New queer game We Dwell In Possibility features testicle-like fruit, phallic cacti and butt plugs
We Dwell In Possibility. (Robert Yang)
An unusual new game from queer game developer Robert Yang debuts at the Manchester International Festival from 1 – 18 July.
The game is part of the Virtual Factory project where artists from gaming, film and visual arts are creating online artworks in response to the architecture of The Factory, the cultural space that will be home to the festival.
Named We Dwell In Possibility, Yang’s new game is his most collaborative piece yet with artwork from cartoonist Eleanor Davis and electronic music from Manchester-based producer aya.
The aim is to subvert heteronormative crowd simulations used by architects and city planners, here featuring a crowd of naked simulated characters interacting with various suggestive objects.
Players can interact with the crowd or simply watch it all play out.
“Like my previous works, We Dwell in Possibility is all about queer bodies and sex, but for this project I also wanted to respond to a lack of politics in crowd simulation art and to create an artwork that is rooted in a specific historical moment,” says Yang.
“From this simple model of politics, sexuality, and architecture, the simulation improvises a new landscape, a virtual heaven or hell, or more likely something both at once – a society.”
Robert Yang – a contentious developer
Yang is known for his unusual queer games that explore gay culture and intimacy, such as bathroom sex simulator The Tearoom, shower simulator Rinse and Repeat, and more.
We Dwell in Possibility is less contentious but still provocative and inherently queer.
Playing the game, your little garden slowly fills up with objects: trees bearing plump testicle-like fruit, suggestive foods like sausages and donuts, phallic cacti and butt plugs.
Little androgynous people with squishy bottoms gradually roam around, interacting with the objects and one another. They may dance or wear police hats with rainbow flags, with the experimental music becoming ever more frantic.
For more information on Robert Yang’s We Dwell in Possibility visit virtual-factory.co.uk.
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