COURSE: ARCH 609 (THESIS) WINTER 2024
PROFESSOR: Alina Nazmeeva
PROGRAMS USED: Unreal Engine 5, Rhino, Blender, Polycam (photogrammetry), Illustrator, Photoshop, SketchFab
In this choose-your-own-adventure game, you are a young Japanese American lady living and working in modern-day Japan. Through your character you will navigate through the challenges of Japan’s toxic work culture, experience the psychological impact inefficiencies and “bullshit jobs” (David Graeber) have on people, and try to break through the glass ceiling by defying rigid old-world gender roles that are still so ingrained in Japan both in and outside of the workplace environment. As the game progresses, the line between reality and the other worlds start to blur as your character either resolves their issues/ comes to peace with things or slowly loses it under all the stress and pressures.
Your character's monotonous daily life cycles through four sites in the Tokyo metropolis: work, home, subway, and convenience store. As the emotions of your character ebb and flow they travel between three worlds: reality, a positive escape, and a hellish world. The positive escape explores the idea of escapism through soothing mundane simulator games such as PowerWash Simulator VR, which require minimal brainpower and socialization but leave one with a great sense of accomplishment and motivation. Here you will roam through an endless field of wildflowers and grass in a kei truck equipped with a bath where you meet Japanese folktale characters who share their wisdom. In the hellish world, everything is like a mirror of your character’s reality only with the worst parts of it amplified. There you will encounter unsavory characters that are exaggerations of your least favorite office mates or family members. You will also navigate through the struggles of a bicultural and semi-bilingual person with two cultures that often clash, perhaps rooted in the contrasting social orientations of each culture.
ARTIFACT
A glass of water sitting on a silicone coaster Pepper's Ghost
PARTS: Adafruit Qualia ESP32-S3, Round 2.1" touch display, Adafruit Micro SD SPI, and 3.7v Lithium Ion Polymer Battery
PROGRAMS USED: Unreal Engine 5, After Effects, OBS, Cura, Rhino
PROGRAMS USED: Unreal Engine 5, After Effects, OBS, Cura, Rhino
My artifact is a hologram (Pepper’s ghost) in a cup of water. The hologram is a reflection of short videos being played in a custom silicone coaster I made fitted with a circular monitor.
It consists of two parts. The first being a silicone coaster with an Adafruit Qualia ESP32-S3, Round 2.1" touch display, Adafruit Micro SD SPI, and 3.7v Lithium Ion Polymer Battery all encased in an opaque 3d printed case (model of case readily available on Adafruit website).
The other being a PET cup and a hairspray cap welded together with 105 super clear West System Epoxy. The cups are joined together so that there is a open dry cavity inside the larger cup where a thin plastic film can be set at a 45 degree angle to reflect the videos being played at the base of the cup.
It's made to feel as if you're looking into another world through a portal that's opened up in your cup.
PROJECT ONE
The above was a part of our first assignment, which was made to convey the gist and general direction of where our thesis project would be going. The creepy characters collaged into the background and screensaver are by artist Julia Soboleva.