Tanked!

[troublewillfindme]

Art by Jimmy Martinez

 

One of the things that stuck out for me from the War of the Chosen expansion was that, at least for periods, the Commander was conscious within the tank, or perhaps, more accurately within the network. There’s a very particular kind of horror endemic in that, especially as it’s not just the Elders who are aware of that fact. Even if the scientists don’t know who’s in the suit, they’re very much complicit in the ongoing imprisonment and torture of another human being. The fact that it’s a person in there very much drove the underlying idea.

So, the original visual concept came from Madame Leota’s tombstone at Walt Disney World’s Haunted Mansion (her tombstone may be as cool on the west coast, but I’ve never been). If you’ve never seen it in action, check out a video here; the effect is pretty unsettling when you’re not expecting it. In the case of the original, it’s literally just a spooky effect. Leota’s important to the house lore, but more in the sense that she’s keeping an eye on the visitors. In the creation of this piece, I wanted there to be a certain confrontation between subject and viewer.

The suit, obviously, had to go. The obstruction of the face aside, the suit helps to obscure that it’s a person —fragile flesh and blood— encased within.  Though the dehumanization is important, I had a bigger thing I wanted to get at, which was, in this case, depersonalization. 

The choice of a hospital gown was very much intentional: the ties to medical procedures and the mechanics of being tanked aside, there’s a stripping to it. An XCOM uniform retains some sense of who Lizzie is or was; there’s an element of individuality still to it. A hospital gown removes that. She’s no longer a Commander; she’s a subject — albeit a valuable one. She does not exist in a position of power, but is a victim of the power of others.

The blink, then, becomes affirmation and accusation: I’m still here and I see you. It becomes a way to highlight the agency that’s been taken from her, and a quiet promise that she isn’t passive in her containment.