Louisa-thesis outline
A Game Only Exists When It's Being Played
Draft, 18th March 2022.
Research Question
What are the technological and psychological methods game designers as well as urban planners are using to influence people's self-directed movement through spaces? How can we as players and citizens become aware of them in order to break out of these predetermined paths?
Introduction
The dreamer wanders through bridging fields
I wake up from a loud bang. I am standing in the middle of my room. To my feet, a bottle is spilling water all over the blanket I am wrapped in. I grab the bottle, take it to the sink where I put it down and look at my face in the mirror. It takes me a moment to realise I have been sleep walking again.- October, 2021.
For the first time I am able to remember the dream I had, while moving through my room in parallel. There were blankets in my dream too, and the proportions of the floor plan roughly matched. Everything further away than my hands was rather dark and blurry. I am in the same space in a new timeline. Thanks to the maps roughly matching up, I was able to move around without walking against walls bumping my head, considering that making the bottle fall was an accident. Something clicks and I realise why, in my creative practice, I am obsessed with giving objects, places and people in real spaces a new meaning within another narrative. Subconsciously I felt these sensations for many nights as a child, and now as a strange recurrence as an adult. Do I want to go back? Or do I want to recreate this sensation in others?
"Place is a portion of space appropriated by any person or group as ―their own, but this appropriation does not involve rules or submissions (at least not written or imposed ones). It is defined by an affective appropriation or a projection of cultural values onto a certain portion of the space. A place is the kingdom of commonness, where some people or groups feel culturally attached to a geographical part of the space. If territory is characterized by rules and submission, place is characterized by affection and election." Rodrigo Firmino and Fábio Duarte in "Manifestations and Implications of an Augmented Urban Life".
There is a difference between a space and a place. A space has a fixed geographic location, but can host different places at the same time, in different timelines, for different people, even all at once. The way we experience our own mobility though theses spaces is dictated by our personal conception of the paths and boundaries within its place. These boundaries can be fluid, moving beyond the simple distinctions between and open or closed door. I was sensing these invisible borders and forces as I was moving through the city around me, but tended to games for concrete examples.
"Well, what's the problem?", "There's some kind of force field!" - Antz, 1998
The moment of reaching the boundaries of a seemingly open map destroys the immersion of the player and reveals the underlying limited grid. Game makers will try to avoid this discovery and confrontation at all costs. Well established methods of concealing the limitations of movement on the map seem to integrate a second, fictional reasoning in line with the overall narrative of the game. There is a clear link between these thought processes and methods and the real life applications made by city planners. Citizens should not feel threatened or locked in, but should be kept content by the constant illusion of an open map.
Try a little thought experiment with me: If you would build a city, or a village for a new video game, using only the places you've visited and the people you have interacted with in the last year, would it feel sufficient? All the other districts, buildings and people would vanish off your map, leaving only the bare bones off the cornerstones and pathways you have moved through.
One could argue that humans are creatures of habit, causing us to revisit the same places over and over again, without straying too far off. While this might be a very valid factor, I am convinced there is more at play. From the very blueprints of the cities to the ubiquitous computing emerging from its structures. Smart objects, surveillance cameras, movement sensors, sound recorders mediating almost every interaction and creating an omnipresence of computed control.
This leads me to consider navigating through these emerging smart spaces quite similar to being on rails in a pre-written storyline of a game, enforced by the layout of its places and spaces. In this research I am taking some steps back into the past, to the very beginning of this century, to understand the different components at play. From handheld GPS devices to sensor networks, I am laying down the bare structure of the dream of ubiquitous computing. From these bare bones, I am constructing a city game highlighting the effect of ubiquitous computing on the invisible borders of our shared map, whilst staging moments where the gameplay breaks these preconceived paths and behavioural scripts. I am interested in unveiling the electric structures interlacing real spaces, like mirror worlds built from the same spatial grid.
In the following text, I am researching methods video game makers as well as city planners are commonly using to herd user movement to desired areas. How are spaces being used to manipulate user's movement and actions? How is this tactical dissociation from our environment amplified in games and how can I actively confront and challenge this phenomenon? I will proceed by laying out a prototype which embodies the mechanics of smart city technology in a very simplified way and explaining the thought process behind building a narrative for a city game based on this structure.
I am starting this chapter by taking a close look at invisible borders in games, from psychological techniques to technical applications. From there, I will look into games which blur the lines of the game space by taking place in real cities and every day media, hiding in plain sight for non-players. Digging into methods game makers are using to herd player's movement will function as a comparison for methods used by urban planners, companies and governments who implement technology to influence the self-determined paths of citizens through public space. By doing so, I aim to lay the base for the following chapters, which will focus on smart city technology and sensor networks.
Living in Rotterdam for a few years, I noticed that I started moving in very strict patterns through the urban landscape. It was as if I was inhabiting a tiny village, spread around different districts. It felt almost impossible to change the paths that I travelled through. As if there was an invisible force holding me back from peeking into a side street I have never been to, or to stop and look closely at the buildings I passed by. But there wasn't, was there? I remember telling a friend that I feel as if I cannot see the corners of the rooms I am in any more. I can only see what I need to see in order to move around and do what's needed. "This is what growing up is like." They said. "I feel like I'm in a video game." I said. In video games, you seem to instinctively know where to go, what object to click on or pick up, who to fight and who to befriend. It seems as is there was an infinite amount of things to explore, places to visit and people to have meaningful dialogue with. If the game makers have done their job, you won't notice that every other room in that building was empty, that only in that main hall you stumbled into, their was an overflow of storyline presented to you. This made me think back about the small village I have lined out for myself within the city of Rotterdam. I have the constant feeling that I could go anywhere, at any time, if only I chose to.
Invisible Borders in Video Games
Focussing on video game techniques to hide the map borders, integrating limits of map and unreachable areas as part of storyline.
Have you ever walked into one direction for a long time in a game, just to see if you can reach its borders? You wouldn't be the only one. There are gamers who record themselves for hours and hours on end just to capture the moment they finally cannot go any further, revealing the boundaries of the map. Video game maps are often surrounded by sea, a reason for players not to consider it as part of the playable area. But what happens when a player does decide, against all odds, to go for an extended swim? Well, in some games they might drown, in some a shark might attack, and in some a massive electric eel might penetrate their submarine. Understandably, since the depths of the ocean are not a safe place for a humans to explore, many dangers are waiting under its reflective cover. In some war games, players might get warnings about landmines, when trying to reach a part of the map that's not intended for game play, not adding to the progression of the narrative. Also understandably, apparently this is war and this can mean that there are areas that are unsafe to walk over.
player swam too far
shark circles player
player dies and sinks
.png)
In XR, geographical markers are translated into fictional environment to make sure players are not walking against walls or outside of playing field, like a wall appearing as a scary abyss.
Last September, during a media art festival in Amsterdam, my sister put on VR glasses for the first time. There was an immediate cut from her and her previous environment, a rather blank room. She started moving around in excitement, calling out the things she was seeing. All of the sudden I saw her walking closely to the wall. She stopped right in front of it, looking down and saying: Woah!! It goes down so far. What she was seeing instead of the wall was an abyss. Instinctual fear kept her from daring to take any step further.
I visited the XR lab at Saxion, where I met with Stefan Talman who set up a computer for me with various VR and AR glasses. I told him that I am curious about invisible borders and the idea of overlapping maps. He told me that they like to let newcomers play the game "Richie's Plank", where you step into an elevator in VR and step out on a wooden plank on top of a skyscraper. You have to dare to jump off the building. This was incredibly hard for me, even though I was well aware that in reality I was standing inside a big room with carpet flooring. I would describe it to the sensation of falling in dreams, the emotions of fear are real, but somehow watered down, less intense as they would be in reality. It was almost impossible for me to step off of the plank in VR, I only managed after I took a step off and felt the solid ground of my actual environment.
Later on he made me play Half-Life Alyx, in order to show me how the game makers dealt with the limitations of movement of the player in an open world game. The player might be in a very confined space in real life, so the VR experience needs to accommodate that. I was amazed by the realism in the game, and depth to the objects surrounding me. A really cool thing was to be able to pick up markers and add to the marker drawing on the dusty window.
Serious Games
I visited Robert-Jan den Haan at the University of Twente. He designs serious games for environmental solutions, and he explained his recent project 'Virtual River Game' in depth. We talked about the technical elements and workings of the game, as well as its psychological impact and communicative powers. The way the game board is set up is a wooden table on which modular panels of different heights are arranged to form the terrain of a riverbed. A webcam films the underside of the panels to recognize the different types, for example water or a certain type of grass, and then translates it into a live projection mapping back onto the terrain which visualised the flow of the water according to the current arrangement. Robert-Jan explained to me that this game is a very functional tool to bring different stakeholders together and involve them into the design of the river beds, especially since not everyone speaks the same language. It is intuitive and inviting, combining tactical game pieces and imageries of real landscapes. As I was talking about my own project and the idea of having a web game incorporate a map which represents real areas of the city, he told me about this escape room called The Dome, which is in Amersfoort. Appearantly there is a moment during the gameplay where you enter a living room that looks completely normal, no hints of any puzzles or clues, until you start playing the game console. A pixel Mario type game opens up, in which you move in a room which resembles the room you are in. As you jump and unlock this, the actual room you are in in the physical work starts changing as well. I got super excited about this as it really encapsulated my concept, with the only different being that I would like to extend the physical game space into the city streets.
Ubiquitous Games
(there will be more examples of pervasive games and code languages in public space in this chapter) "A game only exists when its being played." - (Antero Garcia and Niemeyer, 2018) This statement could also be made about software, which only exists between input to output.
Whenever new technologies trickle down from government, military or industry employment and become in reach of the general public, the excitement about the new possibilities opening up fuels experimental uses and often times playful applications.
Can You See Me Now?
A project I find particularly interesting is the location-based, hybrid catch game "Can You See Me Now?" by Blast Theory. Using GPS sensors and real time GPS tracking in order to map the physical live location and movement of players to a simulation of the same space in a video game, a strange disconnect between on and offline players is being highlighted. The clear objective of chasing a co-player down in public space creates friction between players and non-players, since the players are becoming dissociated by their environment through the tunnel vision which is posed by the time limit and focus the game demands.
“A crucial feature of Blast Theory projects is the ability to extend user and audience affect outside the game - rather than delimiting our consciousness to the stereotypical and virtual, the gameplay pushes us to understand aspects of ourselves, our communities and social responsibility. This is partially achieved by the very visceral gameplay - in CYSMN? the players and gameplay self-generate affects of pursuers and pursued.[1]”
Pirates
Prosopopeia 1
Hiding in Plain Sight
Geocaching
Geocaching is a worldwide, ever-expanding treasure hunt in which anyone can hide a cache and publish its geo-location via specific coordinates. Players nearby will then search for it and log their name once found. This mechanism is often used by locals to lead strangers to interesting sights of the area.
ubiquitous games/ubiquitous extraction-everything is a potential part of the game
Ubiquitous games are seemingly omnipresent, as they make use of various media, which are part of the player's everyday reality. By blending the storyline seamlessly along multiple channels, the player is in a constant state of wonder. This leads us to the following chapter, in which I will draw parallels between ubiquitous games and ubiquitous computing, not only in terms of applied technologies and structure, but as a psychological experience of omnipresence.
In 2021 I organized a geo game called "EARTHRISE", in which players were led to seven location around Rotterdam. Each location was marked with a cryptic symbol, which only players could decypher into a useable codeword to unlock a site-specific audio narrative.
Chapter 2: Take a Leap in the Dark
on the recursive hierarchies of the ethereal machine (I am planning to rephrase the quotes from Shoshana Zuboff and MIT in my own words)
How are we being manipulated and persuaded to move in predetermined patterns in public space? What are the psychological downfalls of navigating environments with an omnipresence of computed crowd control in public space?
In this chapter I will look into the different elements and dynamics of smart city technology, especially the various smart objects equipped with sensors who are situated in public space. How do they function? How are they connected, communicating and regulating the environment around them? Going beyond the architectural layout of the inner city, highlighting the often-times unnoticed smart devices attached to it, I will take a critical look into the potentials and limitations that these structures pose for the next level of surveillance capitalism.
Encased in concrete and metal armour, lie the keys to the pulsating veins of a mirror world. Whatever makes it inside its bloodstream, will travel fast and eternally through the nexus of time and space it occupies in that instant.
When talking about a feeling of constantly being watched and tracked, it is tempting to go down the route of discussing privacy invasion of big tech companies and governments, which give users of mainstream media a constant feeling of paranoia to be caught misbehaving. My focus point lies somewhere in this ballpark, but not quite there, which is why I will avoid going into depth on this well discussed topic. I am after something which I would describe as the potential of mirror world networks for augmenting the perception of real spaces. Not as in the usual vision of augmented reality, through glasses or phones revealing a fictive visible layer on top of real spaces. I am talking about worlds within worlds, recursive hierarchies unravelling narratives which rest on shared geographical markers.
In order to stalk down this phenomenon and pin it down, I will start by tracing the very bricks which hold the city together. I will then chase down the power lines woven amidst, all the way to its the whirring epicenter. By understanding the early visions of ambient spaces, laid out by research groups like the one's being 'Project Oxygen' by MIT, I aim to grasp the organism in its complexity and understand at which point of its evolution we find ourselves today. By laying the bones bare, and identifying the various body parts, I will discuss in what way these pathways lend themselves to be used and abused for ludification.
I am floating
I am moving
I am not inside my body
Blueprints of Control
Lured by light, we chase the places where there are people, loud chattering, open doors and wide streets. What makes a place seem closed? What makes it seem open? Could a place be locked for me but open for someone else? What code languages are used to communicate this selective openness? What are the signals we emit and chase after as we move through public space?
Making sure that people stay on designated areas and behave in pre-scripted ways is applied to the very blueprints of the city. The social encounters emerge from architectural set ups, which are put in place to achieve a desired behaviour by citizens. Public space can be seen as a stage which has been set by the city council and its urban planners. Just as in games, the intentions are not always obvious but function in subtle ways to influence people's actions in the space.
>> audio boxes to keep people away from buildings
-->> stage setting/scenery/planning peoples behaviour concrete example/behavioral scripts/space vs place
-> monitoring
In the recent past, surveillance and tracking has been able to spill into every corner of the urban landscape, from parking lots to lamp posts, justified in the name of safety, tolerated only in fear of escalation.
waves of pushing boundaries 'never let a serious crisis go to waste' (it's a book) 911 -> airport control covid -> tracking, push notifications and making medical info accessible etc. everything that is caused by certain mechanics inherent in the system actually is used to profit final result is total revenge action to get a tighter grip on the citizens through mass surveillance
Video surveillance has first been implemented in Manchester during football games in the 80s, since the hooligans were hard to control. Police was trained to read behaviour always expecting escalation, making it risky for people to act different than the before mentioned location-based (and time based) scripts. In "Loving Big Brother" by John E. McGrath, the author uses this example to discuss how the police is being trained to read certain behaviours as potentially dangerous and necessary to stop the behaviour early on before it escalates into violence and crime. This approach is problematic, in the sense that harmless behaviour can be misread as the start of something harmful, even if it isn't.
Players Locked in The Game
Subtle methods of herding people's movement is also happens in the digital realm. This prediction of behaviour from an outsider perspective used to intervene in the path ahead of an individual has been applied not only through surveillance cameras but many other devices since then. Not only for the means to prevent crime, but for many other desired outcomes, such as persuading people to make a purchase. As Soshana Zuboff lays out in "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism", this form of capitalism is a new phenomenon grown on the fertile grounds of individualization, emerging in a second wave of modernity.
It monetizes content produced by users: The needs and desires which come along with self-determination of digital content streams result in an unprecedented, unhinged wave of a new mutation of capitalism. Targeting advertisement, detailed profiles used by algorithms to predict what they could be persuaded to buy:
"Now the same digital architecture used for monitoring becomes the means of behaviour modification with programmed triggers, subliminal cues, rewards, punishments, social comparison dynamics – all of it aimed at tuning and herding human behaviour in the direction that aligns with the commercial goals of business customers."
Surveillance capitalism is supported by widespread digital infrastructures; a connected web of personal computers, phones and also increasingly the Internet of Things (IoT); governing and mediating virtually any human interaction. Surveillance Capitalism is spilling into the city streets, leading you to where the algorithm expects you to go. Real world is more messy and complex though they are not always successful of course, but 1% can mean a lot of profit more nuanced you are not a robot :))) reproducing the narrative of these companies promise to customers that the service is working
-> Niantic
How will companies make use of playbour, keeping themselves and the players happy?
There is a link between ubiquitous games and the surveillance capitalism applied in smart city technology, both creating a sensation of unknowing where the boundaries of interaction with the systems in place start and stop.
"Pokémon Go was spun off from Google as Niantic Labs with Hanke (google mapping expert) as its head. It presented itself to the world as if it was some clever start-up, though Google remained its primary investor. The game brought Google’s experimentation on tuning and herding populations to the real world, to real streets, real towns, real cities, engaging families and friends in a search game without revealing that it was really the participants who were being searched. Game players were actually pawns in a larger, higher-order game aimed at providing “footfall” to establishments that paid Niantic Labs a fee for consumer traffic in exactly the same way that online advertisers pay for click-through behaviour. Niantic used gamification, with its rewards and punishments, to herd people to its real-world business customers, from McDonald’s and Starbucks to Joe’s Pizza." - Soshana Zuboff for https://www.cigionline.org Shoshana Zuboff on the Undetectable, Indecipherable World of Surveillance Capitalism
In conversation with Mettina Veenstra (lector Smart Cities Saxion), we discussed the difference between manipulation and persuasion when it comes to playful applications and secondary objectives. If an app openly discloses that it is meant for the player to become more healthy, and will do so in a fun way that does not directly relate to health topics, this would be persuasion. But if there would be an app which makes people move through the city and do tasks under the veil of play, with a secret secondary motive, f.e. getting people to bring life to empty areas of town or spending extended times in shopping streets, this would be manipulation. Mettina is very active in designing playful interventions for groups which help reimagine public space, including approachable data visualisations. https://www.storytellingwithdata.com/
Ambient Intelligence
"The memory represents space in this world, and the processor time." (David Hillel Gelernter, 1992)
what kind of technology is being used to move people around in the city?
Let's have a look at the technology in place. What structures are covering the city streets, how do they sense changes in the environment, where does the information go and how is it fed back to the reality of the city?
During my research into augmented urban spaces, I started reading about Ambient Intelligence in relation to ubiquitous computing. I found out about "Project Oxygen", which seems to have been written around 2002, which is a project by a research group an MIT in collaboration(?) with google which lays out the concept for a omnipresent, invisible technological system:
"Oxygen enables pervasive, human-centered computing through a combination of specific user and system technologies. Oxygen's user technologies directly address human needs. Speech and vision technologies enable us to communicate with Oxygen as if we're interacting with another person, saving much time and effort. Automation, individualized knowledge access, and collaboration technologies help us perform a wide variety of tasks that we want to do in the ways we like to do them.
Oxygen's device, network, and software technologies dramatically extend our range by delivering user technologies to us at home, at work or on the go. Computational devices, called Enviro21s (E21s), embedded in our homes, offices, and cars sense and affect our immediate environment. Handheld devices, called Handy21s (H21s), empower us to communicate and compute no matter where we are. Dynamic, self-configuring networks (N21s) help our machines locate each other as well as the people, services, and resources we want to reach. Software that adapts to changes in the environment or in user requirements (O2S) help us do what we want when we want to do it."
I found this proposal interesting as it somehow seemed to bring a lot of the scattered mechanics, like internet of things, sensor networks, predictive intelligences, etc together.
"Rotterdam Maasvlakte
SkyLab has expanded the public Internet of Things network in the Port of Rotterdam with a loRaWAN® Gateway on the Uniper Benelux, Rotterdam. The gateway is a Dutch record, with a height of 130 meters from ground level. The gateway is connected to the largest and fastest growing IoT community network in the world, The Things Network & The Things Industries. This gateway can receive sensor information in a radius of 15 km and covers a large area of about 700 km2 or more for outdoor sensors. It provides a large part of the Rotterdam Maasvlakte, North Sea, Hoek van Holland, Zeeland and the “Havenspoorlijn”."
https://www.skylab.nl/gateways/
“The Internet of Things use-cases for this CENT-R network are myriad, ranging from city-light management to asset tracking to measuring climate data,” said Remy de Jong Sr., CEO of SkyLab. “With the right sensors connected to this LoRaWAN network through Kerlink gateways, virtually every IoT use case is possible.”
https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/ LoRaWAN
SEMTECH https://www.semtech.com/ "Semtech is a leading global supplier of high performance analogue and mixed-signal semiconductors and advanced algorithms for infrastructure, high-end consumer and industrial equipment.
Through our advanced technology platforms, Semtech is enabling mission critical applications for three of the industry's fastest growing markets: Internet of Things, Data Centers and Mobility."
https://wyldnetworks.com/what-is-a-lorawan-gateway/ https://www.kerlink.com/product/wanesy-wave/
It seems like the next step in the development of smart city devices is connecting them all in one big network, like The Things Network, where all incoming data can be processed and monitored. I do not mean to paint these developments as a purely negative process, as there are many positive outcomes of this self regulating smart devices, adjusting immediately and efficiently to changes in their environment. Smart light poles can adjust the brightness according to the environment, saving energy. A lot of these tools are intended to foster energy saving and circular solutions. But the privacy concerns of such a vast amount of easily updateable computers, which are black boxes for the users in many cases and often-times not updated for years, makes them dangerous and vulnerable for attacks and abuse. The dangers of allowing these devices to facilitate the determination of movement flow and civil behaviour are to be taken seriously. Let's take Sidewalk Lab's proposal 'smart city' for Toronto as an example. The google funded company produces devices which can be attached and integrated into public space.
They hired privacy expert Ann Cavoukian to deal with the big privacy questions in this design proposal, who eventually resigned because the company rejected their proposal for privacy by design, stripping any collected footage from personal information, f.e. blurring faces immediately. With this proposal, there would have still been plenty of data to process, but no individual could be traced back. It is very worrying that this was a deal breaker for the company.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t12UqYl5SA
Chapter 3: Prototyping the Game's Mind
[2250 words]
(I want to add some sort of technical guide on the game i am building here, with the Arduino to html and LoRaWAN network, and discuss the narrative tools i am using for the game's narrative)
Tech Side
Sensor Networks
I met with Mettina Veenstra (lector Smart Cities Saxion) & Angela Rijnhart (Ethics Committee Secretary and Strategic Advisor municipality Enschede). I was curious about the current status of smart city technology, what is implemented and why? What are future plans? Angela was able to answer this question, talking me through the different types of sensor networks interlacing the inner city of Enschede.
There are different sensors for different purposes. In order to measure the business of roads and weight of trucks, pressure sensors are placed below the asphalt. Similar sensors are placed below public parking lots in order to measure when a car has not moved for a long time. There are sensors that measure water levels in order to prevent flooding. Parking garages scan license plates, which opens up a lot of personal data to the municipality, letting them know who is visiting and from which country. There is also an app called SMART app, which allows users to get green lights on bike lanes when biking through the city with the app on their phone. Another set of sensors are WiFi trackers, which have been implemented in public spaces in order to measure the amount of people at the spaces. This has actually escalated into a law suit from the Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP), since citizens where identifiable throughout the different WiFi spots, allowing for individuals to be tracked throughout the city, instead of simply being anonymously counted per location.
Locking/Unlocking
Gateways
Geofencing
GPS Tracking
It seems inevitable to consider the GPS, or Global Positioning System, which assigns coordinates to its scattered modems, as they move over the shared map. This technology which has initially been built for the U.S. Army turned out to be a helpful navigational tool for everyday uses.
In terms of technological infrastructure, on the one hand there is a space of ubiquitous computing, consisting of ―interlinked capacities for memory and data storage, for perception and environmental sensing, and for the interpretation of contexts and situations‖ (Phillips and Wiegerling, 2007: 05). But on the other hand there is an explosion of mobile and locative media which are now part of a technological network of signs produced and accessed globally that, at the same time, allow a precise and instant positioning within geographical places and territories which, in turn, could lead to a meaningful link with specific locations. - Rodrigo Firmino and Fábio Duarte: Manifestations and implications of an augmented urban life Researching this method and political motivation behind its application.
Geofencing is a software feature used to draw geographic boundaries based on GPS or RFID information. Based on whether you are in or outside of these boundaries is decisive for what functions are available and which content is visible within an application or other service. This virtual space is mapped onto the physical landscape. The main motivation for geofencing seems to be security, as its being used in security tags in clothes in shops and for car sharing services. But geofencing is not only used to prevent theft, it is also used in order to target voters in political campaigns. Geofences can be drawn around a single building, a neighbourhood or an entire state in order to target people with relevant content in order to stir them to vote for one party instead of another.
We can no longer trace back if we want something because of smart marketing or because of our own free choice.
Modding Smart City Technology, LoRaWAN and Friends
game mechanics:
- a series of gateways
- 1 way mirror
- hiding means losing
- predicting players movement
- using smart objects to trace progress
- coordinates
- game is using secret code to hide in plain sight
-- How can we appropriate the previously discussed methods for play without labour and make them our own? What could mods of the 'smart city' look like?
I was challenged to think of games/events/activities which can exist during times of a rather strict lockdown and closed cultural venues. This led me to work on location-based games, to unlock audio-pieces and later on even a secret concert venue. Thinking of puzzles and progressive narratives and then seeing people interact with them is incredibly rewarding and feels like a powerful tool of capturing peoples attention. My aim is to activate people and change their state of mind and experience of their environment. Making use of the group present and the things everyone could contribute to the experience, instead of making them passive spectators of a work, is very valuable to me.
In this chapter I will document the process of building a location-based game, reviewing tests and adapting design choices. Which elements of the before mentioned systems can I use, what platforms and engines would make sense and how could they support a narrative?
Narrative Side
Non-Linear Narrative Tools within Interactive Experiences
I met with Niels Leenders from Gamelab Oost. I had a interesting conversation with him about non-linear storytelling methods, and accepting different player behaviours moving through the intended paths within a game. He introduced me to the concept of 1+1+1=5, which addresses environmental storytelling and the way how the players make their own assumptions based on objects and clues they encounter. He also explained to me that there is no need for players to have insight into the world building, it can exist as the invisible foundation which connects landmarks and events in the storyline in a cohesive and logical order.
I had a video call with Avinash Changa, an immersive theatre maker. We talked about his most recent play involving different perspectives and VR, called 'Orphée | L'Amour | Eurydice'. In this piece, visitors can choose which role they would like to embody, and depending on their choice, will either go through the experience in VR or audio based. We had an interesting conversation about non-linear narratives and tools which help involve participants in the storyline without going to far off the scripted path. In Avinash's play, participants would unknowingly become performers and dancers to the other group, by using the movement based interface within VR. To him, the narrative tool 'string of pearls' is powerful, as it defines core moments of the storyline which every player should experience to some degree, allowing for some small deviation and variation per stage next to those key moments. This allows the player to feel a sense of agency and choice, without loosing a sense of immersion and reason. He also talked me through ways of creating an illusion of a bigger space in VR, making people feel like they are moving through many rooms of a building even though they might be walking in circles in real life.
Conclusion
[700 words]
Based on my research on methods of location-based advertisement, I will formulate my vision of its potential and dangers, picturing a ludified smart city and celebrating ways of dancing on the structures of its system.
If a game only exists when it's being played, and the enforcement of crowd control in public space resembles game structures, could we stop playing? Could we break free from the constant fear of being persuaded or even manipulated to behave and move in ways which complete an objective other than our intrinsic free will? I used to look at dystopian fantasies of humans being suppressed by technological systems and think: "Yeah, I guess that will happen soon." How does it feel to see a future in which you will be a mouse in a trap? Does it make you feel capable of supporting a more positive alternative, if you are made to believe the process has already started and the path to come is inevitable? Probably not. Okay, so look around you and try to imagine all of these endlessly branching paths, different possible futures. Endlessly compatible existences aside one another. There has never been only one world view with only one power. There will never be full authoritarian power. Humans are not built to tolerate this, even if we are constantly presented with these fictions.
As I was looking into surveillance and crowd control technologies, I wanted to show the systems in place, without exaggerating their capabilities. I am still not an expert on this. I just want to take a closer look at the structures hiding in plain sight which might influence and counter our free will. One way of understanding and feeling empowered is to try and replicate. This is why I am rebuilding a simplified prototype from the devices and structures I have found in public space.
Glossary
| magic realism | the art of making a fictional event blend into a regular conversation by making talking about as if it was a real occurence |
| event horizon | The boundaries of the area in which there are interactions planted which consciously feed into the narrative development. |
| pattern recognition | The ability to identify recurring dynamics |
| mirror world | software simulating the information exchange within a defined real space |
| gateways | agents of a network placed in a specific geographic location, to receive real-time, location-specific information, send it back and react accordingly. |
| ambient intelligence | In computing, ambient intelligence (AmI) refers to electronic environments that are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people. / a computer network with many real life/real time information sources making choices on how to adjust the real space they are positioned in |
| sensor networks | connected sensors, like light or movement sensors, which together create a layered information space |
| XR | Mixed Reality, usually referring to Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality |
| smart city | the urban application of a network to monitor citizens and changes in the environment in order to react immediatly. |
| ubiquitous computing | the vision of computers covering every square meter of the world and mediating any interaction |
| ARG | Alternate Reality Game |
| dissociation | a psychological experience of detachment from ones' environment |
| pervasive game | a game which has no clear boundaries, and keeps on getting more intricate as you play |
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