They're noises which tend towards onomatopoeic. Some are white noise, like mechanical hums you only notice when they stop, and others are the noises which make you look up but you forget them afterwards, or mark them as unattractive somehow - the drag and scratch of a dot matrix printer, the soft bing-bing-bing a car makes to let you know the door is open but your lights are still on. I find myself preferring the bursts of noise which only gradually impinge on your consciousness when you're in those waiting spaces. There are no people in these stylised worlds, but you do get traces of human activity cars drive slowly around, footsteps sound before a light comes on in a window, the noise of a till printing a receipt, the indistinct hum of people chatting in a cavernous space. Burton's objects in these scenarios form these odd modular subscenarios with repeating units or symmetry. You can see it in one of the trailers for the game, and some of the promotional gifs but the line of potted plants ascending an escalator in one scene makes me grin - a palm tree masquerading as a serious shopper or a commuter on their way to work. This isn't a shock of any kind, more of a gentle dreamtime absurdity. That's what I mean by quietly unexpected. Those low tables might raise or lower as water suddenly fills a lobby environment, a block of flats rises out of a parking bay and offers up a garage for a car to ease its way into.
By that I mean that you'll see the furnishings of those kinds of spaces - low tables for magazines or mugs, potted plants, lamp posts - but they will do something quietly unexpected. I think I've said this when speaking about the project before but I really like how Burton draws attention to those arenas and encourages the player to see them with fresh eyes, simply by being playful with their hallmarks. Unlock an atmospheric experience while exploring strange yet familiar scenes. Reveal the hidden ecosystems of ten unusual environments. Oh good! Now it's been released I can tell you some of my thoughts about Islands: Non-Places Carl Burton's collection of interactive vignettes which highlight and remix waiting spaces, car parks and other not-quite-destinations.Ī surreal trip through the mundane.
0 kommentar(er)
