Just a [Big] Game

This morning I read Chapter six in Larissa Hjorth's Games and Gaming. It really got me thinking about a few things.

For starters, I got pretty interested in the whole idea of gaming being outside the realm of console. Then I laughed, because I remember as a kid the whole ideas of playing games was basically rounding up your friends and playing hide-and-seek, or creating imaginary worlds where we were characters doing cool stuff.

Then I laughed even harder, because I've kind of been doing that as an adult too.

Essentially, every theatre performance is in some way a game - that's why they're called PLAYS. Although, to be fair, the performances themselves in a lot of cases aren't where the play happens. It's the REHEARSAL PERIOD where the PLAY occurs.

However, in the case of devised or interactive theatre (I'd wager almost all if not all interactive theatre is devised - I've certainly never seen an interactive script), the performances are always different (to a far greater degree than scripted theatre) and often involve that spontaneity that can only be found in PLAY - or GAMING.

Rough conclusion? Interactive theatre is the same thing as gaming.

Alright, so perhaps it sounds like a bit of a stretch, but if you read the book I mentioned before, it isn't that great a leap.

Larissa speaks of three kinds of Mobile Games: Big Games, Location-Based Mobile Games and Hybrid Reality Games. Obviously, in her discussion, all of these are liked to mobile or locative media (cellular phones, anything capable of GPS, etc.). In there she spoke about 'haptic' (touch), Blast Theory, Dotplay, 'waiting for immediacy', delay, derive, distance, closeness, phenomenology, Heidegger and the real kicker - 'un-distance'.

So here I am, having read this great chapter, knowing there is something in here for me to explore (some things is much more accurate) and having to try and narrow it down.

That said, some of these newer ideas seem a little easier to handle and a little more relevant to an Honours project - and that's what it's all about after all, right?

Rather than try and explain it, it's easier if I show it, so have a look at the photos and tell me if it's all just a [Big] game to you too.

(But don't let me forget the un-distance {p.100} thing)