It’s been a full on couple of weeks for germination with a number of events throwing a light on new experiments in participation and collaboration. It’s now the holy grail in events production – especially in the social change arena – but how do you do it?
First, A Small Town Anywhere – produced by Solar Associates and interactive designers Coney and hosted by BAC – a theatrical game where the audience are the play. Before you arrive, each participant has exchanges by e-mail with Henri, the town historian, who assigns you a character and a past. The ‘play’ is the acting out of those characters (each with a skeleton in the cupboard) as external events are controlled by an unseen town crier, daily post and the town clock which marks the passing of time.
The show got over the usual awkwardness in audience participation by the prep and elegance of Henri’s e-mails (and it was a self-selected audience of have-a-go people) and for the first half, the experience of being ‘in’ the play was stunning. As it progressed though, it became frustrating that any resolution was dependent on the ability of the other ‘actors’ to extend their characters. Not sure how you design this out and anyway, it became an allegory for life – the main point of the piece – that we live in a social system and the agency we have is in our (limited) ability to influence other people. On our night we had a weak Police Chief (slightly deaf and a bit behind with the plot!), and other characters ran wild as he struggled to maintain order. As external forces took over – pressure to comply with the political rule in the wider country, the demand to offer up a scapegoat from the town, and the eventual threat of the military – we were acting out a small town in pre-war Europe and had to make choices. Being ‘in’ the play as opposed to passively watching it unfold resonated far more when it came down to the ‘what would I have done’ question. Some more reviews.
Next up, Playful – a day-long exploration of “cross disciplinary frolicking” where people making games and interactions came to tell each other about their stuff. You can see a run down of presentations on the blog, but in short it was delightful to be in a room with loads of adults (okay, geeks) in touch with their playful side. It was striking how much of the discussion was about using play to connect with social issues – like Alice and Kev, the story of being homeless in the Sims 3, Katy Lindeman from Naked talking about projects like Kuka, the voicebot installed in the Houses of Parilaiment, and Molly Range talking about the Scandanavian serious games scene. Outstanding favourite was Chris O’Shea and his Flap to Freedom project, using mechanical chickens to get people to move.
The following Sunday saw Ruby Wax delivering the School of Life Sunday lecture. The School of Life are putting up provocative individuals to revive the Sunday sermon and provide moral guidance. Ruby talked about depression, self-delusion and the need for us all to manage our egos – and though it’s stuff that is becoming more known, her personal story and commitment to facing her own strife is refreshing.
We need more of this kind of courage – a la Stephen Fry and Alistair Campbell, and Time to Change who all 3 of them speak out for. When there, you realise how perfect a time Sunday morning is for moral reflection, especially when followed by lunch and more relaxed conversation than you have time for in the week. It was great to see a communal discussion on mental health amongst the individualistic community of London town with playfulness and humour. Best moment? The “Hymns’ – the Righteous Brothers’ You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling and Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror – “I’m starting with the man in the mirror, I’m asking him to change his ways.”
Then, off we went to produce a 3-day collaborative event to co-design a new process for sustainable design. A big challenge in how you manage a large group of people towards a common goal, and reach agreement over core principles. It works only when human beings can put aside their own egos and surface collective wisdom. We’re still developing techniques to encourage people to work in this way – some working better than others – and learning that structure and rules are really key to open, collaborative working – even more so than for traditional events. There’s a lot that we can learn from the structure and mechanics of gaming, and playfulness and humour to come in from the side and wrestle people out of their egos.
Tags: collaboration, design, ego, event, gaming, play, producer, social change, techniques, theatre