I'm fascinated by this kind of interface – simple, minimalist, even – with no images, no animations, and no effects; green text on a black background will always look more futuristic than the current webmail from Google or Yahoo.
That said, I think the real appeal of email – which drives me, almost as much as anything else, to play VTM: Bloodlines – lies in the fact that messages are only accessible via computers. Throughout the game, you come across laptops and towers – those good old beige towers from my youth – and the Internet is still something you only have intermittent access to.
"The Internet used to be a place"
That’s the kind of place my city is missing; not necessarily an American-style diner, but somewhere that’s neither a factory (fast food) nor a temple (a "real restaurant"). A place where you can eat a burger or some fried eggs, have some coffee, and just let time pass, slowly. I’d probably go out a lot more if places like this existed. You can’t retreat into yourself (amidst the warmth of others) or meet new people or have a conversation at a McDonald’s or a bar these days, with the music blaring at an unbearable volume.
Even though I’ve never been interested in cars, mechanics, or anything like that, I have a strange fascination with garages, junkyards, and piles of tires and spare parts... I remember Patrick, a childhood friend of my father’s who ran a place like that across from CORA. There’s something warm and comforting about this world of metal, grease, filing cabinets full of invoices, space heaters, and old cigarettes that never quite go out in an ashtray, which sits on a metal desk... A man’s world, clearly, a "man cave" whose official function is merely a pretext.
In this image, I really like the chain-link fence – a symbol of ownership, of boundaries... Having your own little kingdom. Cut off from the rest of the world. A place to get organized, to store things (legal or not), and to entertain. A HQ.
Santa Monica in VTM: Bloodlines has a strangely un-American feel to it; on the contrary – and this holds true for all the game's settings – there is something old-European about the architecture and the overall atmosphere of dilapidation, grime, and decay, which is clearly essential in such a world.
I don't know why, but these buildings give the impression of not really being inhabited; Santa Monica is a ghost town, where homeless people, prostitutes, vampires, and goths mingle, having come to dance but not seeming to be having much fun. There aren’t really any passersby, no cars, no voices (other than that of the homeless preacher), nor any sounds that suggest life. The lit windows, therefore, give no impression whatsoever that they harbor life.
Strangely enough, the developers didn't even think to put a door on this illuminated building.
The arches, the Gothic windows; the blue paint, the blue light. It’s not a cold blue – on the contrary, there’s something oddly cozy about it. It’s a warm, nocturnal blue, the kind found on television screens in a dark room, in neon lights through the mist, in aquariums.
We’re in the realm of dreams and night. The soft, pastel colors of the signs, video games, and lighting. It could be the entrance to a daycare center or a brothel. A feminine vibe seems to emanate from it all.
The two lanterns on either side of the door make you want to go in. To find I don’t know what. Something welcoming and secret.
(All these sexual metaphors in my imagination, really...)
VTM: Bloodlines, like so many other games from the same era, is full of doors you can’t open. That lead nowhere. They’re more mysterious, more alluring than the actual locations in the game.
"Playtime" is written in this whimsical, childlike font, but in this sordid, macabre context, it loses all innocence and reminds me of the irony of the fonts used by Whitehouse on some of their albums.
I suppose that if pedophiles were trying to lure children into their lair, they would use this kind of font.
I’ve never visited a pier like this except in video games – specifically in GTA San Andreas and VTM: Bloodlines, which, as I write this, I realize are set in the same city. So it’s the same pier.
Childhood memories. The carnival in Ronces-les-Bains. The nearly empty streets of Saint-Malo, August 15, after dark. Memories of movies: the carnival in I Saw the TV Glow; the one at the beginning of Us. Every carnival has its ghost train: here it’s a real corpse, hanging by its bound hands, surrounded by cops, which also marks the start of a side quest.
But here the carnival is silent, the pier is deserted, everything is asleep, everything is peaceful. There’s nothing frightening or oppressive here, despite the hanging corpse and the cops, who don’t say a word, by the way. I imagine the profound peace there must be in walking there at night, in the warmth of the summer night. Listening to your own footsteps on the wooden pier. The smell of the sea. That strange kind of consolation that stormy skies have always brought. The warm, yellowish light of the streetlamps. A setting of wandering and decay, but without threat, without anxiety; like the atmosphere of old resort towns, like Vichy, dilapidated but so restful.
I wouldn't want a place like this in "real life" and yet I find this studio – with all its grime, darkness, and bare-bones simplicity, and its mismatched furniture – absolutely charming. Ah, to have a metal desk like this, to hide things in it, to keep files and important documents there, maybe some cash and a gun.
I have no idea what "foxy boxes" might be, but I love this entrance that looks like it belongs to a seedy establishment in a red-light district; that said, it’s actually just a warehouse full of cardboard boxes. It’s mainly here that we discover the Chinese spy’s laptop – he’s been watching us for days – and can read his notes. I was fascinated by this idea when I first played the game; I can’t say why. As much as audio logs in games bore me – whether here or in Bioshock – the idea of rummaging through someone’s computer and finding personal writings, even as part of a spy mission, is very exciting to me. Perhaps it’s the stark simplicity of the approach: a no-frills laptop, gray text on a black background, TXT format. Simplicity, functionality. Whereas our modern interfaces are clunky, falsely practical, falsely user-friendly. There’s something about that simplicity that says, "This is my computer, my simple and reliable work tool; I don’t depend on updates or the network".
Large stones. That, too, evokes old Europe. Something medieval, raw, and even brutal – but transposed into the hedonistic, decadent, refined, affluent, yet slightly dilapidated and slightly decaying setting of California in the "World of Darkness".
I’ve always loved painting and art, including modern art, abstract art, and so on, even though over the years I’ve become more perplexed by the superficiality and laziness that contemporary art often displays; fundamentally, I’m someone open to aesthetic experimentation. Unfortunately, I can’t stomach the level of snobbery in all these circles, much less the very French progressive and state-sanctioned conformism that reigns in this world kept alive by public funds. If things had been different, I might have continued painting the horrors I painted as a teenager (emaciated women with white, disjointed bodies, covered in blood, genitals exposed, etc.) and perhaps I might even have carved out a place for myself. Or evolved among my peers. Lived an intense, extreme artistic life. And then everyone loves to nibble at a cocktail table after an opening...
A curious door, vaguely menacing, vaguely demonic, evoking some ancient civilization or other. The Masonic and occult presence in the United States (as everywhere).
The abandoned hotel. Who wouldn’t want to live in an abandoned hotel, to begin with? Surrounded by old objects, by furniture where every piece has a story, a weight of its own, surrounded by ghosts, by the physical and psychological lingering traces of others. The hotel as a communist system in its own way, as a labyrinth, as a microcosm à la High Rise where stories can’t help but emerge.
Gorgeous curtains, pale, translucent, sepulchral… Framed by these thick drapes. Additional filters between oneself and the world. A cozy, padded tomb. I imagine them dirty, these lace curtains and drapes. Tobacco, the smell and grease emanating from the kitchens as well as from the guests’ own bodies. Accumulated dust. Dead insects disintegrating.
I need more photos of my ancestors at home. Old photos. Windows into the past. They don’t necessarily have to be crooked like these, though there’s no denying they have a certain charm.
A long, dark hallway like this is the only thing I miss about home. This one might not even be dark enough; you can see the door at the end. It would need a pocket of pure darkness, like in that movie I saw on ARTE, Hotel.
There’s nothing behind the door, and that’s just fine. It’s probably the ballroom from The Shining anyway.
I need more old lampshades. And some wall sconces. I want to spruce up the lighting in my place. And make it look old-fashioned. Just like at Grandma's.
This, too, is the kind of dimly lit bar – the kind I imagine to be quiet – where I’d love to spend some time.
(I don’t know why I’m thinking of that Protomartyr music video, A Private Understanding, with its old-fashioned sets and people dressed in such classic styles – the kind you’ll never see anywhere else except in movies or fiction in general. Adults dressed like adults. Not like tattooed ex-convicts, gang members or Sunday morning joggers.)
The cold, bluish light of the moon. Something you never see in "real life" (American nights in movies have also warped our imagination).
