King Manuha - Mac

A game-like virtual 3D room is set up to recreate the experience of being stuck between a natural disaster and a man's might, portraying the lives of the inhabitants of Sagaing Region, Myanmar who are enduring earthquakes, the military regime's airstrikes and aftermaths from both forces. Thanks to a fault line that runs about 1,400 km, lives and destinies have been constantly challenged by the earth's shaking in the region. On top of that, the military coup that took place in February 2021 has forced people into armed resistance, effectively turning the place into a war zone where aerial bombings have become a daily occurrence. Amid the chaos, what remains is a glimpse of hope that is tied to a century-old superstition that an earthquake that is fierce enough can shake off a kingdom and change its destiny for good. 

In order to visualize torturous living trapped between the wraths of the sky and the earth, the project uses various sounds resembling aerial attacks, crumbling ground, intensified conflicts, and expired joy which is heard from all directions as one virtually wanders into the dark vacuum. Objects appear in the direction of the path randomly, and each of them carries a piece of the tragedy and the desperation. Five dimming lights are separately placed on the map, leading up to the reveal of the context in the form of a prose. The project is an interactive sound experience that can be presented to the audience either online (via a web browser), offline (via a monitor/projector in a gallery space), or Virtual Reality (VR). The project file itself is transferrable from peer to peer. Twenty sound files including recordings from real airstrikes are included in the project, many of them have been collected from the web and credited accordingly. One file that recalls an aerial attack on a classroom is provided from an on-ground local source, exclusively for this project. 

With King Manuha Project, we bring together storytelling and technology, in the anticipation of sharing compelling narratives and creating awareness for lives that get unnoticed otherwise.