With "Goliath", a poignant virtual reality story about psychosis

In twenty-five minutes of rich and inventive narration, Goliath: Playing With Reality, a work in virtual reality (VR) by Barry Gene Murphy and May Abdalla – awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice VR Expanded – relates the fight against the psychosis of a man who spent several years in a psychiatric hospital. A dive into a frozen universe where thoughts are hazy and confused.

In the past, moving stories have been told by psychotics who managed to survive the disease and then testify, like Polo Tonka and his Dialogue with myself. By putting on a VR helmet, we discover here a new facet of psychosis: a more embodied, more condensed, sometimes more brutal side.

free fall

The helmet placed on the eyes has the effect of an immense screen, which girds us, encloses us, completely cutting us off from our familiar environment to throw us into the imagination of Goliath, the online player pseudonym adopted by the character. . With that of the actress Tilda Swinton, who guides us in history, the voice of this man resounds along the course (unfortunately in English not subtitled): "My fucking head is just fucked" ("my fucking head is screwed").

In a key scene, Goliath mixes techno music tracks in a British club. We are seated directly on his turntables, cans of alcohol in front of us, as if we were borrowing the gaze of a lost little mouse in front of disproportionately tall party-goers. An opportune angle of view because at this moment Goliath has his nose in the buttons of his turntable. According to his own words, he is busy exploring radical and violent musical ideas.

Suddenly, the plate explodes. Goliath's life literally breaks into small pieces that levitate around us – a visual metaphor for a severe psychotic episode accompanied by hallucinations. Goliath's view darkens, the VR joysticks we hold in our hands vibrate for a long time, making a little feel the buzz that invades the character's mind. In the inky black, a few tiles slowly emerge, which gradually expand, revealing the outlines of a cell. Then other cells begin to float around us, symbolizing the multiplication of his days of isolation.

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In free fall, Goliath is crossed by the discourse of psychiatrists, capsules of all shapes flying towards us. “The drugs completely knock you out,” says Goliath, who hears imaginary voices calling him “shit”. “Everything is collapsing around me. And then you're all alone. And it lasts forever. »

Six years pass, and here we are invited to press a button that one would think pulled from an old terminal of arcade. The creators of the work spin the imagination of the video game from the beginning to the end of the narration with accuracy and with remarkable graphic richness. The button pressed, we fall, accompanying Goliath in his return to the real world. An abbreviated return since he struggles to fit into this universe that is so unwelcoming to him.

Salvation through video games

Immersed in a large virtual amusement park, we are invited to shoot small birds with pistols. Many times in this virtual work, we use our hands in short phases of interaction reinforcing the feeling of taking part in this moving destiny. This episode marks Goliath's entry into the world of online video games which will become his refuge. "Sometimes you don't have control, but in games you do," he explains in his hollow voice.

The story ends in a tiny, bare apartment. The furniture in this studio slowly dissolves, then its walls fade away to reveal in the background the setting of an online video game, where Goliath, who has become a giant robot, spends most of his time with his new friends, some of whom are considered handicapped by the administration, just like him. A virtual world of course, but a world shared with other people – and not a hallucinated reality that isolates you. Better than nothing, as he testifies:

“The thoughts are still there, my paranoia is still there. But stuff like streaming and video games keep my mind off all that shit, and I forget, you know? I'm happier, I think? I just want to live a little bit. Live a life. »

At a time when virtual reality nourishes the fantasy of a metaverse allowing us to free ourselves from certain constraints of the physical world, Goliath uses this technology for the opposite purpose: to make us live the fight and the sufferings of the many men and women in prey to great psychic difficulties which are very real and too often forgotten.