Versaliae / Talismans • 2021-5
Sculpture, 12 engraved-stones & forged steel hooks, 100 x 100 cm
Versaliae Talismans is a sculptural installation comprising twelve engraved stones and their custom-forged steel hooks—physical relics from a digital realm. Originally created for Versaliae, a 2021 solo digital exhibition with Off Site Project, these objects began as digital artefacts within a custom-built Choose Your Own Adventure game. Each stone functioned as a talisman acquired during the player’s quest, casting the logic of game narrative into tangible relics.
Hand-sized and etched with symbolic motifs—keys, crowns, beasts, emblems—each object evokes fragments of myth, memory, and game logic. Together, they form a ritualistic circle: a kind of cosmology that blurs the real and the virtual, the historical and the speculative.
By manifesting digital items as tactile, carved stones, Porré explores the rupture and continuity between physical and virtual worlds. The work reflects an ongoing investigation into how video game mechanics—such as non-linear storytelling, artefact collection, and world-building—can shape our engagement with history, power, and collective memory.
Versaliae Talismans interrogates the recurrence of symbols—how they duplicate, mutate, and accumulate new meaning with each iteration.
