Intruder is an interactive work containing elements of a computer game. The avatar moves through a maze inside a visualization of the author’s grandfather’s mind. The maze imagines a brain destroyed by dementia, which consumes his memories. Walking through the devastated corridors of memories, one finds elements of the past, family members and all the elements that create the grandfather’s character. In the background one hears the grandmother’s story about him before his illness, and the decade-long devastating process of his personality and memory. The journey through the maze allows us to get to know him, his humanity and return the dignity that the disease took away from him, locking him in his unreal world. After going through the maze, the viewer can find the grandfather, but can’t help him. The game loops, and the “player” begins the whole process of “getting to know” him anew.
The project was created as a tribute to the grandfather and a form of family therapy. Each member of the family was involved in the project in their own way, providing factual support, or weaving stories from the past.
Guest is a multi-channel animation created in a 3D environment. The project presents a visualization of the onset and spread of the grandfather’s disease – dementia. The constantly progressing disease absorbs him more and more into its unreal world, gradually consuming the entire immediate environment and members of our family. The entire animation is a condensed presentation of the last decade of the progression of grandpa’s dementia. The tentacles of the disease take him and isolate him slowly from the rest of the world. The viewer has the opportunity to peek into grandparents’ home and look at our family situation.
It was created in part as a form of family therapy, where each member contributed to the creation of the work. It allowed us to get used to and come to terms with our situation. Grandpa’s dementia became a disease of our entire family, which destructively affected our daily functioning and relationships.