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INTERACTIVE FICTION, TWINE, FAIRY TALES, STORYTELLING
Once Upon A Virus
Almost 40 years into the AIDS crisis, talk of the disease seems to have fallen off the radar outside affected circles. The Big Disease explores two new forms of telling stories around HIV in a bid to spark discussion for a new audience. Inspired by the ways that marginalized people and groups have historically told their own stories, the work employs retold fairy tales as an unconventional story format.
Once Upon a Virus is a hypertext fantasy story that uses fairy tales as a critical device to examine societal attitudes towards disease. This thesis draws on public domain, queer, and feminist storytelling approaches to retell and revision the story of HIV while contributing to a developing definition of what the practice of storytelling is and looks like today.
The interactive fiction was created using Twine, an open source tool for telling interactive non-linear stories.
