Paul Wiersbinski

Interactive Films and Computer Games have a twisted relationship with reality within film. On the one hand they use moving images and established formats of narrations in a traditional way in order to tell stories, portray motivations or pay homage to established genres. On the other hand due to their interactive nature they always deal with the volantility of the images they produce.

I would like to emphasize this approach by discussing two examples from the interactive film »Heavy Rain« (Quantic Dream, 2010) and the game »Fallout 3« (Bethesda Softworks, 2008). In both titles the player has to enter a virtual reality simulation within the game world itself: In the first examle a major character uses a virtual reality device to collect evidence but also develops an addiction to this apparatus, which culminates in eye-bleeding and a distorted perception of the film-noir world. In the second example the player has to enter a VR simulation, which portraits an abject 50s black and white scenario of the American dream but at the same time stands in stark contrast to and questions the postapocalyptic scenario the rest of the game´s reality is set in.

Often interactive and game narrations therefore challenge the very nature of reproduction of reality itself, touching upon the delicate state of our contemporary media perception and the notion of selfconsciousness, which increasingly diverges from terms of motivation and character towards multiple degrees of realities and imaginary order.

Paul Wiersbinski is an artist and researcher. His work has been presented in international Exhibitions: »RECORD > AGAIN!«, ZKM | Karlsruhe (2009), »Comvideo«, »Encore«, Museum of Modern Art Zollamt, Frankfurt am Main (2011), »Risk Society«, MOCA Taipei (2013). He holds lectures and presentations: »Electronic Visualization and the Arts«, British Computer Society in London (2011), »Tracing Mobility«, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2011), »Push your art« Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013), Club Transmediale Berlin (2014). In spring 2016 he will start his PhD at the HfbK Hamburg.