Some more about Uncle Roy All Around You whilst talking to Ju.
Between CYSMN and Uncle Roy they did a research residency at Banff and produced a research project called Bystander.
- This was to investigate what people would do in the street. Not what spectacular, or outlandish things, but how would and could they interact with other players or other people outside the piece/game. [again it is interesting to explore the idea that a set of seemingly mundane actions can fit together to form a situation that is far from mundane]
- It wasn’t highly technical and used what they called paper trails, what seem like a form of paper prototyping for this experience. They ended up with cards and decks that could be shuffled.
- They wanted to explore what it felt to be taking part or not. What is that line you cross when you take part? What does it feel like to cross that line? [liminal pay dirt for me]
Uncle Roy came about through a desire to put the players in the street, and in that was a natural progression from CYSMN.
- It was about absence and presence
- A quest to find a person who wasn’t going to be there
- About trying to get the virtual and the real to work together [although it would really seem about getting online players to work with physical players]
- Cinematic experience of cities
- The feeling of success and failure – game-like reward systems
- “Turning corners, moving you from one thing to the next.” [working with similar spatial metaphors to the concept of the liminal]
- “You think you know where you are going but the carpet can be whipped out.”
- “You agree to enter, but don’t know where you are going.”
- How can people enjoy something that is not there
- People probably felt confused or frustrated [i think this is probably a common response to liminal activities. Participants are presented with structures that are outside the ordinary and a lack of control.]
- I asked what was the best bit – The contract at the end [where a player would commit to another player, for a year, to “be there” in a crisis]
- the potential for real change and real world effect [this is the same real world change that occurs through the experience of liminal states, which are educational, reflective and transitional all at once]
- But it needs a framework to lead up to it, the contract would not work without the rest of the experience [the anti-structure]
- But also the limousine seems to be a favourite bit for all the artists
- A fantasy vehicle, part of a collective imaginary [in tribal rituals myths are recited at the same time as the activities and he relationships between the symbols in both resonate]
- But slightly transgressive [as the actions in ritual often are taboo activities, ritual is a place to explore and also feel repulsed by the taboo]
- A symbol of the high life [but the ford granada they use is a richer symbol than that, a reference to the past, a dilapidated symbol of previous wealth, a heavy touch of kitchiness. A white one, the colour of rebirth for neophytes and a vehicle back to the real world.]
We ended with a discussion on the idea of challenge which I found very fascinating. Opening up the space between competition, collaboration and challenge. Blast Theory’s goal is to challenge on a spiritual, mental and physical level and to ask questions [challenge] that other people would like to know the answers to. The word challenge has a richer, and more effective set of connotations for games than competition and when designing for challenge gives a very different set of possibilities that can play into the mental, spiritual and physical.