Prison

Now open is Cica Ghost's Prison, a somber but starkly beautiful environment that consists of little other than metal bars and doorways. Prisons are designed to not only keep people confined to the inside, but also prevent visitors from entering, and, as a visitor, one's first task here is the find a way to navigate through the solid, heavy door that stands as a barrier to admittance. The process isn't the usual click on the doorway, but instead a full body bump into it that will trigger it to slowly open.

Once inside, visitors are likely to quickly lose track of where they're going and where they've been, a disorienting sensation that perhaps mirrors the timeless waiting of those individuals who are incarcerated in the physical world. Aside from the occasional uncomfortable-looking chair (and birds that presumably have the freedom to fly in and out of the jail), the rooms or enclosures are bare and desolate. (One can sit in prison, Cica remarked to me, but can do little else.)

The real beauty of the space lies not in the limited view one sees by wandering it barren rooms, but rather in camming up and around, seeing bars of various heights stretching toward the sky in a random zigzag, as the vertical and horizontal lines clash and intersect to create patterns. Cica's default windlight setting blankets the sim in a grayish-green light (first and third images), but others can produce striking results as well.