Authors note: This is a column I wrote in December, 1993, when I was disturbed that nothing in the new CDROM industry seemed to have socially redeeming value or to deal with the human side of life. Now it is two years later and we can ask ourselves if we've made any progress using this and other new media to make the world a better place. S. Miller, November, 1995
Heart Productions, just in time for Christmas, has released a spectacular CDROM called Home in Your Heart. This highly interactive, highly visual, artistic, and, yes, emotional, new disk was sponsored by several major players in the new interactive industry including Colossal Pictures, Time-Warner, Warner New Media, QVC, Paramount, and BrĄderbund. A roundtable discussion about humanitarian benefits of the CD ROM industry held last September, yielded a commitment to social causes and the money to back this new title. Each of the sponsors put up $50,000 and two months working time of two employees to guarantee that Home In Your Heart would be ready for this first major holiday marketing season.
"In a new industry driven mostly by desire for big profits, we wanted to make a piece with content that embraces compassion, emotion and other human values. Feelings that connect people and that develop empathy between people drive the power of art and it is just these feelings which have been absent from the CD-ROM industry. We hope that people using Home in Your Heart will forget for a moment their own obsessive needs and frustrations and extend their kindness and consideration to people who are different from themselves." This is the statement on the cover of Home in Your Heart.
Sit down at your computer. Upload the diskettes which play on any 486 PC or Mac IIci plus, or use the CDROM on a player. Sit back. Be sure your children and anyone else you care about in your home environment are there with you. As soon as the computer boots up, you see a Rembrandt-like painting of five people illuminated by a fire burning in a 50 gallon drum. Three men and two women, in tattered coats, rubbing their hands together for warmth, are staring into the flames. Trees rise menacingly around them. Debris is barely visible on the ground. In the background is a glittering hotel-like building and people coming and going.
The people look real, like old fashioned portrait paintings in dark glossy colors, with exquisite detail and fine brushwork, but they move and talk a few seconds after the scene appears. Viewers must click on a figure to move the story on. If you don't click, after 30 seconds a voice says meet the characters by clicking on them. If you start with Clara, a tall gaunt woman about forty in a once-beautiful wool coat with a ratty fur collar, here's what happens.
You first see scenes in quicktime movies from Clara's ordinary childhood. Then you see flashes from her young adult life and then she begins speaking and telling you how she came to her present circumstances. As she talks, city streets, maps, and characters pass on the screen. Then she is talking to you again at the site of the opening screen, around the fire. "What will I do tonight? Where will I go? Where did I go last night?" At that moment, the screen is filled with sixteen small frames, each with an illustration and one or two words, like last night, last job, tonight, next month, dinner, shoes, medicine, family. All the screens retain the chiaroscuro intense quality of Rembrandt. Even text boxes have that single light source illumination, are surrounded by rich dark colors which subtly reveal other objects.
After you have explored four of the sixteen images, a message appears which says: "Is there any hope for Clara? Keep searching and find the possibilities for the future." After you've learned a fair amount about Clara's life, you are offered the following choices: What can Clara do next? How can I help Clara myself? Could I be in Clara's position? How does society help Clara? How does society hurt Clara?
This format is repeated with all the characters around the fire. You discover that there are friendships between them and that they are remarkably skilled at survival. You discover that they all have real lives behind them and that they arrived at the present circumstances for different reasons. They are not all mentally ill; they are not all addicts; they are not all dropouts.
The most powerful section is 'Can this happen to me?' You select a type of person like yourself, student, executive, career woman, minimum wage earner, etc. from a truly varied multi-dimensional list of possible citizens and even illegals. Then you follow paths and make choices. Chances are you can lose your job and end up on the street. Then you have to choose various survival skills and situations that allow you to live. When this seems exhausting, you find out that your choices only served you for that day. Try a week or a whole calendar month. It's not easy to survive on the streets.
There's a large section on activism and what you can do as an individual to help people who are less fortunate. What is amazing about this CDROM is the breadth of possibilities. Its message and its interactivity are not limited to one political point of view or one moral point of view. There are choices that say "If I am a political conservative and do not believe in any entitlement programs, what can I do to help?" You might find yourself signed up to teach a class to the homeless before you're finished with the CDROM.
There's also a modemized section for you to call directly to various public agencies, volunteer organizations, and state and federal officials to offer time, pledge money or register your vote. There are lists of shelters and programs, meeting places and groups, churches and government organizations.
If there is any moral message in this beautifully and movingly illustrated CDROM about the possibilities of misfortune, the message is that 'there but for the grace of God go I.' Somehow, after going through all the stories and all the scenarios, you have to admit that you are surviving with your innumerable amenities just by a thread. Like the five original characters, a combination of unforeseen circumstances could land you in their position. If you've learned that from this extraordinary CDROM, a whole new world will open to you.
The producers are distributing this free. One million copies have been cut and are available everywhere that CDROMs are sold and through all major religious organizations, bookstores, and, nationally, at Walmart, Blockbuster, and Barnes & Noble.
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