phenomenon: meeting someone on an online platform (in this case an MMORPG), having a digital relationship with them, and eventually meeting in real life. While this topic can be handled stereotypically the designer, Nina Freeman, roots the game around the complexity and contradictions of her specific autobiography. The portions that represent the online video game are intensely abstracted to an emotional background texture. There is no winning or losing, simply clicking away with the relationship intensifies with the emotionally volatile young man that runs your guild. Between these faux-online sessions, you are “playing” from the character’s (also called Nina) vantage, with access to their computer desktop. The files on the simulation of Windows are what appear to be archival photos from the creator’s past and dialog also seemingly recounts moments of her first, online, love. At other moments, this sense of uncanniness is heightened further as we are shown dramatic cinematic recreations of events in the story, with her current self playing her past self alongside other actors. This interplay between real and digital, between recreation and original, between vulnerability and macho posing, between sexual desire and ideals of love, Cibele is a truly insightful and nuanced meditation of our evolving ideas about truth, self, eroticism, and vulnerability in the digital era.
Creator: Nina Freeman
Link: http://ninasays.so/cibele/
Connections:
Angela Washko - BANGED
Laurel Nakadate - Video works
Kathy Acker - Blood and Guts in High School