Just Visiting

Just Visiting draws its visual inspiration from the likes of Animal Crossing, placing the user in the colorful world populated by a single bichon frise. The work strives to use its medium– virtual reality– to immerse the player fully in both the unusual and the amusing. As the player explores the terrain, he or she comes across several artifacts of the space that suggests a lack of permanence, including an empty tent and campfire, outward facing lighthouse, and a lone bichon looking out, walking forward in place at the end of the pier. The world itself is inherently liminal– a place to visit but not to stay. In the center of the island is a statue of the town’s founder, a bichon named Marshmallow III, in front of which are offerings of bananas, coconuts, and carrots. This centerpiece further engages with the absurd and the humorous, calling to mind the social rites and rituals that guide and often dictate human behavior. Though at the visual and auditory level Just Visiting provides a buoyant island for the player to explore, the liminality of the world raises questions about and explores the state of transience, of being between places and spaces, and whether that's such a bad thing at all.