Born in London in 1976. Lives and works in Brighton & London.
Detailed information: https://davidblandy.co.uk/
Diachronic, David Blandy, 2024
Supported by The British Council in collaboration with John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, UK
Commissioned by Canakkale Biennial
Curated by Deniz Erbas & Ulrika Flink
With thanks to Prof. Rustem Aslan
Diachronic is a game that considers our relationship to the past and its stories, who has access to that past and who writes that history. You play as a time traveller, an Envoy, who has a mission to retrieve artefacts in time periods before a future Explorer has a chance to destroy or pillage them.
Through a series of prompts, the player constructs a vivid world in flux, constantly under threat of collapse, as future catastrophe undermines this fragile time shift. Based on the history of Hisarlık and the city of Troy and the ultimately destructive archaeology of Heinrich Schliemann, the game asks us to consider what has been lost, and how we build new narratives.
