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Cast-offs from the Golden Age

Interactive documentary enabling users to explore the history of videogaming in New Zealand in a 3D environment.

Year 2006
Format
Website
Credits by Melanie Swalwell
Design and Programming by Erik Loyer
Recognition
Electrofringe, This is Not Art Festival, Newcastle, Australia
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Cast-offs from the Golden Age invites the user to adopt the position of the researcher, unearthing the local histories of videogaming in New Zealand by exploring a 3D space in which inquiries, interviews, dead ends and historical artifacts are enacted and explored.  A collaboration with scholar Melanie Swalwell.

Video Traversal

A high quality recording of the project as a user might experience it.


Users find themselves in a 3D environment in which they can lay down “avenues of inquiry” retracing Swalwell’s investigations into the history of gaming in New Zealand.
Intersections between avenues of inquiry can present unexpected opportunities for insight as characters “speak” to the user about their experiences in the industry.
The more the user learns about a particular avenue of inquiry, the higher the sun at its vanishing point rises in the sky.
Certain interactions result in bits of ephemera being added to the user’s collection, as with this Atari 2600 advertisement.