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drama & ny teknologi ] [ play, forward

drama & ny teknologi ]

Elena Perez
María Elena Pérez Rodríguez is a PhD-candidate (2009-2013) at
the Department of Art(s) and Media Studies, NTNU. She is also a
practitioner; experimenting with how new media technology is
being applied to contemporary theatre and performance. She
created Chain Reaction together with other graduate students
and gamers while on a visiting scholarship at UC Berkeley in 2009.

Pervasive Games
and Theatre:
Participation and Open Source
tekst: elena per ez

Imagine making non-theatre audiences thrilled with theatre. Imagine seducing

spectators into playing with strangers in the city. Imagine audiences performing.
Pervasive games and theatre offer renewed formulas in the age of game culture
through new media technology and open source philosophy that promise
to shake the very foundations of theatre.
Pervasive gaming is an emergent genre in
which traditional, real-world games are
augmented with computers (Magerkurth,
Cheok, Mandryk, & Nilsen, 2005, p. 1).
Gymkhanas and Scavenger hunts, for in-
stance, are traditional games that can be
traced back in history and across civiliza-
tions. But it is the application of information
technologies – The Internet, mobile phones
and position technologies – that have pro-
voked its rapid proliferation and development
(Montola, Stenros, & Waern, 2009, p. xix).
Pervasive games pervade the real world;
they use objects, people and interactions of
the real world as play elements. They do not
take place on a space apart within ordinary
life – around the table (board games), inside
of the stadium (sports), or through a com-
puter interface (video games); they use the
real world as playground and ordinary life
as material for play.
This successful marriage of technology and
game culture has taken not only gamers out
of their rooms into the real world, but also
engaged other audiences that are familiar
with game culture. They are excited to use
their gadgets in a new setting, and are look-
ing for new ways of entertainment that are
free of costs and truly participatory. Since
the turn of the century, pervasive games are
becoming increasingly popular in the Western
World, games being organized all over the US,
Canada, Australia and Europe. In Scandina-
via, Sweden and Finland are the most engaged
with this increasing phenomenon.
Interactive Theatre is a genre that uses a var-
ied range of strategies to break the “fourth-
wall” that separates actors from audience. It
aims to include the audience in the creative
process verbally and physically, so that the
theatre piece is a result of the interaction be-
tween actors and audience -then and there-
not a pre-fabricated piece in which the audi-
ence is a mere receiver of the message and
meaning that somebody else has conveyed.
Strategies may go from providing perform-
ance suggestions (improv. theatre), becom-
ing characters in the performance (forum
theatre), holding props, etc.
Pervasive theatre Pervasive theatre is the
interaction of pervasive games and interac-
tive theatre. It is a hybrid form, which goal
is to make participants engage in artistic ac-
tivities as a result of their interaction with
the environment and with each other. Eas-
ily put: pervasive theatre is shaped as a game
with a strong artistic agenda.
Blast Theory is so far the most successful
theatre group / artist collective that has been
creating games for the last ten years, receiv-
ing attention from audiences, media and
academia. Among the most famous produc-
tions we find Can you see me now? (2003),
Rider Spoke (2007), and Day of the Figurines
(2007), staged in renowned theatre touring
venues such as the Barbican theatre in Lon-
TRAVERSING THE CITY: A player rides a bike with a mounted computer on the handlebar in Blast Theory’s Rider Spoke. (Photo: Blast Theory)
don, the Hebbel am Ufer theatre in Berlin,
and the National Museum of Singapore.
The production of pervasive theatre and
games is not limited to established artists
groups or game design companies. It is the
players themselves – organized under the
platform of various collective game organi-
zations based on the Internet (i.e. SFZero.
org or Antiboredom.org) - that produce the
most successful and populated game events.
As an example, Journey to the End of the
Night gathered over 600 players in the Hal-
loween event in San Francisco 2009. This
situation started a few years ago when play-
ers, encouraged by a) use of new media, and
b) use of the city as platform for play - as
opposed to having to program graphics or
computer animations - turned the tables
and saw the possibility of producing their
own entertainment rather than having to
pay for it. Examples of pervasive games and
theatre organized by groups outside of the
cultural institutions are Journey to the End
of the Night (Kizu-Blair, Mahan, & Lavigne,
2009) and Chain Reaction (Perez Rodriguez,
2009), respectively.
Why the game? Games, in the generic sense
of the term, are not new to theatre practices;
they have always been part of theatre mak-
ing processes. However, they have always
been used as a tool to access the creativity
necessary to making theatre, which happens
after the games. In devised theatre, for in-
stance, games are used as facilitators, man-
datory early steps that create an atmosphere,
a mood, a sense of belonging to a group that
make the actors ready and open to the true
theatre-making situation in which pieces
are put together to make a whole product
that is then shown to an audience. In Perva-
sive Theatre, on the other hand, the game is
the main event.
Why is theatre being framed as a game so
explicitly? What does the game element add
to theatre? To begin with, games lower the
threshold of participation. Players - as op-
posed to spectators - must act continuously
through the whole for the event to come to
life. This is one of the most unique features
of games, as Espen Aarseth puts it;
Games are both object and process; they
can’t be read as texts or listened to as music,
they must be played. Playing is integral, not
coincidental like the appreciative reader or
listener. The creative involvement is a neces-
sary ingredient in the uses of games (Aarseth,
2001, p. 2).
Secondly, games make interaction with oth-
er players natural and meaningful, which
results in very pleasant social experiences.
Games give large numbers of people a mo-
tivation to interact, a readily understood
means to do so, and a highly varied landscape
to explore that allows each player an almost
unique experience (Adams, 2009, p. 237).
Thirdly, games encourage players to display
transgressive behavior and dare to do things
they would never do in everyday-life situa-
tions (Poremba, 2007), (Pérez Rodríguez,
2010). Being within the magic circle of the
game, that is, complying to the rules of the
game, not to the rules of the world – players
are able to overcome embarrassment, fear of
ridicule and various insecurities that come
up the moment they are asked to be creative
in a theatre situation.

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[ ]
The same way designers use open source
technology to produce pervasive games
and theatre, pervasive games publish their
game model on the Inter net for others to
orchestr ate it and pl ay it.
The role of new media technology in per-
vasive games and theatre can be categorized
in three large blocks: First, dissemination
through social media. The role of the Internet
and social media is fundamental in advertis-
ing mixed media events organized outside
of cultural institutions. Game culture’s plat-
form is online, and distributing information
through web pages, blogs and even Facebook
events work as an efficacious word of mouth.
Second, online documentation of the play
session. In most games, players are encour-
aged to use their cell phones to take pictures
and make videos to document their experi-
ences in the game through text, pictures and
videos. This is the only way one can con-
struct an overview of what happened in the
game, by looking at the pieces of informa-
tion that each player has posted. Each game
has therefore two lives: the physical event
(playing the game) and the digital event
(once the game is over, the documentation
process starts). Players document their play-
ing as a way of claiming the value of their
actions, making themselves visible as a com-
munity, raising awareness over their playing
as an aesthetic activity.
Third, the technology that the game re-
quires; devices and software that are funda-
mental parts of the game. Rider Spoke uses
a handheld computer mounted onto a bike
where you can operate an application specif-
ically developed for it. Day Of the Figurines
consist of players sending SMS through
their cell phones and connecting to the
game’s webpage to observe a control board,
real-time, through a web camera.
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drama & ny teknologi ] [
Some of the non-established groups make
more of a low-tech use of technology that
doesn’t allow them developing new devices
or software, but adapting existing technol-
ogy for their purposes. Thus, it is fundamen-
tal for pervasive games and theatre to follow
open source philosophy, that is, to use tech-
nologies that open the source code for every-
one to use for free.
The same way designers use open source
technology to produce pervasive games and
theatre, pervasive games publish their game
model on the Internet for others to orchestrate
it and play it. In most game websites and blogs
there is a section on “How to host / orchestrate
your own game” in which the game model is
revealed and instructions are given away.
Consequently, a game model that is repeated
several times and is also orchestrated by dif-
ferent organizers becomes a popular game.
This success relies in the agility and flexibility
of the game model to integrate the changes
that players introduce. It therefore proves the
benefits of collective authorship.
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drama & ny teknologi ]
References
Aarseth, E. (2001). Game Studies, Year
One. Game Studies, volume 1, issue 1.
Retrieved April 22, 2010, from http://ga- Left: SHOW TIME. A group of players in Chain Reaction perform a drama exercise to the rest. In this last mission, players were asked to make a TV commercial putting
mestudies.org/0101/editorial.html together the materials they collected throughout the game - a song, a movement piece, a theatre sculpture and a short literary text. (Photo: Anders Sundnes Løvlie)
right: MOVEMENT MISSION. Players perform a short movement piece inspired in the environment – a museum’s garden - in Chain Reaction.
Adams, M. (2009). Mixed Reality Arts. The piece must last 20 seconds, and contain a jump, a spin and a fall. (Photo: Anders Sundnes Løvlie)
In M. Montola, J. Stenros, & A. Waern
(Eds.), Pervasive Games: Theory and De-
sign (pp. 236-240). USA: Morgan Kauf-
CONTROL BOARD: Players move their figurines across the control board via SMS in Day of the Figurines.
mann Publishers. They can see the board through a webcam installed in the museum. (Photo: Blast Theory)
Kizu-Blair, I., Mahan, S., & Lavigne, S.
(2009). Journey to the End of the Night.
Retrieved November 15, 2010, from
http://totheendofthenight.com/about
Magerkurth, C., Cheok, A. D., Mandryk,
R. L., & Nilsen, T. (2005). Pervasive ga-
mes: bringing computer entertainment
back to the real world. Comput. Enter-
tain., 3(3), 4-4.
Montola, M., Stenros, J., & Waern, A.
(Eds.). (2009). Pervasive games: theory
and design. Burlington, Mass.: Morgan
Kaufmann Publishers.
Pérez Rodríguez, M.E. (2010). Designing
Pervasive Theatre: The Chain Reaction
Case (pp. 73-81). Presented at the Games:
Design and Research Conference, Volda.
Pérez Rodríguez, M.E. (2009). Chain
Reaction | Street Game. blog, . Retrieved
November 15, 2010, from http://chain-
reactionstreetgame.wordpress.com/
Poremba, C. (2007). Critical Potential
on the Brink of the Magic Circle. DiGRA
Digital Library. Retrieved May 24, 2010,
from http://www.digra.org/dl/display_
html?chid=http://www.digra.org/dl/ Firecracker: A player in Chain Reaction, documents how they fulfilled the ”Sound” mission in the game’s blog. Notice the textual description, the YouTube video and
db/07311.42117.pdf the hand of one of the players using his cell phone to record the sound. To see the whole documentation go to www.chainreaction.wordpress.com
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