Rise of a Transcoded World: Field Study and Performance Analysis of Alexander Schubert’s "Genesis"

The interactive installation Genesis is an online video game in which players control human avatars in a predefined world. The performance has the social experiment goal, implying autonomous space development through a hierarchical relationship between gamers and avatars. The present analysis shows a comprehensive overview of the interactions in the empty hall. It also questions the author’s prescriptive role: the explicit purpose of establishing an aseptic space results in a setting itself, influencing space definition. The environment develops its own rules and dynamics through recurrent patterns, strongly depending on digital mediation, emerging human behaviour, selectable items, stage connotation, and gaming dynamics. Human involvement – of gamers, avatars, authors, and staff – results in single participants’ and emerging communities’ complex behaviour. People redefine their knowledge, shaping new forms of interaction through digital encoding. In turn, they transfer their experience into real life through personal or shared memories. Space becomes not just where digital and physical perspectives flow into but also a gravitational pole expanding beyond given borders.