randform

Last night was the world premiere of the artistic game “Day of the Figurines” by Brighton’s Blast Theory hosted by First Play Berlin, Trampoline an event which is part of UK’s radiator festival.

“Day of the Figurines” is a mobile phone game for up to 1000 players. Day Of The Figurines unfolds over 24 days in a city that shifts from the mundane to the cataclysmic: Scandinavian metallists play a gig at the Locarno that goes horribly wrong as Middle Eastern troops invade the town from the west. Each day is an hour in this fictional city. Each player defines themselves through their actions and interactions via simple commands via the cell phone. So it is a kind of mud game. Commands are e.g. GO cemetery (means go to the cemetary) or PICKUP object.

The GO commands are translated into the real action of moving a figurine on a real wooden model of the fictional city (by hand). The model is located at the Hebbel Theater in Berlin (see images below). So mobile phone actions can be “watched” on this model.

Unfortunately you have to go there in order to see these actions. I think a live webcam would be nice at this place, because I liked the haptic and visual aspect of the figurines and the model in conjunction with the fictional character of the game.

The game reminded me of the MediaMoo of MIT’s media lab, in which I ran around on and off something around 1993/1994 (?). I remember well how I tried to imagine how it would be like to see the MediaMoo in real 3D (I am not sure, but I think it was originally planned to be ported to 3D). Now its only about 10 years later and its a standard thing to meet in virtual 3D. No wonder that people believe that technology can make true everything.

So yes day of the figurine is a poetic switch back to these times, but yet by using the mobile phone heralding a new dawn of ubiquitous computing.

I haven’t seen sofar too much of the game play (the game just started)…..at the moment I am sitting savely in the nuclear bunker :). Below is my figurine (the green blurred one in the middle) and some more images from the opening.

images are creative commons

posted by nad on Friday, September 29th, 2006 at 9:29 am // 3d, art and design, games. // RSS 2.0 feed skip to the end and leave a response // pinging is currently not allowed //