All photographs by Lawrence Vincent
Blood Mine (Chi No Kouzan)
“Blood Mine” is a project attempting to draw out the affective power of an unlikely archival material: a commercially unsuccessful PlayStation horror game released to the Japanese domestic market by Uso Entertainment in 1998, “Blood Mine” (Chi No Kouzan). This project comprises physical examples of the game and associated media along with an informational installation work to provide viewers with context about the game’s themes, its development history, and the story of the game director Midorikawa Akira, who had previously worked in an underground mine and incorporated many of his experiences of alienation, toxic masculinity, and mental health struggles into the narrative. Recorded gameplay footage excerpts, along with translated subtitles, help provide primary sources for viewers to experience key moments from the game for themselves.
Despite the game’s poor sales and limited physical availability, I have managed to obtain a physical copy, as well as a ROM of the Japanese game that can be played on a PC. The physical disc is only playable on a Japanese-region PS1 console, however, and the soft-copy ROM exhibits unusual corruption and glitches. I have had to use workarounds to make the game playable.
Only by chance, I came across a YouTube video essay attempting a forensic investigation of Midorikawa Akira. I was astonished, as I have also previously worked in the same underground mine, and many of Midorikawa’s experiences mirrored my own. I felt that there was a latent affective power in the game’s narrative that was relevant to a contemporary Western Australian audience, and decided to produce an archival response to “Blood Mine”. This archival response draws on the similarities between my own experience and Midorikawa’s, emphasising the relationship between these experiences and the themes and aesthetics of the game.
Painting
Printmaking