House is a metaphor for the interconnection of seemingly disparate functions. The Greek word oikos, literally house, means all aspects of what works together to make a house function as a whole. Consider the meaning of oikos/eco as prefix in concepts such as ecology and economics. House connotes an ecological system of people, institutions, and ideas connected to each other in complex ways. The virtual house is a collaborative, fluid entity that grows from the participation of its use.

Building architectural elements inform the CyberHouse game vocabulary in that these building attributes (e.g., wall, threshold, ceiling, step, window, foundation, structure, frame) reflect human experiences by their metaphorical use in everyday language (e.g., come up against a wall, on the threshold, she has hit the glass ceiling, one step at a time, window of opportunity, foundations of life, structure of an organization, frame your ideas). Figure 1 is the visualization of these concepts in an introduction screenshot that a player encounters after creating a self-icon as one’s avatar. When the player enters the house, the idea is that one is entering self. The house is animated to look like it is breathing and maintains a soft audible respiratory rhythm.

The metaphor of house provides opportunities to explore gendered spaces, the body, society, power, and privilege. Many artists have played with the metaphor of house in their work including: The Feminist Art Program’s WomanHouse in 1971, involving many women and facilitated by Judy Chicago and Mariam Shapiro; Judy Chicago and Donald Woodman’s facilitation of At Home: A Kentucky Project in 2001; Rachel Whiteread's House (1993); Pepón Osorio’s, Tina's House in Home Visits (1999-2000); Andrea Zittel's AZ Traveling Trailer Units (1995); Pocket Property (2000); and Louise Bourgeois's Femme-Maison (1947).

Feminist cultural critic bell hooks sees “freedom as always and intimately linked to the issue of transforming space” (1995, p. 147). She suggests that we think critically about the spaces that we inhabit and in discussion with others to gain “a concrete acknowledgement of [our] reality” (p. 146). She adds, “many narratives of resistance struggle from slavery to the present share an obsession with the politics of space, particularly the need to construct and build houses” (p. 147).

The traditional house is filled with negotiations of space and power. For example, who controls the television remote holds the power of the house space in terms of influencing with images, sounds, and cultural narratives. In the 21st century, whoever has access to a home computer has the power of merging private and public spaces. In CyberHouse, the game involves self-referential organization to develop awareness and reflection of self in relation to the world.

House is a metaphor for body, community, and a place that can confine or build confidence. House is symbolic of social class, values, privilege, and at one time home ownership was necessary to vote in the United States. House is both the ultimate personal possession and can denote a collective. House is a social space, physical space, and a metaphysical space. Metaphysically, house constitutes a symbolic structure of human experience. House is a lived body, a social body, and a body image.

An individual house is associated with females (i.e., birthplace, nest, nurturing space, womb). Houses of government are associated with males. These gendered constructions can change. A house can be a refuge, a preservation of traditional values, a core education center, a middle-class notion, and can refer to concepts of family. “The dream house is a uniquely American form, because for the first time in history, a civilization has created a utopian ideal based on the house rather than the city or nation” (Hayden, 1984, p. 38). House as an American Dream is a symbol of upward mobility, yet housing is a common human need. A house can be a site of isolation. However, in CyberHouse, it is a site of collective activity where the community of players is encouraged to work together to decode and recode the messages of their house, their symbolic collective body. CyberHouse is a community in cooperative living, under the same virtual roof, with windows of opportunity offered by contributing to the well-being of others. There is not a head of household in CyberHouse. It is an alternative form of housing, not a single nuclear family dwelling. It is a means to dismantle the master’s house (Lorde, 1984).

CyberHouse Game Plan

Imagine entering an animated breathing house, your body, and look into the metaphorical mirror that asks: How do you see yourself? How would you like others to see you? The following describes the game from a player’s eye/I perspective.

CREATE SELF: I create a visual representation of myself (with watercolors, or some other media and scan it, or create it on the computer).

UPLOAD: I upload my image and see an animation of myself entering the house.

REVEALING REFLECTION: The animation ends and I see my icon reflected on a mirror in the house’s foyer. I move and the reflection moves correspondingly, but there is one variation that attracts my attention to the visual qualities of my self-representation.

The variation in the mirror reflection calls attention to the invisible and disrupts the power of what appears to be natural.

UNDERSTANDING SELF: I click on the mirror in which I am reflected and depending on which part of me (i.e., my representation) that I click on, I follow a different path. I can come back to where I started at any time in the game. For example, I click on my center portion and see other concepts/images of center. I select one and it leads me to see more ways to think about "center." I make a choice from five different ways to understand center (e.g., subjectivity, core, essence, power, inclusion) in three different environments (e.g., womb emphasizing autobiography and self-esteem, closet with a focus on identity formation and media culture, and sky connoting imagination and symbiotic relationships). This choice is saved as an organizational feature of "my room" or "worldview."

I go back to the mirror reflection and follow periphery paths of my image (e.g., in environments of shopping emphasizing body image, a scene of people interacting focused on human relationships, and a space of nature symbolic of transformative power). I see it compared to other interactive visuals that enlarge my understanding of what I could possibly communicate with this portion of my self-representation, and the visuals suggest ways to "sort out" what meaning I choose. I make selections and that becomes part of my "worldview."

In the mirror journeys, (i.e., short scenarios and excerpts from familiar visual culture) the user’s interactions change their directions to another event. The "player" can chose to fill another’s cup, or pick a flower, for instance, and then something else results from the player's actions. The principles described above guide the consequence features, but the stories or animations come from everywhere. I am constructing from powerful movements, memories, and perspectives in literature, film, paintings, sculptures, and popular culture—to make short interactive animations that reconfigure outcomes depending on the user’s actions. The interrupted perceptions reference existing images with a twist.

The room assembles from the choices the player makes. Fragments of actions form a cohesive story for each player. The action informs the text with the subjectivity of the player. This is the first segment of the game in entering the mirror and making choices that result in an environment based on those choices. Then the interaction/communication with other players begins once icon and environment are initially established for each player. While environment shapes human identity and life events, in CyberHouse, one creates the environment with a series of interactions with animated environmental scenarios, thus shaping identity and events throughout the rest of the game along with the choices others have made.

The game involves finding, losing, and finding oneself again, differently, through counter-hegemonic practices that draw upon visual culture as the societal practices to decode and recode. Such referentiality, conjugations, and riffs on common visual culture knowledge are the ploys in the interactive animations that guide individual and collective journeys in CyberHouse. If choices are limited by imagination, the imagination must be stretched.

SHARING and COMPARING ASPECTS OF MY WORLDVIEW: When I have exhausted the reflections on all parts of my self-representation I find myself in the room created from my choices. In this room I find that some of my room (symbolizing my worldview) is shared with another since "hotspots" take me to another room. I enter another's room through one of the shared passageways.

When I am in another's room I can look around and learn about this person. I am able to make changes to another's room and communicate through typed text. If the other person is there, we can dialogue. Through the room passages, self is interwoven with community. Rooms show up only if the person who built it is present.

References Hayden, D. (1984). Redesigning the American dream: The future of housing, work, and family life. New York City, NY: W.W. Norton. hooks, b. (1995). Art on my mind: Visual politics. New York City, NY: New Press. Lourde, A. (1984). Sister outsider. Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press.