While clicking, looking, watching through Her Story, I felt like I couldn’t distinguish between what I was actually doing (if you couldn’t already tell by the three different verbs I had to use to describe my actions) and the point of the game —if you can even call it that. Most of the electronic literature we have seen and visited until now has had a more distinguished ‘character’, i.e. is it more of a game or more of a piece of writing? However, in this case it took me a while to figure out what was going on. Full videos that have been split and broken down to create a mystery story. But are these real? Are these clips from actual police interviews of this woman?
No. In reality, this is an actual piece of art directed by Sam Barlow and staring actress, musician and gymnast Viva Seifert. It is interesting how two different people can see Her Story as two completely different things. On the one hand, it is a video game where you have to click through video clips, search key words, save whatever you need, play a little game of Xs and Os and chat on the “computer”, all to discover what really happened; who murdered Simon and why? Who is really Hannah and who is Eve? On the other hand, you get a fully directed film with a single actress, written and directed by the artist and creator. It definitely felt as if I was in a modern art museum watching a tv that played the clips of this woman on repeat and in some way reminded me of our own “fracture fairy tale” project where a piece of work/art will also be broken into pieces to create something completely new!