This immersive 3D environment addresses themes of colonialism, exploitation and consumption by examining a possible future of space travel and tourism. Interstellar Illusions leverages science fiction and fantasy aesthetics within a navigate-able speculative narrative. Viewers are invited to explore a fictional and abandoned extraplanetary luxury resort. It is unclear as to why the resort has been vacated, but what’s left behind offers an eerie glimpse of what the future of space travel and tourism could be. 

Existing extraplanetary explorations currently prioritize seeking signs of existing life as uncovering “biological potential” for supporting human life on other planets. As of 2022, there are around fifty planets identified as having this potential. Corporations such as SpaceX are pursuing the possibility of colonizing nearby Mars as global ecological disasters become more intense, opening the possibility that the earth will become uninhabitable. Interstellar Illusions asks, if humans were to colonize new worlds, would we create new systems or, will extra-terrestrial planets simply become extensions of existing models of colonization which has been the earthling’s experience?

Interstellar illusions & delusions was supported by the Canada Council for the Arts

Interstellar illusions & delusions artist statement, 2022, …

I started working on Interstellar Illusions and delusions in 2021 continuing the work from Proxima B: Luxury Resort which explored a fictional extraplanetary luxury resort through images and augmented reality. Proxima B was originally shown in Geofenced curated by Karie Liao for InterAccess.

Interstellar Illusions and delusions is an explorable 3D environment, originally shown through There is No Centre curated by Katie Micak for The Mackenzie

Most of the models were made in Blender and the environment was put together in Unity. There are no real interactions or goals or clear narrative, just mazes to get lost in and the surface of planets to explore. One of the locations was Proxima B resort.

Both of these works exist within a speculative future originally started in Ambiguous Origins, my MFA thesis project consisting of 3D rendered images, augmented reality and an animated short film.

Interstellar Illusions: The Game will be a narrative puzzle game (I think- I’m open to things evolving as I go) that takes place at an extraplanetary resort similar to Proxima B -maybe owned by the same resort chain- but further away since Proxima B is located in the Alpha-Centauri system which is only 13 lightyears (lol) away from earth. I’m not sure about how much of the narrative I should share… I’ll figure it out later.

Technically I started this project in September 2023 when I heard back about funding from The Canada Council for the Arts. I’ve spent most of the time from September to now (January) brainstorming, looking at similar games, some experimentation, but mostly hyping myself up to do it. I am a (mostly) self taught 3D artist and game developer so taking on a new project always means dealing with things outside of my current skill set. I am excited to learn though.

I am usually pretty bad about following through on things, and I have majorly mixed feelings about sharing online but there needs to be some marketing and maybe people will like to hear about the process of making this game. I have until February or March 2025 to finish the game and I am trying to be realistic about what I can accomplish in that time frame – I love building environments but I should really focus on actual gameplay and narrative – so I am aiming to have some kind of short (20 minutes??) demo finished by February and then we will see what I can do with it after.

I hope this was interesting? Thanks for reading!