Digital Arts

Gluttony NFT: Kozachok’s Inferno

December 30, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

“What is going on here? In the third circle of Kozachok’s Inferno, we find the realm of Gluttony. After a life of over-indulgence and over-consumption of food, the souls who land in this circle of hell, are now symbolically and literally becoming a never ending supply of food for the smaller creatures.

[. . .]

“‘Kozachok’s Inferno’ is a personal version, a customized representation of the 9 circles of hell, influenced by Dante’s Inferno, the first part of Dante’s Divine Comedy, which is a long Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed in 1320, a year before his death in 1321. It is not a direct reproduction of Dante’s Inferno, I do not follow the accuracy of those layers or circles of hell, except the main theme (eg circle of Lust, of Gluttony, of Greed etc), but the reasons and punishments of each circle of hell will be different in my version.” [. . .] –@kozachok, SuperRare, 2019

Inferno Puzzle Game (Blue Vertex, 2021)

October 17, 2021 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

Photo Contributed by Blue Vertex

“In this atmospheric puzzle game you follow the journey of Dante Alighieri through the Nine Circles of Hell. The game is an adaptation of his epic poem Inferno written over 700 years ago, and between levels it includes many memorable quotes from the poem together with colorized artwork.” [. . .] –Blue Vertex, Steam

Learn more about the game here.

Watch gameplay footage here.

Contributed by Blue Vertex

Limbo (Playdead, 2010)

May 26, 2021 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

Limbo is a 2010 puzzle-platform video game developed by independent game developer Playdead.

In a presentation at the 2021 Middle Ages in Modern Games Twitter conference scholar Claudia Rossignoli presented a thread on the relationship between Limbo and the “intense emotional landscape” of Dante’s Inferno. Rossignoli commented, “The boy’s journey originally revisits classical katabatic narratives (also inspiring Dante), including in its final unsettling encounter (his sister?), which brings no closure and instead intensifies the initial loss, eliminating any remaining hope of finding a way out.”

Read the full thread here.

Learn more about the game here.

Watch the trailer for the game here.

See more from #MAMG21 here.

Mountain of Purgatory in Minecraft

April 24, 2020 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

In 2019, Juniors Jack Batton and Connor Smith of DeMatha High School (Hyattsville, MD) designed a playable Minecraft version of the Mountain of Purgatory as their final project for DeMatha theology instructor Homer Twigg’s unit on the Purgatorio. The mountain is organized by terrace, each labeled with corresponding cantos. The terraces depict figures of the penitents engaged in their purgations; pictured at left is the wall of fire on the terrace of Lust. The project was presented at the Academic Symposium at Catholic University in Spring 2019, and a video walkthrough of the world is accessible on YouTube (last accessed April 24, 2020).

In early 2020, Jonas Long, Chris Allen, Thomas Mesafint, Gray Griffin, Seth Barnes (DeMatha HS) took the original concept developed by Batton and Smith and greatly expanded on it in terms of size, detail and complexity. They also have made their map publicly accessible for other teachers and students of Dante to explore and contribute to in the future. Screenshots (right; below) are of the server, and instructions to access the server can be found here (last accessed April 24, 2020).

We thank the designers and Homer Twigg for their permission to share the documents.

In Dante Veritas, Vasily Klyukin

February 5, 2020 By lsanchez

“In Dante Veritas is a large scale, immersive multimedia exhibition by Russian sculptor Vasily Klyukin. It represents a narrative that recreates the nine circles of hell, and includes over 100 multimedia elements, such as sculpture, installation, digital art, audio and light boxes. The exhibitions includes sculptural works, most of which represent negative human traits such as Anger, Gluttony and Betrayal.

“The most prominent sculptural pieces are the Four Horsemen of the Modern Apocalypse. The artist has translated the traditional Horsemen (plague, war, hunger and death) into a modern day version: Overpopulation, Misinformation, Extermination and Pollution.

[. . .]

“The immersive exhibition encourages visitors to examine the sculptures with an audio guide narrated in the style of Dante’s poems. The sculptures of human sins also portray the punishment that comes with the sin. For instance, Gluttony is incredibly obese and Temptation has no limbs.

“The exhibition also includes a ‘prison’ room, further embodying the topic of sin. Famous criminals such as Stalin, Pablo Escobar and Bokassa are imprisoned here. The prison has a dungeon room – Betrayal – which represents Hell. Visitors are encouraged to leave notes on the wall, allowing them to name people who have betrayed them, or to write a message of forgiveness.

“The exhibition ends on a positive note. The Heart of Hope is a large sculpture of a heart at the centre of the exhibition, which was also displayed at the Burning Man festival in 2017. It symbolises the ability to stop all the negative traits and sins. Visitors are given a bracelet which transmits a signal to the statue, which then beats in the rhythm of the bracelet wearer’s heartbeat.” —Elucid Magazine

How to Cite