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Walking in Virtual Worlds


What is it like doing “psychogeography” in “virtual worlds”? As childcare commitments, covid lockdowns, and climate change got in the way of my walking as a practice, I started wandering in a different way. I wondered how psychogeography might have transformed as a practice in the era of gaming. Watching ambient walking videos of real people roaming real cities like New York City, Tokyo, London, and Singapore, it no longer seemed so different from the ambient gaming videos of players traversing open world roaming games like Red Dead Redemption, Elden Ring, Death Stranding, and Cyberpunk 2077. I decided to walk daily in VRChat at lunchtime, passing through fields of sunflowers, jellyfish palaces, suburban backyard barbeques, pool clubs and gyms in sleek condominium penthouse flats, musical particle performances, seaside cyberpunk towns, nostalgic video arcades in the rain, and countless broken and incomplete Unity projects by anonymous authors – all while collecting images of my footprints in virtual worlds.





More about the artist: Debbie Ding

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Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum



Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum



Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum



Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum



Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum

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 PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY IN VIRTUAL WORLDS - AN ARTISTIC RESEARCH PLATFORM
  PSYCHOGEOGAMER.ORG
ABOUT

Psychogeogamer.org is a platform on psychogeography in virtual worlds, which presents the artistic research of Debbie Ding. Here you will be able to read about upcoming events, work-in-progress, documentation of journeys through game worlds and virtual worlds, and strategies for both the game player and game designer.

The focus of the platform is on the relationship between artistic research and computer game spaces. How can one play a psychogeographical game in a virtual world? This website will become a resource and repository for the artist's artistic research from 2022-2025 and will be updated with daily blogs and a review of 100 virtual worlds.

Artworks (Game Prototypes)

Works in progress
Come visit Debbie Ding's open studio at 136 Goethe Lab from 9 Nov 2024 to 8 Dec 2024. Every Saturday from 1-6pm, you can come and play a rotating selection of game prototypes on PC and VR! These "art games" have no goals, no skills you are required to master; no real ways to win the game. They invite you reconsider what a "game" can be.

Will the games eventually evolve into polished high-production-value AAA game experiences or will they spiral downwards to become provocatively twisted iterations of themselves? Either way, your role as the player is key! Your feedback and reactions to the works - whether critical, curious, or just plain confused - will help Debbie in her process of building games, hopefully steering the development of her game works into delightfully uncharted territories!
Contact Me for a Studio Visit / Or just say Hi!
For enquiries about works, exhibitions, conducting talks/tours/workshops, or simply to arrange a studio visit (IRL or virtual) on a day other than Saturday, please use this form.

Walking in Virtual Worlds

Updated Daily
What is it like doing “psychogeography” in “virtual worlds”? As childcare commitments, covid lockdowns, and climate change got in the way of my walking as a practice, I started wandering in a different way. I wondered how psychogeography might have transformed as a practice in the era of gaming. Watching ambient walking videos of real people roaming real cities like New York City, Tokyo, London, and Singapore, it no longer seemed so different from the ambient gaming videos of players traversing open world roaming games like Red Dead Redemption, Elden Ring, Death Stranding, and Cyberpunk 2077. I decided to walk daily in VRChat at lunchtime, passing through fields of sunflowers, jellyfish palaces, suburban backyard barbeques, pool clubs and gyms in sleek condominium penthouse flats, musical particle performances, seaside cyberpunk towns, nostalgic video arcades in the rain, and countless broken and incomplete Unity projects by anonymous authors – all while collecting images of my footprints in virtual worlds.
Coming soon!

100 Virtual Worlds

Reviews of the best VRChat worlds! Updated Daily
When I first started my journey through virtual reality and virtual worlds, I started writing a blog post about 100 worlds to visit in VRChat. I never actually finished the post, nor did I review 100 worlds back then. Especially since it seemed so hard to find worlds to visit - there aren't easy ways to browse the worlds on the VRChat platform, many worlds seem to have intentionally mispelled names which make them hard to search for; you almost have to be taken there sometimes in order to know about the existence of these worlds, like a secret clubhouse, only known by word-of-mouth, some random person throwing down a portal to a place you just gotta visit!

Here are my personal picks for 100 worlds you should visit in VRChat! So what is the criteria here for making it to this list? Simply that all these worlds were either so impressive, so inexplicable, or so incomprehensible that I want to share them with you too.

Coming soon!
VRChat: Real Campfire
VRChat: 77077 Arcade and Bar
VRChat: Yayoi Starfield
VRChat: Cyberlove Suites 3
VRChat: District Roboto