Escape is an existential horror interactive experience disguised as a video game. After the end of the world, the absurdly rich have built an underground bunker to survive. The bunker begins with rich aesthetics through its more absurd iterations. The room designs start with luxurious spaces and move into utilitarian spaces as the audience explores the bunker. When the lights are off two narrators, Alex and Samantha, guide the audience through the rooms. As the audience explores the 35 rooms, the narrative unfolds revealing the reason why the bunker exists, and the unfortunate ideologies of the people who built it.
Escape deals with the urge to run from large and terrifying ecological problems, but the impossibility of doing so. It confronts the escapism built into video games and mass media that is used to distract from reality by replacing it with reality simulation and replaces it with the idea of ecological responsibility as a part of existence. The game forces you to make decisions and question what is presented to you. It is also a critique of the effect of ecological impact within a system of socioeconomic disparity. Many of the appropriated images call attention to the aesthetics as a product of colonialism and socioeconomic disparity. The sound design reinforces the ideas built by the visuals to create a fully immersive experience.
For optimal viewing please wear headphones.
Vi is currently rebuilding this piece. Checkout her other contributions to Digital America over the years:
Cyber Soldiers in Cyber Houses | Vi Trinh
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Vi Trinh works in digital and traditional media to examine the relationship between ecological and social patterns. Her work explores ideas of rich aesthetics in ecological emergencies and the temporal reality created by large-scale phenomena. She synthesizes data to confront ideas of colonialism and white supremacy within our current social context.
