“Gui, the Ghost” by Ahreum Lee
Title:
- Gui, the Ghost
Artist(s) and People Involved:
Exhibiting Artist(s):
Symposium:
- ISEA2023: 28th International Symposium on Electronic Art
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More artworks from ISEA2023:
Venue(s):
Creation Year:
- 2022
Artist Statement:
Exhibition. Centre Culturel Canadien, May 16 – 20
Gui, the Ghost is a graphic novel style text adventure survival game – combining various retro aesthetics such as vector graphics, ASCII art and pixel art – in which we play the role of the protagonist, Gui: a dead young woman, stuck in this world and who must overcome a series of challenges to cross over to the afterlife. As players investigate what happened to her, and collect memories of her “past life”, Gui unlocks new abilities by becoming more and more transparent until she can finally disappear forever.
Inspired by Korean folklore “Cheo-Nyeo Gui Shin (처녀귀 신)” – which literally translates to “virgin woman ghost” – the game’s narrative features this specter caught in purgatory and unable to enter heaven or hell, because of this burden related to her tragic death. Some Korean scholars argue that this figure has remained famous because of its roots in a misogynistic culture. It can also be seen as a parallel to witches in the folklore of Western cultures. Gui, the Ghost allows us to revisit this story with a feminist perspective in order to help rewrite the future.
Created as part of a perte de signal residency.
