Info
Website
Platforms
Windows & macOS
Release date
Umbral was first shown as a limited Autoplay edition in an exhibition at La Casa Encendida in Madrid in 2018. An interactive downloadable version was released in May 2020.
Price
Free / name your own price
Team
Serafín Álvarez - Concept, direction, graphic design and sound effects
BaseTIS - CGI and programming
Carlos Fdz. Rovira - Landscape architecture
Contact
mail (at) serafinalvarez (dot) net
Download
Synopsis
Umbral is an island. An island of unknown location. An island that has been built using video game technology which can be freely explored without much to do apart from wandering aimlessly and contemplatively through its different environments.
Umbral is a heterogeneous island that contains diverse landscapes, inspired by fictional places from films such as the Zone from Stalker, the Pandora jungle from Avatar or the Arrakis desert from Dune. A collage-world built by assembling fragments from other worlds. It is covered by forests submerged in dense fog, smouldering volcanoes, mist-shrouded swamps and sunken villages, to name a few of its hybrid geographies that connect different geological times in the same space. In addition to traversing these landscapes, we can find numerous vestiges in them, traces that seem to point to civilizations that inhabited this arcane island in immemorial times, like abandoned buildings, rusted vehicles, obscure statues and long forgotten monuments. Landmarks from popular audiovisual references, such as one of the enigmatic monoliths of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the eerie cabin from Lost, the Mysterious Globe from Mass Effect, or the timeless Guardian of Forever from Star Trek, amongst many others. These remains seem to linger dormant, and Umbral may appear empty of visible activity. Nevertheless, it has a distinct living ecosystem, full of layers of memory and evocative objects that link to fictional universes and pre-existing narratives.
Umbral is an island to be explored contemplatively by curious walkers, flâneurs, travellers, voyagers and archaeologists without respecting the conventions established by the vast majority of video games. In Umbral there are no specific tasks to perform, no restrictions on where to go, no objectives to pursue, nothing to win and nothing to lose. There are no beginnings and no ends. Umbral is an island to be visited, discovered, felt and breathed, appreciating its surroundings, enjoying the underlying unity of all that exists in an intimate, slow and apprehensive way.
Umbral is an art project about places of otherness that represent access to the unknown within fictional worlds, anomalous spaces that the characters discover on their journey, that do not respond to the same rules of the world they come from. Spaces-entities, from an animistic point of view. Living spaces, spaces with a soul, non-human persons. Places that demand or force a radically different behaviour, providing some kind of metaphysical knowledge, transforming travellers by breaking and deconstructing their subjectivities.
The result of the project is presented in two versions:
- An interactive version, available for download, that can be freely explored.
- A limited edition Autoplay version, for exhibitions and art collectors, in which an artificial intelligence autonomously wanders the island without rest.
Umbral has been created by Serafín Álvarez in collaboration with BaseTIS and Carlos Fdez. Rovira, with the support of Generaciones 2018 - Fundación Montemadrid.
About the author
Serafín Álvarez (1985, Spain) is a visual artist based in Barcelona. His most recent projects develop heterogeneous approaches to various aspects of science fiction, specially how concepts associated with otherness and the journey into the unknown are represented in contemporary audiovisual media such as cinema and video games. His work methodologies tend to reproduce certain creative practices commonly used by fan audiences of the genre, audiences that are themselves an important object of study in his projects.
Media
Images
[⤓]Print-quality images (.zip 182 MB)
Videos
Umbral - Launch TrailerUmbral - Teaser #1
Umbral - Teaser #2
Umbral - Teaser #3
Animated gifs
