INTERACTIVE DIGITAL EXPERIENCE

ITP Winter Show, 370 Jay Street | May 12th 2:00-6:00 PM, May 13th 4:00-8:00 PM

Unreal Engine / Meta Quest 3 VR Headset

In “still hungry”, Helen Lin recreates from imperfect memory the three cafeterias from the NYC public schools she attended—P.S. 205K, I.S. 201, and H.S. 345—as a connected architectural model using Unreal Engine. These imperfect reconstructions retain only a subjective reflection of the original, leaving behind an empty and echoing chamber of a familiar yet distant place.

In the experience, you play as a custodian for a public school cafeteria in New York City. All of the students have finished their lunch period and are now outside for their recess break. Some of the students qualify for free meals and rely on this as their sole reliable meal of the day. Others are allergic to the offerings and bring a packed sack lunch from home. Many of the students dislike the food they were given and have left large portions of their meal behind to be tossed. 

You’ve been tasked to clean up by picking up the remainders (position the object in the exact center of your screen, and then click + drag) and bring them to the nearby trashcans using WASD keys to move (W to move up, A to move left, S to move down, and D to move right). 

This piece explores nostalgia, memory, sustenance in a way that shows how school cafeterias create an impersonal relationship to food and what we put in our bodies. They play a unique role in a lot of kids' lives, often being the first to introduce the idea of cost and transaction to kids. In cafeterias, they often adopted little tokens or little coins / tickets that paying kids can buy. The kids who get free lunch get the tickets directly. In 1981, the Reagan administration cut $1 in school funding by declaring ketchup a vegetable to “meet” nutritional guidelines. (The backlash was so strong, the funding was reversed but it started the trend of stretching the definition of a vegetable. It shows how the relationship to something as intimate as food skewed by industry lobbying. 

People will engage with the project by either exploring the 3D space through computer setup (monitor/keyboard/mouse) or a Oculus Quest VR headset. Third party observers will be able to watch the person wearing the headset walk around. On the table, I will have takeaways such as stickers and zines that people can take as memorabilia.