EVOLUTION OF A GAMER

Digital artist and games designer Aluta Null is one of seven recipients of an XR Social Impact Grant by Electric South. She talks about her work and her mental health-related exhibition with

It’s taken me a long time to not be so stressed about what other people think [about my work]. I don’t put stuff out unless I’m happy with it,” says the Johannesburg-based digital artist and games designer Aluta Null over an Instagram connection two weeks before being announced as one of the seven recipients of an XR Social

Impact Grant by Electric South.

She shares a conversation with a friend regarding public perception, which led to her realising that though she doesn’t centre the opinions of others, she appreciates it when they can “see the vision”. She experienced that feeling in person during her debut solo exhibition in October 2021, the result of a month-long residency offered by the Bubblegum Club.

Titled PHANTOM, the virtual reality and augmented reality show’s aim was to address various mental health-related themes, the topmost being depression and substance dependency. “I am attempting to communicate a lot of what I’ve been thinking, dissecting and understanding about mental health and the darkness within it, and the contrast between what is seen and what is felt,” she said in an interview accompanying the exhibition.

Null had painstakingly designed, art-directed and programmed a living space intended to resemble a sitcom, comprising objects such as a TV, a couch, a coffee table and some art on the wall. She employed elements of dark comedy to “transport the same view of mental health in a comedic way”.

Each element invited viewers to interact with it using a combination of VR goggles and mobile phones. For instance, viewing the TV through the goggles made it come alive with content, and this spoke to the seen-vs-felt aspect of her idea.

Speaking about her childhood, Null says the one memory that sticks with her involves her older brother, who used to be mistaken for her twin due to their physical resemblance, and with whom she spent a lot of time.

“We had these trees, and the leaves would be low enough to hang onto them, so we would stand on our stoep and swing off them and land on the grass. And we did that for hours! So when I think of home, that’s what I think about,” she says.

This playful, wonder-filled spirit, as well as themes of dark comedy, carry through to her other work. We Wuz Electrons And Shit (2022) is a video piece that plays on a familiar internet meme and explores remix culture by reflecting on human evolution in the digital realms we occupy, such as the metaverse. This is achieved “through using imagery and text that depicts how we have evolved physically”.

Another video piece, Kyrhin Street (2022), is a personal account of her childhood home in Rouxville, “next to Norwood”. One part is a guided virtual tour of the bedroom she shared with her brother. “We would literally stay up all night and talk,” she says in the accompanying narration. “[It] inspired the spirit of play that still exists in my work. [It] was full of toys and a lot of escapism.”

The second part of the tour features her current room, which she says has “seen a lot of my growing pains, a lot of heartbreak. I think I’m also trying to show a lot of the chaos that it’s held space for me to experience.”

Music, and music videos in particular, plays a significant role in her art. “When I listen to music, I think of visuals. Missy Elliot is someone who,” she pauses, and lets out an exhilarated sigh punctuated by: “My god, yho!

“I can cry when I think about [her]. She was the first depiction I saw of a black woman who was being very, very herself, and very different. I felt I could see myself in [her], and that gave me a lot of comfort. She’s just so cool!”

She is also inspired by old-school objects and this is reflected in the Instagram filters she regularly develops. They feature vignettes of CDs, first-gen cellphones, Windows ’98 logos, and so forth.

“I was very young when a lot of these things were happening so I didn’t get to experience them properly. So whenever I go back and learn about them, it’s me trying to relive them as an adult who understands what all this stuff means,” she says. Her gaming influences come from her brother, who is four years older.

She can’t recall how the evolution from gamer to games designer came about. She finally pins it down to her being an overall creative person and possessing the desire to express through different art mediums.

She singles out games designer and fellow Wits graduate Bahia Khan as a source of inspiration. “One of the reasons I was really attracted to her is because of how honest she is about her journey at Wits and how weirdly marketed the degree was — because it was made clear that the degree was a games development degree.

“The degree is called digital arts, but a majority of what they teach is in the context of developing games. So when they teach you how to animate, they teach you how to animate for video games, which is weird. I kind of found myself in this degree by mistake.”

I note that her work has a social awareness I’ve found lacking in the output of artists working in her stream, and she attributes this to the influence her parents’ activism indirectly had on her.

As we round up, Null reflects on how her university experience made her angrier.

“I don’t think it conscientised me in any way. [It] fuelled some of the emotions that were already bubbling and gave me the language to communicate some of this stuff.”

We conclude by reflecting on PHANTOM and her thoughts about the work produced, in hindsight. “I like how much I played around with the stuff I created. A lot of stuff I’m still very proud of. It was very fun.”