/AfterGame is a short digital project which uses motion capture data created during a performance by Lara Habib Kobeissi and directed by myself at CCIXR, the digital capture studio at the University of Portsmouth. This project invited a group of artists to the studio through Play Office to create experimental work with this equipment.

The work began as a physical exploration of video game jank. We were inspired by the 2008 flash game ‘QWOP’ in which I directed Lara by assigning numbers to each of her limbs and controlling her movements while travel from point A to B through verbal instruction. The data output gave me these janky, unnatural and strained movements which I began experimenting with in rendered environments. In my first experiments with wire mesh bodies and untextured rocks the movement felt like nothing. It wasn’t until I started to develop a story around the movement did the data and visuals come to life.

I created a world I was familiar with through the games I knew. Call of Duty, S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Dayz inspired the Pripyat-like environment I built and the character matched this. Once the character was in this environment I began to see him as a protagonist who is waiting for the game to be loaded up again or a duplicate model whose cut scene had just finished. The strained movement added to this, it was as if he was fighting the restraints the game developers forced on him. I wrote a short text to go alongside this work from their perspective.

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