scoot at newcastle 4 electrofringe

aim: to facilitate on-site group cooperation to design a mixed reality experience
intro | on the day | resources | magic |

site: New Castle, Nsw, Australia

WORKSHOP GAME PLAN

The initial idea was to desribe the potentials of location-based gaming and then provide the processes and resources that may be required to

a. analyse a site to identify candidate nodes of interaction for game play
b. design a mission/narrative experience for navigating thru the space with an alternative 'lense'
c. cooperate with other participants to link different nodes and interactions to design a broader experience
d. enter the data into a customised web app (see magic) to trial their 'experience' on site using their own mobile phones (SMS) to navigate thru the space and interacte with the game narrative and other players.

It was our desire to get people interested in the online application we have built (see magic) so they would later attempt to use it in other environments. The online interface has been designed so that a participant could log in from anywhere to submit a customised game experience to be played out with mobile phones in their own local/favourite enviironment. The system can then be set to send and receive SMS 'clues' and 'solves' from any location at any time.

thanks very much to dLux Media Arts for the opportunity to collaborate.
the experience was terrific fun. For us, the workshop process revealed:

a. the facinating complexity of the place (New Castle)
b. the beautiful diversity of peoples response to the site... how they interpreted the site and how they chose to reveal it to others
c. the ability for this particular game design tool to enable complex interactions for these creative people
d. the passion people had for engaging in place in new ways that enabled new kinds of communication and interaction between them and the site... but more importantly how they now saw new potentials for site to act as a platform for new knds of interactions with other people and artefacts...

increased attention to place and a vibrant desire for increased levels of agency... wonderful!

why new castle?

I was approached by Adriaan of dLux media to host a 'mobile game' workshop at the Electrofringe Festival 2004 held at Newcastle. As I am a big fan of this festival, I jumped at the opportunity...

This would be the first of a series of events that dLux would be supporting as part of their FutureScreen Mobile series...

"FutureScreen Mobile is part of Mobile Journeys. The Mobile Journeys project will create a circle of learning through online and real world exhibitions and workshop series' conducted at a number of new media and general interest festivals and events. These workshops will be open predominantly to professional artists, filmmakers and developers and later to the general public and will provide information about how to create, enjoy and exchange content via your mobile device. Primary Mobile Journey partners are ABC New Media and Digital Services, ANAT, AIMIA, m.Net and SAFC"
http://www.dlux.org.au/