This is perhaps Cheng’s intention: that we not feel attached to a particular narrative agent within the trilogy, but instead become invested in the simulation itself. After leaving the show, I found something comforting in being able to load the live feed on my laptop at home and watch the ongoing simulation at any time, as if its denizens were actually alive, sharing intricate relationships that change over time.
The city was “like a little pet,” as Cheng described it. Because the original games had no protagonist, the primary relationship was one between player and system. I only realized the volcano had erupted when the game reset, reseeding a new community.Ĭheng cited the 1989 computer game SimCity and its later spinoffs as sources of immense influence. Checking back with the wide-angle “ant farm view,” I glimpsed other figures attending to their needs-food, sleep, relief. Watching the close-up “story cam,” I tried to gauge the girl’s progress, or lack thereof, as she would easily become distracted, perhaps by a piece of ash or the Echoing Owl hopping about. Since the artwork is a self directed simulation, its story unfolds differently in each iteration. As the inhabitants feel the volcano’s tremors for the very first time, the outcome of the episode hinges on the ability of a girl, dubbed the Young Ancient, to convince her fellow villagers to flee the mountainside in time. A volcanic eruption threatens the “pre-conscious” community in Emissary in the Squat of Gods (2015). He likened constructing a “virtual ecosystem,” where the video game plays itself, to experimenting with a chemistry set: “You put all the ingredients together, and then just watch. For his latest simulations, however, the artist, who holds a degree in cognitive science, aimed for managed chaos. Whether playing with motion-capture techniques as he did for Entropy Wrangler (2013), or deploying glitchy animations in the music video Brats (2012), commissioned by the band Liars, Cheng’s older work tends to be frenetic and unsettling.
Running on three screens at MoMA PS1 in Queens, New York, each installment is also being livestreamed for six months on the museum’s website in conjunction with Twitch, a video platform developed specifically for gamers. Ian Cheng utilizes a video-game engine to create live simulations of imagined societies in his “Emissary” trilogy (2015–17). Even in art, the format has been tapped as a medium. With the incredible popularity of eSports and the prevalence of mobile gaming apps, video games are now squarely part of mainstream entertainment.
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