VR level design based on the novel ‘Kappa’ by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

supervisor: Dr hab. Katarzyna Proniewska-Mazurek, Assoc. Prof.

The master’s degree piece of Ms Marta Wieczorek and Mr Maciej Czuchryta is the first diploma project using VR tools at the Faculty of Stage Design. This design was based on the text of Kappa by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. The Japanese writer’s short story transfers us to the Japanese reality of the second half of the 1920s – to a world of developing aggressive capitalism and advancing fascism. The diagnoses of the aforementioned formations contained in it helped degree candidates to create a sort of dystopian vision of reality inspired by the alarming phenomena of the contemporary world.

When observing the creation of the degree piece of Ms Marta Wieczorek and Mr Maciej Czuchryta, their great commitment and determination shown at every stage of mutual actions: from searching for the topic, the decision-making process regarding the tools used, the construction of a substantive base and an apt analysis of the text, searching for an inspiration and an artistic vision of the design, then the sketching of a map of the virtual world into which they intended to introduce the recipient and, finally, whole weeks spent on the creation of digital reality, one could be sure that success is almost inscribed in the ‘genotype’ of the nōgraphy collective formed by them.