IN CHLOE, A great city, the people who move throughout the streets are all strangers. At each encounter, they imagine a thousand things about one another; meetings which could take place between them, conversations, surprises, caresses, bites. But no one greets anyone; eyes lock for a second, then dart away, seeking other eyes, never stopping.
Calvino’s description of Chloe seems to point out a common characteristic shared amongst many megacities. In such cities, it is a natural part of one’s routine, almost inevitable, to encounter a large number of individuals. However, due to the high population density, most people are strangers. Amidst such a colorful crowd, yet most eyes are set on inanimate objects – some fixed on the ground, while most lie on their mobile phones. Those without objects of distraction are more aware. If one is curious enough, not yet accustomed, they start looking. Each person is given a two to, at most, five-second glance. If timings align, two eyes connect but this rarely sustains.
Something runs among them, an exchange of glances like lines that connect on figure with another and draw arrows, stars, triangles, until all combinations are used up in a moment, and other characters come on to the scene.
Calvino describes people as characters. The personalities and qualities of such characters seem to be constructed within one’s imagination. The lack of information about another gives the viewer the power to fill the gap. These characters fill up the viewer’s “scene”, one at a time, implying one’s temporal attention is limited. The span of attention per subject is also short due to the richness of alternatives. Also, one must always give up looking at one to give attention to the other.
The limited nature of attention – both spatially and temporally – seems to be a factor worth taking into account when constructing a VR setting. Due to our strong desires to process and understand our surroundings, to our fullest capabilities, having too much going on at one time or space could easily overwhelm the user. This would create an unpleasant and unsettling scene and would not be effective in delivering ideas clearly. Hence, it seems important to space out the introduction of new factors using time and space through taking account the time it takes for the user to shift their attention and process new elements. This also applies for the opposite case. If one wants to create an unsettling atmosphere, for a horror game perhaps, they could overwhelm the user’s attention through introducing multiple factors to the scene at once.
Chloe reminded me of my last three summers in Seoul. That time was spent attending academies located in the center of Gangnam. The daily commute, specifically through the streets and underground station of Gangnam, came back to me while reading Calvino’s description of Chloe. Passing by hundreds of strangers during one commute, I noticed people were more connected to their phones than to their physical surroundings. As Gangnam was a relatively new place for me, I was one of the only few people looking around. Sometimes, I consciously refrained myself from doing so as it almost seemed like social courtesy to not look at others – two to three seconds was the limit before it became invasive.
The subways were packed with people of various looks and personalities. They had different expressions depending on the time. Weekdays, especially during commute hours, people were more occupied, dressed in their formal work attire. A feeling of stress permeated the enclosed space. Weekends, Friday nights in particular, were more lively. People stood with their group of friends, ready to hit the lively streets of Gangnam after a week of intense work, to destress over multiple bottles of soju and karaoke sessions. Now that I look back, it becomes clear my perception of such strangers were highly limited to my imaginations. It also makes me wonder, the thoughts which came across one’s mind, when I was the stranger to the eye of the beholder. These thoughts we will never know, as strangers are granted merely a couple seconds worth of attention in our scenes.