Abandoned Hotels of Zangsti
September - October 2023 · Film · Game engine · Independent · Commission/Exhibition
Set to "Abandoned Hotels of Zangsti" by Indian sound artist Ruhail Qaisar, the visual aims to be an extension of the psycho-ecological decay introduced by the soundscape. Through the haunting drones brought forward from the exploration of the slow loss of his hometown, I bring forward imagery of a frigid mountainous landscape going through deterioration and decay. A descent into a foggy lake with fossils and lotuses, a first-person experience of disassociation of the land beneath, and a closing shot of the gradual collapse of the landmarks, work together to tell this story of postcolonial decay. It screened online at Re:Fest 2024, CultureHub's festival in New York.
Technical Implementation
The lake is set up through Unreal Engine's fluid system and the fossils float on it using the parameters provided for setting up buoyancy. The disassociation of the land beneath the character happens by adding a Niagara particle system around the static mesh of the land. The final shot of the buildings being destroyed is generated through the chaos system provided by Unreal and then the debris along with the smoke is the result of Niagara systems attached to the chaos clusters.