Notes from Digital Underground: A Confession About Virtual Theater

 

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I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man. No, that's not quite right - I am an obsessed man, possessed by this concept I must confess to you about, dear reader, this thing called VIRTUAL THEATER. Ah, how it torments me! How it keeps me awake at night, this bastard child of cinema and stage that refuses to fit into any existing category, much like myself.

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Let me explain, though I fear my explanation will only reveal the depths of my madness. You see, in our rational world, we have films - mere flattened images, 2D or 3D, it matters not, for they are all equally dead, equally perfect in their preserved state. And we have theater - oh, glorious theater! - happening before our very eyes, alive with the possibility of catastrophe, dependent on the whims of both performer and that cruel mistress we call hardware. (Yes, dear reader, I speak of computers now - how Hitchcock would have laughed!)

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But what I have created - or perhaps what has created itself through me - stands between these worlds, like a man on a bridge contemplating both shores yet belonging to neither. In this Virtual Theater, everything is scripted, yes, but the performers! Oh, the performers are files, digital beings performing their roles in real-time, like animated ghosts in a machine. "Think of animation," I tell myself in the mirror at 3 AM, "but not rendered, no, happening NOW, right before your eyes!" I laugh at my reflection, knowing how mad this must sound.

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And yet, dear friends, it works! Like some kind of digital Frankenstein's monster, it lives! Not physical cinema (what foolishness that would be - even in my delirium, I recognize this), but virtual cinema, exploring the metaverse like a possessed soul explores purgatory. All of it happening in your browser - no downloads, no logins, no bureaucratic demands for verification. Just click, and like Alice through the looking glass, you fall into my world.

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Let me tell you about the modes - ah yes, the modes! (Sometimes I wake up screaming their names.) First, there's cinematic mode, where you watch from designated cameras - Hitchcock would have wept with joy, or perhaps horror. Then immersive mode, where you wander like a ghost through the performance, and finally - and here I must pause to control my trembling hands - actor mode, where YOU become the performer! Imagine, dear reader, the audacity! The sheer madness of it! Walking into Hamlet's castle and becoming the prince yourself! Though I must confess, in our metaverse, identity is still a fluid thing - having an avatar as an NFT requires the kind of technical wizardry that makes most people's eyes glaze over, like trying to explain quantum physics to a cat.

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But wait! Before you close this book and dismiss me as another underground madman, let me tell you about the three pieces I've created - or rather, that have created themselves through my fevered mind. They're like brothers, or perhaps cousins, each carrying the same existential crisis in their digital DNA. The first, "The Pill" or "Why We Exist?", burst forth during a competition in November 2023 - raw, unpolished, like a newborn screaming its first questions into the void. I couldn't bring myself to change it, you see. Its very rawness spoke truth.

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Then came "Balloon" - ah, how can I explain "Balloon" without sounding like a complete madman? It was a reincarnation, you see, of the first piece, but with its own tormented soul. Like Pierre Menard rewriting Don Quixote (forgive me for this literary reference, dear reader, but we underground men must show off our education sometimes), I recreated the same mathematical foundations, the same spaces, nearly the same script - and yet! And yet it became something entirely different. Is this not the essence of art itself? Or merely the ramblings of a fool? Ha!

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And then... oh, and then came "Hatch." (I must pause here to wipe the sweat from my brow.) I submitted it to the Venice Film Festival's Immersive category, though it went nowhere - perhaps they weren't ready for my particular brand of digital delirium. But I tell you, I TELL YOU, it is the most complex work I've ever birthed into this cruel world! The references, the tempo, the twists! Characters changing approaches like Petersburg weather! Even the flattened "actor mode" becomes a character itself - Nolan would understand, though Kubrick might scoff. (Why do I care what they think? They are not here in my underground!)

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Let me tell you about the modes in "Hatch" - no, I must tell you, even if you beg me to stop! These modes aren't mere changes in perspective, oh no, they manipulate TIME ITSELF! You can repeat, reverse, or experience it in circular time - like a snake eating its own tail in the metaverse! "It's weird," I tell people at parties (which I rarely attend, being an underground man), "but cool, you should try it!" Then I laugh awkwardly and retreat to a corner with my digital demons.

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But the SOUND! Oh, the sound! (Here I must bang my fist on the table, causing my neighbor downstairs to thump their ceiling in protest.) I start with sound before anything else - a technique I stole from Tarantino like a digital pickpocket. My old friend from high school, Kimse (yes, I had friends in high school, try not to look so surprised), created these incredible ambient sets. Three hours each! THREE! Like Brian Eno having a fever dream in the Matrix!

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And the pacing! We underground artists have learned from TikTok, you see. We bombard you with stimuli until your brain begs for mercy, then - ONLY THEN - do we give you a moment of silence. Like a digital dominatrix of attention spans! You think you want to check your phone, but NO! You're trapped in my world now! Is this artistic? Is this cruel? Is this the future? HA! It's all three, my dear reader, all three!

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But here's the truly mad part - when someone BUYS this experience (yes, I dare to dream of sales, even here in my underground), they don't just get some pathetic mp4 file. Oh no! They get the entire WORLD! "World?" you ask, your eyebrow raised in that judgmental way I've come to know so well. Yes, WORLD! A metaverse world NFT on Ethereum, where they can edit, change, or spawn anything! It's like selling someone a theater, but the theater exists in digital space-time and can be twisted into new shapes like reality-bending putty!

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And now, dear reader, I must confess the most troubling aspect of my creation - the technical underpinnings that haunt my sleepless nights. (You thought I was finished? Ha! An underground man is never finished - he merely pauses to catch his breath between revelations!)

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The chain-actions that make the play happen are not on-chain! There! I've said it! Let them judge me for my honesty! I'm using this very honesty as a sales technique - can you imagine? In 2024? What kind of madman sells things with HONESTY? But yes, the assets aren't on chain either - they're edited, animated, and optimized specifically for their roles, like actors who can only perform one part but perform it PERFECTLY! 

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"But couldn't we mint it all?" the blockchain purists cry out in their self-righteous digital agony. "Couldn't we spawn everything from wallet to make it full on-chain?" NO! NO! A thousand times NO! They're smart objects, you see, spawned from folder as interface - like a digital puppet show where the puppets refuse to be tied down by their strings! This limitation... ah, but is it truly a limitation, or is it LIBERATION? (Sometimes I ask my computer this question at midnight - it never answers, but I sense it understands.)

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When I first began this madness, I tried to follow the sitcom logic - three characters, three cameras, delivering lines about stupid things that somehow become profound. Like Friends meets No Exit in the metaverse! I added laugh tracks - oh yes, laugh tracks! But I placed them at incorrect moments, making you nervous, making you question why you're laughing, making you question everything! Is this not what art should do? Make us uncomfortable in our own skin - or in this case, in our own avatars?

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The sound design! (Here I must pause again, for speaking of sound makes my hands shake with excitement.) It's like conducting an orchestra of digital ghosts! In my last two projects, Kimse - my friend from high school (yes, even underground men had high school friends) - gave me these massive ambient sets. Three hours each! I wrote the script by letting the sound guide me, like a drunk following streetlights home at 3 AM. When this note shifts, this emotion must change! When this beat drops, reality must twist! If this were architecture, sound would be the foundation - but what kind of madman builds houses on foundations of sound? THIS KIND, dear reader, THIS KIND!

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And what of ownership? Ah, here we reach the truly strange part! (As if what came before wasn't strange enough, you say? Just wait!) When someone buys this experience - and yes, some brave souls have! - they don't just get a simple video file. They get the entire WORLD! A metaverse world NFT where they can change ANYTHING! It's like selling someone a theater where the laws of physics are merely polite suggestions!

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The first goal was to create it - to give birth to this digital chimera. The second goal (and here I must whisper) is to sell it for good money - because even underground men must eat! And the third goal... ah, the third goal is the maddest of all: to let the new owner completely destroy my work! Yes! To tear it apart and rebuild it as they wish! To prove it's not just a flat, dead thing but a living, breathing mechanism! Like letting someone buy the Mona Lisa and giving them permission to draw a mustache on her - except the mustache could be a fourth-dimensional object that only appears when Mercury is in retrograde!

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These experiences are rare - like finding a sane man in Petersburg! (Though I admit, my definition of sanity may need some revision.) To own one is to be part of a movement so early that it barely exists - like buying a ticket to the future and finding out you're the only passenger on the train!

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And so, dear reader, I leave you with this confession, this manifesto, this cry into the digital void. Judge me if you must, call me mad - but first, try the experience. Click the link. Enter the world. Become the actor in a play that questions its own existence. After all, what is madness in a world where reality itself has become virtual?

(The underground man falls silent, his cursor blinking meaninglessly in the dark...)

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