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The word scene to describe the form of the work is preferred over less specific terms like virtual space or virtual world, as there are a couple usages of scene which draw out important characteristics of the work.
+ A staged scene, to set the scene: There is a bit of theater to the work, a sort of contemporary baroque (characterized by multiple perspectives, expansion beyond the frame, an "architecture of vision", collisions of narrative; Angela Ndalianis has a summary of Gilles Deleuze's revisitation of the baroque as exemplified by electronic entertainment [link]).
+ A scene of incident or scene of aftermath: The viewer travels through documents of a collective memory — incorporeal ruins built from media fragments and ghost topographies.
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Image fragments in the work come from the following sources.
Escape from New York, dir. John Carpenter, 1981.
Hiroshima Mon Amour, dir. Alain Resnais, 1959.
Das Boot, dir. Wolfgang Petersen, 1981.
Jack Goldstein, The Jump, 1978.
"Nusaiba - Surah Al Qalam - Women only please" [link], 08 Feb 2007, accessed 24 Apr 2008.
Lessons of Darkness, dir. Werner Herzog, 1995.
Giotto di Bondone, The Lamentation, c. 1306.
Joanna Newsom, live footage by shlacking, Philadelphia, PA, 16 Nov 2006.
Apocalypse Now, dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1979.
Sans Soleil, dir. Chris Marker, 1982.
Guernica, dir. Alain Resnais, 1950.
Children of Men, dir. Alfonso Cuaron, 2006.
"Aerial Hunting of Wolves in Alaska (short version)" [link], 19 Sep 2007, accessed 23 Jan 2008.
"The Truth About Aerial Hunting of Wolves in Alaska" [link], 19 Sep 2007, accessed 23 Jan 2008.
The Passenger, dir. Michelangelo Antonioni, 1975.
The Thing, dir. John Carpenter, 1982.
Muriel, dir. Alain Resnais, 1963.
Piet Mondrian, Chrysanthemum, 1900.
Piet Mondrian, Red Amaryllis with Blue Background, c. 1907.
Piet Mondrian, Chrysanthemum, c. 1908.
Piet Mondrian, Red Dahlia, 1907.
Night and Fog, dir. Alain Resnais, 1955.
Taste of Cherry, dir. Abbas Kiarostami, 1997.
Chocolat, dir. Claire Denis, 1988.
Live footage of the Minutemen from We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen, dir. Tim Irwin, 2005.
Assault on Precinct 13, dir. John Carpenter, 1976.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, dir. Philip Kaufman, 1978.
The Lives of Others, dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2007.
F for Fake, dir. Orson Welles, 1973.
The Battle of Algiers, dir. Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966.
Live footage of Grigory Sokolov from Grigory Sokolov: Live in Paris, dir. Bruno Monsaingeon, 2004.
"Cool Cellular Automata Step 1: Matlab simulation" [link], 12 May 2007, accessed 12 Jan 2009.
"Color Game Of Life Visual Exhibition" [link], accessed 16 Jan 2009.
"AI Civilian Panic Simulation" [link], 02 Feb 2007, accessed 12 Jan 2009.
Jack Goldstein, Shane, 1974.
Personal footage taken in Mexico City, 2008.
The Shoes of the Fisherman, dir. Michael Anderson, 1968.
"Office Evacuation Simulation" [link], 15 Apr 2007, accessed 12 Jan 2009.
Dune, dir. David Lynch, 1984.
Johnny Mnemonic, dir. Robert Longo, 1995.
Starship Troopers, dir. Paul Verhoeven, 1997.
Personal footage taken in the Netherlands, 2008.
2001: A Space Odyssey, dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1968.
Deep Water, dir. Louise Osmond and Jerry Rothwell, 2006.
"Newly Found Bas Jan Ader film" [link], 06 Sep 2007, accessed 05 May 2009.
Jacob's Ladder, dir. Adrian Lyne, 1990.
Bas Jan Ader, Broken Fall Organic, 1971.
A Poet on the Frontline: The Reportage of Ryszard Kapuscinski, dir. Gabrielle Pfeiffer, 2004.
Pieter Saenredam, The Nave of the Buurkerk in Utrecht from North to South, 1645.
Pieter Saenredam, View through the West Part of the Nave of the Mariakerk in Utrecht from South to North, 1638.
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The airlock as a stage for moments of clarity and condensation. Lifeline drifting, speaking to the heavens. Poles: individuation / enfoldment (Deleuzian germinal subject, cf. The Fold); compression / decompression (of atmospheres; of memories; of data). Dream images lingering into wakefulness, the anxieties of the insomniac, the reveries of the dying.
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Just as a sequence of images is set in motion inside a man as his life comes to an end — unfolding the views of himself under which he has encountered himself without being aware of it — suddenly in his expressions and looks the unforgettable emerges and imparts to everything that concerned him that authority which even the poorest wretch in dying possess for the living around him.
Walter Benjamin, "The Storyteller"
Notes +