LOW POLY DISASTER

LOW POLY DISASTER
by Zebulon Zang 

Thursday, January 8, 12-6 p.m.
Experimental Media Performance Lab (xMPL)

Low Poly Disaster explores a brief history of virtual worlds, focusing on early-2000s life-simulation games that invite players to manage the everyday domestic lives of multiple characters. The work is drawn to how in these games’ player failure —where characters can suffer or die through neglect—becomes central to forms of misplay. In otherwise nonviolent environments, players find ways to test the morality of being a “bad” player: withholding care, causing harm, and pushing the boundaries of responsibility inside a world designed for routine.

Presented as a large-scale, projection-based installation, Low Poly Disaster reorients the viewer’s position. Instead of the familiar omnipotent, top-down perspective, the audience is placed at a human scale—closer to the characters and their consequences—encountering moments of improper play face-to-face.