"the sun is shining" by nurbrun. "Collection of poems designed for the digital platform. i'm obsessed with the form of the art being inseparable from the art itself (why submit something that can be printed to a jam that will never leave the interwebs?) so here we go; enjoy". Now to be fair, a big goal and intention of mine is to help some entries from this "leave the interwebs" and that the concept of jams should and can translate to physical and local spaces, but I get what is meant. Part of the limitation of digital publication is that it can't always connect with the millions of people not within specific loops exposed to its existence. I do think that what we do in digital spaces follows us into our physical experiences, but many people participating in this probably don't intend to port this kind of work over to physical copies. The point is, nurbrun designed sun to be a purely digital experience. It's a color-coded game with great piano music and a very 2000s web feel.
This is an interactive poetry game through and through. In a certain way you can influence the form and shape that the nightmarescape/dreamscape has to offer you, but only to a certain extent. You do have to think and pay attention to access some of the game's options, which I always love to see in interactive fiction. Click through stories are amazing, but even small things that make me feel like a full participant in the story really take it a step above. When you stumble onto the first interactive poem it really almost sends you into the perfect place to help form it. That has a magical game-like beauty that anyone can enjoy. You aren't always sure what's real and what isn't, but that makes an intriguing read. Are you a character in a fictional story, or is this the artistic embodiment of a real person's life and memories. Maybe it's science fiction, but maybe it isn't.
You are forced to dream to pass the time. All you want to do is [leave? escape? stay?]. I kept trying over and over to unlock the answering machine to listen to messages, but you have to follow the path and you can't just guess it. This is a game with unlimited mix-in's for a bowl of cereal. An endless stream of names for the person you must be. You have to dream, and you have to take your time. You could play this a million different ways, and see a million different poems in every page. That's beyond impressive. That's an unforgettable experience. You know, I wrote down every possible complicated word and number sequence I came across as I played to try as the password to the answering machine? I loved how wrong I was when I finally figured it out. The messages are worth waiting for. What a game these poems are. I can't wait to play this a million times over. 30 minutes flew by like nothing. I'll be thinking about the children I had with some frosted flakes for forever.
"grandmother where are your earholes are they like mine do we have matching vulvas did you leave me your orifices grandmother do i have your orifices do i have your mouth grandmother can i climb into your mouth, grandmother to search for the children, grandmother where are the children"
[CW // memory, history, family, needles, body parts, nightmares]