My final project incorporates myrmecology, the scientific study of ants and a virtual world created for my virtual ant. This project takes you from the freedom of your natural habitat to a controled one in which you are constrained to a life inside a glass pen for the human viewing.
We walk around our big world on campus, in our rooms or at the park, but never know a world that exists on a smaller level. The anthill that we squish on our way to class without realizing that we just destroyed a colony is a part of a different world that we know the world of an ant. This project is intended to have the view exist on a smaller level and wander through this world. My project is a game of sorts, based on the life of one ant, the player being that ant. I have the viewer envision life as an ant by creating everyday objects on a massive scale. Blades of grass that seem as high as a skyscraper, little pebbles as big as houses, and crumbs of food big enough to feed many ants. And with these massive objects comes caution and fear of the bigger world around you; the feet of humans, the lawn mower and other insects.
I also want to create another world in which the ant is moved to an ant farm thus loosing the freedom that it once had. This world is linked to its natural habitat via a shovel, which is used to transport the ant into its new home. With this shovel the viewer is thrust into new worlds where interaction is minimal. This is to portray your freedom being stripped away. Once in the ant farm, the user is able to move around again as if they were an ant.
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