RESPAWN is an ongoing site-specific installation project. In video games, particularly FPS- &/or MMOG-style games, characters or avatars that die are respawned in another area of the game map. RESPAWN is a physical space installation that recreates this “instancing” of game avatars, and recontextualizes actual spaces into virtual game maps.
Respawned, sculptural versions of my World of Warcraft character Kryzzik are clustered in one location (a respawn point) and an equal number of “dead” or failed versions of Kryzzik are scattered in other areas. The installation creates a narrative that a great adventure has taken place in a particular location, and the character Kryzzik has died battling monsters, mob bosses, or other players. Wayfinding maps -or- labels that accompany the physical sculptures detail the RESPAWN narrative and installation at each fail point and the respawn point. In the process, the physical spaces that Kryzzik occupies are turned into an instance of the RESPAWN gameworld.
The repeated versions of this installation create “instances” of this gameworld iterated in different geographic locations. In videogame structure, instances are “…a private portion of a gameworld created just for an individual or group of players” (Gaming hacks by Simon Carless, 2004, O’Reilly Media. p. 112).
