FoAM - ARG

Physical and Alternate Reality Narratives (PARN)

maja — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 14:48:17 +0000

The central focus of the PARN project is dealing with the possibilities and problems of creating, presenting and representing narratives in physical space. Storytelling is a fundamental human capacity and is widespread in a variety of cultural forms as well as being one of the ways in which, according to many researchers of learning and awareness, we make sense of the world as we experience and reflect it. As the acclaimed poet Simon Ortiz puts it: „there are no truths, only stories.“

FoAM's role in PARN is research & design of an alternate reality narrative, an emerging story-scape inspired by Masanobu Fukuoka's creed "the ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings":

With the advent of massive urbanisation, labour specialisation and new forms of entertainment, our relationship with nature has become frayed. This relationship can be re-invigorated by straddling the places where nature and culture are most distanced - urban and online environments. With alternate reality narratives (ARN), we look at engaging people in a new kind of immersive story, where nature and culture interact. The story embraces the innovative and participatory capabilities of new technologies, adapted to today's turbulent eco-systems and grounded in the cultural traditions of the past. The ARNs combine a range of contemporary storytelling media with diverse European urban contexts, cultures and people, through a rich story and speculative history.

PARN is coordinated by Time's Up (AT), in collaboration with FoAM (BE), Lighthouse (UK) and Blast Theory (UK). FoAM's additional allies, partners & advisors in PARN are Six to Start (UK), Foamlab (NL), Synfonie (UK) and Tale of Tales (BE).

With the support of the Culture Programme (2007 - 2013) of the European Union and the Flemish Authorities.

Bitesize Lecture with Adrian Hon

maja — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 13:41:24 +0000

Start: 2007-10-16 19:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2007-10-16 21:00 Europe/Brussels

FoAM and the Guild for Reality Integrators and Generators organised a talk by Adrian Hon, on Alternate Reality Games (ARG), collaborative fiction, puppetmasters, backstories and other tools for playful reality generation.

Adrian Hon is one of the world's leading alternate reality game designers and the Chief Creative Officer at Six to Start. Previously, Adrian was Director of Play at Mind Candy, where he designed and produced Perplex City, the world's first commercially successful ARG. Perplex City used the web, email, SMS, mobile phones, radio, skywriting, helicopters and live events in London, New York and San Francisco to tell a story to hundreds of thousands of people.

Before becoming a games designer, Adrian studied neuroscience at Cambridge University and Oxford University, and campaigned for the human exploration of Mars. Adrian is also the founder of the Let's Change the Game competition, run in collaboration with Cancer Research UK, which aims to develop an ARG to raise money for cancer research.

More information:
http://mssv.net/
http://www.perplexcity.com/

This lecture is supported by the Flemish Authorities, the VGC and the Culture 2000 Framework of the European Commission.

Narrative Strategies

nik — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:23:07 +0000

Start: 2008-06-28 09:00 Europe/Vienna

End: 2008-06-29 20:00 Europe/Vienna

Narrative Strategies, workshop participation as a part of gRig, 28-29 June, Linz, Austria