Memory and History in Digital Media A look at the game Cozinheiro das Almas (Cook of Souls)

For some years now, history has been a source that feeds into many artistic projects, such as the theatrical play plots, literary works, films, soap operas, comics and, in the case of this article, a game. Many of these projects function as historical and fictional testimonies, bringing back memories often unfamiliar to the more hegemonic narratives of digital games, as is the case with the game Cozinheiro das Almas (Cook of Souls). The game, whose title is drawn from the 1918 diary/novel O Perfeito Cozinheiro das Almas deste Mundo (The Perfect Cook of the Souls of this World) by Oswald de Andrade, is a project developed by the Poeticas Digitais group in 2005/2006, In 2015, the garconniere (bachelor pad) that everyone imagined lost and demolished is rediscovered after almost 100 years, on the same street, but with another number. In 2022 the game, which could no more be played, had its software updated and joined by a new proposal for an art installation. This installation mixes different fictional moments (1918, 2006, 2022) of the game on walls (screens), along with images of the occupants and the garconniere, physical space itself revisited today. In this sense, this article intends to discuss the game from 3 main perspective: a) Its historical relationship with the context of 1918 and with the works of Oswald de Andrade b) the digital memory of the city's buildings and spaces featured, based on 3D modeling c) and the interface generated by the game with the audience. This article intends to discuss how design, understood here as a project, articulates the different elements that make up Cozinheiro das Almas to generate an environment that addresses the historical context of the city of Sao Paulo at the beginning of the 19th century, within a more experimental, non-canonical perspective.