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Virginia Tech

Fabricated Preservation

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

"Fabricated Preservation" aims to push the boundaries with traditional theses, creating a multi-layered experience that blends fact and fiction through a performance that centers around environmental storytelling in virtual reality. The experience questions the balance of theatrical elements in traditional storytelling which forefront text and human characters over architecture, props, and environment, and critically examines how an environment can play a crucial role in a narrative. The narrative itself focuses on one question: if a genealogy company had access to past environments via time travel, what new information could we learn about our ancestors? The normal perceptions of a "game" are challenged, introducing real world elements to trick the audience and subtly influence how they navigate a virtual space. A complex fictional character is introduced through the performance and developed through the environment, with the hopes that the audience will gain some emotion toward them: either connecting with the character as if they were a close friend, or feeling unsettled that they observed the character's realistic personal space. This voyeuristic theme weaves its way through each layer of the storytelling, poking at the audience's morals with the hopes that they will question the experience around them. Above all, the main goal of Fabricated Preservation is to challenge the audience to mentally engage with the virtual experience, by paying attention to the details of their environment and constructing their own version of a narrative from those details.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Fine Arts
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Creative Technologies
Department dc:contributor.department
Art and Art History
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2020

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Monzel, Daniel Robert
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Duer, Zachary R.
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Ogle, J. Todd
  • Standley, Eric J.

Subjects

dc:subject × 6

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
vt_gsexam:23875
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/98492

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Monzel, Daniel Robert. Fabricated Preservation. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/98492