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INTERACTIVE DIGITAL WORK, UNITY 3D, STORYTELLING, WORLDBUILDING
Sybertek: Migrants at Bay
Role: Member of CAM Collective [Carisa Antariksa, Amreen Ashraf, Maria Denise Yala] a collaborative research group
Sybertek: Migrants at Bay and is hosted and playable on itch.io
This speculative interactive experience was inspired by methods of data collection and presentation on the migrant crisis. The story begins after a migrant incident has occurred in the imagined future of a fictional surveillance nation state, The Republic of Sybertek. The Ministry of Border Security and Citizen Protection (BSCP) is attempting to curb the flow of irregular migration at their seaside borders. The scene invites the participant to take on the role of a state appointed Migrant Incident Documentation Officer (M.I.D.O) tasked with “recording” information about the migrant’s belongings that have washed up after a smuggler boat carrying people has capsized.
Using worldbuilding and storytelling, we attempt to highlight stories behind the humans who are often forced to migrate. In doing so, we wanted to respond to cold statistical data that omits the cruel reality of the crisis. The work considers the question “who collected this data, and what is left out?”.
In my role as a CAM Collective member, I:
- Participated in the creative research and conceptualization of the project
- Gathered digital artifacts and aided in the worldbuilding in Unity 3D
- Coded the interactions and script for the Unity 3D walkable environment
Instructions for the player
The look and feel of the world was inspired by the headlines and news articles covering the crisis. Stories of bodies floating in the water as people partied on a luxury yatch led us to the underlying theme of privilege and wealth vs. exploitation and immigration. We reflected on what made people leave their homes and what kinds of things would they bring on the journey?
People's belongings washed up on the shore.
As the MIDO interacts with items strewn on the beach, the player is shown notes they have documented about the items they come across.
To generate the micro stories in the MIDO's notebook, we used Tracery, a text generator. We collected phrases, facts, and quotes from news articles that were then combined by the program to generate new ways of speaking about the crisis.
