The Towngas Ma Tau Kok Control Center has been recreated within the Leave Your Body world. Its worth mentioning that this was built with the help of a very talented Minecraft Architect, and consist of the exterior only – but wow is it beautiful.

A site recreated within the aesthetics of Minecraft is similar to how most 3D scanning and digitization projects – the information extracted is for “skins” and “shapes” and how these two types of information interlink with each other. The material of the site cannot be calibrated, and the material of the project becomes the medium in which the information is expressed – light emitted from a glass surface.

Minecraft is a sandbox video game that was first made public in 2009 before being released in 2011. It has since become the best-selling video game of all time. A game with over ten years of development and lore is intimidating to step into. Instead of just releasing a video game with the possibility of sequels like a movie, the recent trend in video games is to continually make improvements and add complexity over time, through updates. Added complexity retains the interest of hardcore users, and updates keep up with current trends to absorb new users. Developers consistently introduce new skins, maps, items, stories, missions, etc. As a maintenance format for the medium of video games it works. One can’t help but think what other systems could benefit from similar forms of continual improvement and incentivizing.

I am embarking on the early portion of the adjustment period and wondering how long it will take to where the game feels intuitive. The controls are still uncomfortable and there are too many types of blocks to know what to do. Luckily I can stand on the shoulders of giants and channel the wisdom of millions before me by watching Youtube tutorials. So far I have figured out how to build a tunnel and put some light in it.

As with the current semi-lock down in Hong Kong, just as in most other lock downs, people develop an inexplicable bubbling primal urge for greenery and sunlight. So this last weekend my partner and I took our poodle to do a short hike on Hong Kong’s outlying Lamma Island.

Although I had seen it before, I somehow completely forgot about this sizeable man-made hole in the hillside along the hiking route, that dated back to the Japanese occupation (1941 – 1945). It is said that this cave was used to hide boats ladened with explosives that would have been launched into unsuspecting enemy ships. There is a small stainless steel plaque near the cave describing it as a “kamikaze grotto” along with some information. However, I have found some speculation on if the caves were ever in use or if the boats and their operators were intended to be sacrificial.

In thinking about the city’s relationship with the subterranean this instance is unique in that it supports a larger historical narrative and also takes on the significance of a landmark. What is essentially an empty hole, contains within it so much thick tension through the power of absence. Somehow it manages to be a very “heavy hole”

To assist in thinking about this I found this quote from Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane:

“We all carry trace fossils within us – the marks that the dead and the missed leave behind. Handwriting on an envelope; the wear on a wooden step left by footfall; the memory of a familiar gesture by someone gone, repeated so often it has worn its own groove in both air and mind: these are trace fossils too. Sometimes, in fact, all that is left behind by loss is trace – and sometimes empty volume can be easier to hold in the heart than presence itself.”