Mondar, Mandir and Murmurations, an interactive psychogeographical neighborhood walk in Jakarta*
Mondar-mandir is an Indonesian term for wandering, which is title of this project. This game is a simulation of my urban neighbourhood walk during quarantine. Mondar, Mandir and Murmurations is about navigation and experiences of spaces that are unfamiliar, and making it more familiar through sensorial analysis whilst stimulating the imagination. Using my local neighbourhood of Jakarta as a base location, an accompanying travel guide aims to supplement players with excerpts of text from a variety of articles which provide context about each room and its’ landmarks. Inspired by Kentucky Route Zero’s Faulkner-esque magical realist, stream-of-consciousness dialog, by interacting with the landmarks of the neighbourhood features we discover more about Indonesian urban geopolitical landscape and reveal the way of life of its’ inhabitants. This was built on HTML/CSS and Bitsy.js library and can be experienced here; https://mondarmandir.netlify.app/ (BETA, best viewed on 13-inch desktop)
Games provide interactivity and narrative engagement, immersing the audience into a world in which they can take the seat of another character. Genres such as Rogue-like and NES games utilise modern computer graphics as a stylistic element pulling the players’ gaze into imagination. Such constraints force players to use their imagination, “filling in the gaps.” To navigate a semi-realistic environment, perhaps the travel guide is an appropriate medium. However, travel guides serves the advantage of the tourist, which is up for criticism.
Evidence suggests that the pursuit of recreational travel is to gain exposure to arousing and novel stimuli (Chai, 2011) yet the crux lies in the term itself. Tourist destinations arguably are locations that are arguably pigeonholed into a romanticised spectacle of a place and is marketed and painted through the travel guide. Subjective Editions is a publishing initiative that “maps out a country, region or geopolitical entity in a personal way by the inhabitants themselves,” subverting the traditional usage of the travel guide.
My project echoes their ethos in how personal involvement, cartography alongside critical discourse can help imagine an alternative future. The guide provided in this project includes a legend that refer to a sensual stimuli, i.e. sight or smell in a particular location within the game. In a world that is increasingly becoming digitised, the flat screen of the modern technological interfaces.
Games provide interactivity and narrative engagement, immersing the audience into a world in which they can take the seat of another character. Genres such as Rogue-like and NES games utilise modern computer graphics as a stylistic element pulling the players’ gaze into imagination. Such constraints force players to use their imagination, “filling in the gaps.” To navigate a semi-realistic environment, perhaps the travel guide is an appropriate medium. However, travel guides serves the advantage of the tourist, which is up for criticism.
Evidence suggests that the pursuit of recreational travel is to gain exposure to arousing and novel stimuli (Chai, 2011) yet the crux lies in the term itself. Tourist destinations arguably are locations that are arguably pigeonholed into a romanticised spectacle of a place and is marketed and painted through the travel guide. Subjective Editions is a publishing initiative that “maps out a country, region or geopolitical entity in a personal way by the inhabitants themselves,” subverting the traditional usage of the travel guide.
My project echoes their ethos in how personal involvement, cartography alongside critical discourse can help imagine an alternative future. The guide provided in this project includes a legend that refer to a sensual stimuli, i.e. sight or smell in a particular location within the game. In a world that is increasingly becoming digitised, the flat screen of the modern technological interfaces.