The Value of a Purpose Built Room

Ever since last year I have eagerly anticipated the Voyager displays at the Allen Hall Theatre, which end each semester. Voyager is not like typical theatre, it usually entails more of an interactive art exhibition, often with a focus on digital technology and social media. Being outside of the theatre ‘loop’ I never know what to expect with each visit and so was surprised, this year, when I was led into a room full of balloons, fairy bread and cupcakes, and asked politely to ‘play’. There I was, twenty years old, full of anxiety and doubts over exams and assignments, juggling balloons. After ‘playing’ for several minutes I continued on through the fur coats to ‘Narnia’, a white room full of paper snow and more balloons, before meeting two smiling technicians, surrounded by lights.

“The point of the display”, one of them said, “is that it makes you happy”.

I double-checked my brochure and indeed that was what it said. I was standing in a purpose built ‘House of Joy’.

The next room was filled with T.V. screens, couches and pop-corn. A soundless film was being run, showing the small wonders of Dunedin that perhaps pass us by every day; a particular painting at the gallery, the ducks getting ready to swim, the pink glow of the sun as it sets over the stadium and the reactions of people breaking out into a smile. When I looked up I saw that the theatre technicians had projected a skylight onto the roof.

The last room was a satisfying display of coloured lights twirling, reflecting off the spin of a disco ball, behind which a projected kaleidoscope lazily folded in on itself. The feeling was rather like stepping inside Kubrick’s Space Odyssey, without the killer computers or strange rebirth metaphor. The experience was incredibly soothing, if not exactly joyful, yet I could not help but notice the way other people reacted to the ‘House of Joy’. Some, like myself, were quiet observers, gingerly stepping around the displays, whilst others threw themselves into the experience, juggling balloons, munching on popcorn and generally acting ‘happy’. I began to reflect on the discussion my ENGL242 Digital Literature class had on Julian Dibbell’s article about a rape in cyberspace, particularly on how shocked people were to witness the abuse of their online selves. In an online forum, whose existence relies on the participation of numerous players, what could people expect from the rooms in which they entered? Did they have a purpose to fulfil and if so, did the infamous Mr Bungle, the character who committed the rape, destroy the magic of that experience?

Obviously the theatre space is quite different, in a number of ways, as we are confined to our own physical limitations over what we can do. However, there were no rules in the ‘House of Joy’ against talking, in fact we were actively encouraged to pursue happiness as best we could in the constructed space, yet for the most part we all remained silent, as if the normal rules of the theatre still applied. We were participants in a constructed world, separate from normal reality, yet to break away from our ‘normal’ selves was more than a room full of balloons could realistically manage for many of us. Perhaps then this is the purpose of a room in cyberspace, complete separation from reality, yet maybe not from a desire to be happy, civilized people.