House - Tree - Person
Introduction
The project is a nostalgic and immersive VR experience that performs a fragmented memory of a childhood goldfish’s death through the surreal lens of a vintage operating system. The project inspired from the psychological test “House-Tree-Person” to structure its non-linear narrative, guiding participants through an emotionally charged journey.
Set entirely within a simulated Windows 98 environment, the experience invites the audience to navigate memory and meaning using Windows interfaces—command lines, pop-out windows, msn messages, and floppy disks. Through three symbolic acts—House, Tree, and Person—users explore intimate moments and emotional connections with the story of the goldfish.
Each act represents a memory piece, blending digital nostalgia with psychological exploration, and creator’s personal emotions. The computer system becomes both diary and dreamscape, turning obsolete technology into a vessel for storytelling. The project explores how memory fragments can be stored, distorted, and re-experienced in a loop in the old technology system, and how something as small as a goldfish can leave a ripple that lasts a lifetime. It’s about nostalgia, loss, regret, and the intimacy of computers from another time.
Concept
The story behind House-Tree-Person begins with a personal childhood memory—the quiet, inevitable death of a goldfish. In this immersive VR experience, users step into the perspective of the creator as a child, rewinding through fragmented memories in an attempt to piece together the full story of the goldfish.
The goldfish was the first small life entrusted to someone who didn’t yet understand what it meant to care for another being. From the very beginning, its death felt almost predetermined. This project reflects on that early moment of loss, when the line between life and death was confusing, and responsibility felt both heavy and unclear.
The experience takes place inside a reimagined Windows 98 system, drawing from the creator’s own deep familiarity with old computers. At the time the goldfish entered her life, she was already drifting—unsure even of her own place in the world. Nights were spent alone on an office chair turned makeshift bed, in front of her mother’s work computer. The computer was the only entity that she had communication with. The goldfish became the only living thing that felt truly hers, whose life depended entirely on her. Home was a blurred idea—mostly her mom’s office. Her routine revolved around the computer: playing, waiting for her mom to finish work, then going “home” to the goldfish.
The narrative structure of the experience is inspired by the psychological test “House-Tree-Person,” in which individuals are asked to draw those three elements, and a psychologist interprets the subconscious meanings behind the drawings. Though not widely used today, the test offers a poetic framework for emotional storytelling—each element reflecting fundamental parts of a life. It creates a nostalgic, abstract setting for memory: the idea of a house, a tree, a person—simple symbols that carry deep emotional weight.
In this experience, these three elements—House, Tree, and Person—become interactive acts, helping the user explore grief, memory, and the early, fragile connections between people and the lives they’re responsible for. House-Tree-Person is a journey through childhood confusion, digital nostalgia, and the quiet heartbreak of realizing something depended on you before you were ready to understand what that meant. The old Windows system is fading, and the memory build inside the old type mediums probably would not last long.