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#BadHeading

Software: Final Cut Pro, iMovie, Reason 3.0, Dreamweaver
Status: Completed 09/2005
Required Plug-in: Quicktime

#BadHeading is a web project that incorporates original audio and manipulated video clips captured from the PlayStation 2 game, Silent Hill 2. The general theme of the project is memory, both virtual and narrative. For those unfamiliar with Silent Hill 2, the narrative involves a man named James who receives a letter from his deceased wife. Despite the impossibility of such a letter, James is grief-stricken enough to travel to the strange town of Silent Hill in search of his wife. Throughout the course of the game, he finds clues that gradually reveal his involvement in her death, memories that he had subsequently repressed. Therefore, the entire premise of the game revolves around perception, false memory, and exploration of a virtual world.

For me, the most memorable sequence of the game appears toward the end, when James must row a small boat across a fog-covered lake. In many ways, this portion of the game is completely supplementary--the developers could have easily replaced it with a cut-scene or simply automated James's passage. However, the player must operate the oars and change the heading of the boat toward a single beacon of light. This sequenceserves as a fitting metaphor for James's uncertain navigation into his past and the memory of his wife's death.

#BadHeading screen capture

#BadHeading uses video from this rowboat sequence both as a link to the narrative structure of Silent Hill 2 and a means to explore virtual memory through the web browser. In essence, the user must make various navigational choices to trigger new windows that contain a) further navigational choices, b) video clips, or c) looped audio segments. In addition, the main window will gradually refresh itself, multiplying the number of simultaneous video streams. As the user triggers more events, the strain on the computer's memory will become more pronounced--the audio and video will stutter, the browser will slow to a crawl or crash, and so on. Hopefully, this will create continuous, unpredictable variations in the media streams.

For more info on the Silent Hill series, check out the Silent Hill Wikipedia entry.

Follow link to launch #BadHeading site.