Awaiting Oblivion explores the collapse of simulated reality in The Last of Us II, revealing spaces where traditional boundaries between representation and existence dissolve. As the world fractures into glitches and voids, it exposes the instability of meaning, unmasking the illusion of coherence and confronting the observer with absence at the core of perception.
The camera (photo mode) becomes a critical tool, transforming observation into active engagement. In a collapsing world, where perception falters, it is the only apparatus capable of making the invisible visible, exposing fragmented landscapes that exist solely through technological mediation. This dynamic echoes Baudrillard's hyperreal, where representation generates reality.
Through Deleuze's concept of becoming, this disintegration is not destruction but transformation—an unmaking that creates new potential. Invisible currents function as fluid pathways, guiding the avatar through a reality in perpetual flux.
Awaiting Oblivion conceptualizes collapse as both existential and transformative — a confrontation with absence that acts as a threshold, redefining perception, presence, and being. These ruptures are not failures but invitations to reimagine reality, where the void is not an end, but a space of infinite potential.
Digital video (machinima) 20:23min, series of photographs.
Made with The Last of Us II (Naughty Dog).
2024