What the Body Remembers
VR as Site of Preservation in Memory Eternal | Вічная Пам’ять
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14195/2182-8830_11-1_5Keywords:
memory, war, pandemics, collaboration, care ethicsAbstract
Our paper discusses a VR piece designed for Quest 2, Memory Eternal: Book of Mourning, that was exhibited in the ELO Media Arts Festival in 2023. Our work, named after the Ukrainian Orthodox prayer for the dead, immerses viewers in a space of remembrance. The piece reflects on grief at two scales — personal and collective — touching on topics like war, pandemics, and family. The paper and the work submitted for exhibition are aligned with the ELO 2023 themes of the role of literature in social change asking, in the wake of overlapping global crises, what do we want to remember and how? We make a tour to the project with its dream-like landscape of medieval ruins populated with ten distinct electronic literature pieces that meditate on mourning, grief, and awakening tonew futures. We will discuss the collaborative methods we use to create this work that are grounded in care ethics and explain how they become part of the broader meaning of the work. We then draw from memory studies to elaborate on how the form and themes of Memory Eternal serve as a response to crisis, a salvo for loss, and a promise to keep memory alive.
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