An “Open World” can refer to any type of virtual or fictional environment allowing for freedom and exploration, shepherded by but not limited to video games. The worlds we create, change, and nurture together can provide necessary escape from ‘reality’ while also allowing the space to construct and simulate images of better futures. World building is essential to the production of convincing narratives, virtual or otherwise.

The unintended consequence of authorship of media and copyright is that the entire history of the 20th century, all its storytelling and characters are owned by corporate interests. Largely people have no agency in the way stories and narratives they might identify with get told or used.

The only solution is to make your own…

Memo Review by Toyah Webb

The collection of works; Everywhere I look, all I see is the Shoe., 𓂇 and Love at First Shoe (2023), are inspired by fantasy RPG avatar games. The works aim to explore the extent to which the virtual self can affect the real self. In turn, find out how this relationship can be sustainable.

The work centres an intense fixation on a shoe. The new hot shoe all the other avatar dolls are wearing, my shoe, for which I would log on religiously, play a hundred mini-games, and save up weeks on end for, but is unable to wear. After the purchase, another item will elicit my interest, and the cycle repeats. Focused on staging this overwhelming consumption and my desire for the virtual object.

The addictive nature of desire is natural, and it cannot be confined. Simultaneously childlike and carnal. Our own desires for life to RPG dress-up ambitions. Regardless of the object of desire, it is the intoxicating feeling that continues the chase. Whether the shoe exists in real life or online, the beauty is not in the object, it is in our minds.