Waco Resurrection

Revisiting the 1993 Waco, Texas episode, gamers enter the mind and form of a “resurrected” David Koresh through a specially designed voice activated, surround sound enabled, hard plastic 3D skin. In an attempt to defend the Branch Davidian compound against internal intrigue, skeptical civilians, rival theologians and the inexorable advance of government agents, each player on the network plays as a ”Koresh”. Ensnared in the custom “Koresh skin”, players are bombarded with sounds of government psy-ops, internal voices and the clamor of battle, and empowered to voice messianic texts from Koresh’s exegesis of the book of revelation, wield a variety of weapons from the Mount Carmel cache and influence the behavior of both followers and opponents by “radiating” charisma. Waco Resurrection draws on the rhetoric of conspiracy theory, cult activity and apocalypticism to investigate the Waco siege as a cultural milestone. It addresses the multi-layered dynamics of a 51-day media-event that served to mobilize the militia movement, radicalize Timothy McVeigh and cause a re-evaluation of the role of religion in society.