After the exhibit, Kelvin went on a tear – first utilizing Beth’s map to visit places significant to Eva’s disappearance, then unsuccessfully trying to fit in a visit to the Jejune Institute before being kidnapped by the EPWA. The guy gets around!
The brief cartoon segment that opens the video is from “Charley & Humphrey,” an old Bay Area children’s puppet show.
Charley: You’re a good dog, just don’t let those other mutts do your thinking for you, that’s all!
Watching the video immediately raised several key questions: Del Taco? Where is the closest Del Taco drive-thru around here? [looks] MANTECA? Where’s the EPWA HQ, Oakdale? At the end of the video, Commander 14 began rolling through a list of demands ... the first of which was that old bugaboo, the fence problem.
“We demand and insist that the removal of all barriers, walls, fences and turnstiles be instigated at once and forthwith to admit the free passage of Nonchalants and proto-Nonchalants ...”
The history of Nonchalance is filled with antecedents to its in-game culture; the “Beautiful Crimes” paper goes back to at least 2006, the definition of Divine Nonchalance to 2001, and this summary of an 2001 art installation climbs all over fences:
“As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
This is the piece that first brought Nonchalance into the streets [...] The piece involved hanging sheets on a few of the fences around the park and projecting a montage of imagery onto them. What was the content of this imagery? Fences, of course: a multi-layered compilation consisting of nothing but fences. The effect was distinctly haunting. Viewed clearly fences suddenly appear as strange constructions designed to separate our citizenry from one another, blockading our streets, oddly dysfunctional. Begin to observe the fences in your area. Notice them aesthetically, and functionally. Who do they serve, who are they protecting? Do they serve a purpose at all, or are they simply monuments to our fear? When this perspective is applied to our entire urban lay-out the absurdity of contemporary life swells to the surface... The work “FENCES” was also shown at Valencia & 23rd as part of the 2001 Art Strikes Back series. Video of both performances are available through Nonchalance.
All this talk about fences and unfencing reminded me of a book passage ...
What we want to do is come up with a completely new concept of land use &/or occupancy – something that transcends the old notion of “ownership.” Do you know anybody who’s into this? Or any pertinent books? If so, you should tell me at once. We have a rare situation here – a whole valley (including a small sawmill town) that the owner wants to use for some kind of genuinely revolutionary supra-ownership experiment ... and I find myself in the weird position of being the Contact Man. We plan to incorporate the place immediately, then get on with the business of Destroying the Concept of Land/Ownership in Perpetuity.
Not communes. That concept strikes me as hopelessly naive – or at least naive to me, given over, as I am, to my mania for privacy. And the handful of others now involved seem to feel the same way. So this leaves us with a weird hellish problem: how to codify privacy and at the same time croak the notion of fence-lines.
– Hunter S. Thompson, to Jan Silberman at Random House, June 15, 1971
Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 [pg 408]
Meanwhile, in Alameda, Octavio’s combination Microwave Harassment Cabinet/Polywater prototype was having technical problems.
Discussion on the kidnapping centered around most people not agreeing so much with the new, illegal direction the EPWA had taken. Could we grab the rudder and change course? Was that even an option? A game is sort of like a cult. You have to follow the rules, and you’re either on the train and moving to the communal beat, or you’re off the train and stationary. What was it Commander 14 said about the cult music CD? “By playing and re-playing these cult music selections, you can arrive at a better understanding of your duty and destiny as nonchalants.” Perhaps in the future there would be an opportunity to choose between multiple paths, but at that time, we were full steam ahead on kidnap train. The Urban Phoenix wanted a seat on the cow catcher:
Perhaps the idea is that we can each choose our own paths here. (i.e.
“Think for yourself.”)
We *could* splinter the E.P.W.A. or try to find some sort of “moral”
compass in the chaos; however wouldn’t it be more fun to embrace
fascism? :)
Unless things develop further in the meantime, I’m plotting on a
hardcore militarized look for Saturday. Stompy S.W.A.T. team boots,
black B.D.U.s, black commando sweater. Maybe an “unofficial” E.P.W.A.
armband, clipboard, and I believe I saw a shop that does embroidery
(on-the-fly with a computer), so maybe an E.P.W.A. arm patch if the
price is reasonable and time permits.
Yay fascism! :)
Three days after Kelvin’s kidnapping/drive-thruing, Nonchalance’s SOEX talk dropped.
Nonchalance’s practice stands at the intersection of three core concepts: Narrative, Multimedia, and Space (both public and private). Founded in Oakland in 1999 by director Jeff Hull, the organization’s primary goal is to infuse more variability and play into the civic realm. Over the intervening years the team has comprised a fluctuating roster of collaborators that currently includes Sara Thacher, Sean Aaberg, Uriah Findley, and Mars Elliot. Past projects have included “Oaklandish,” “The Liberation Drive-In,” “Urban Capture the Flag,” and “The Bay Area Aerosol Heritage Society.” With over 100 free public events under its belt, Nonchalance has received thirteen consecutive “Best of the East Bay Awards,” and produced exhibits and installations for the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Oakland Museum of CA, the Oakland International Airport, and the Art and Soul Festival. They are currently wrapping production on the “Games of Nonchalance,” an “Immersive Media Narrative” leading participants on a journey of urban exploration throughout San Francisco’s hidden present and past.
SOEX: [...] Without further adeiu, I want to introduce Jeff Hull and Uriah Findley from Nonchalance, their other collaborator Sara Thacher wasn’t able to be here today, and also Audrey Greigh.
Jeff: “Well, I just feel like our entire universe has collided. It’s exciting, it’s scary and I don’t know exactly what to think about it. I guess I’ll introduce myself, I’m Jeff Hull ... during [...] activities known as Bobby Peru. Probably more familiarly known as the founder of Oaklandish, which is a project in the East Bay that’s kind of a street art campaign turned into an apparel line turned into a series of public events and community initiatives that are designed to illuminate the unique cultural legacy of Oakland and pass it on to successive generations of Oaklanders, new and old ... and more recently I’ve been acting as creative director of Nonchalance, which is a lot of things, but Nonchalance the organization is a media production company in San Francisco that specializes in immersive narrative experiences that take place everywhere, online and offline, and they’re kind of designed to guide participants through different urban explorations, and the goal, explicitly, is to have audiences interacting with public space in a new way, interacting with media in a new way, and interacting with each other in new ways. That’s what Nonchalance is. Uriah, would you like to introduce yourself?
Uriah: Sure, yeah. I’m Uriah Findley, I’m the audio guy, among other things at Nonchalance and I was involved with Oaklandish in some capacity for awhile and I’ve been working with Nonchalance ever since.
Jeff: Do you want to ask about the envelopes?
Uriah: How many people have opened and interacted with the envelopes in question over here? Raise your hands, cool.
Jeff: Okay, so there’s a few who haven’t actually ... and then following the instructions ... I guess the reason we asked that question is because obviously we can see this installation on the wall ... and you can read all the text or not ... but ... something happens when you start to interact with the piece by following those instructions and it’s really designed to get you out of this gallery.
SOEX: Great. [laughter] I’m all for that.
Jeff: And hopefully come back for more ... it’s a little bit of the theme of our talk today context of work in a gallery and the context of work outside of a gallery, where does it intersect? What are the paths, and thoroughfares, and side hatches and trapdoors which can lead you in or out of a space and some of the meaning about that. And now I think we’re going to let Audrey introduce herself, she’s kind of long-winded so ...
Uriah: She really wanted to be here today.
Jeff: She was kind of nervous. A little anxious.
Uriah: Some weirdness going on with her and some threats?
Jeff: Yeah, strange threats, Elsewhere Public Works, they can act in sometimes random ways ... and I actually see a few collaborators in the audience, I don’t know if she had good reason to be nervous, but we’ll let her speak for herself.
Audrey: Hello, and welcome. I’d like to thank all of you for coming to this talk and panel discussion, and I’d especially like to thank Nonchalance and Southern Exposure for inviting me to be a part of this exhibition and for hosting this event. I deeply regret that I am not able to be here in person, but I hope that through the miracles of modern technology that I’m able to be present in some sort of virtual sense.
I’d like to talk just a little bit about ... briefly introduce myself and Zetetic/Peripatetic, my contribution to the exhibition. So for the past five years or so, my practice has walked the line between that of artist and that of curator ... I tend to collaborate with groups and individuals to recontextualize their activities. Typically this involves repositioning their pursuits, moving them out of the space in which they typically operate, that is to say a space that is directed not towards an art audience, and reposition them so they’re functioning in a gallery context and can be understood from a different perspective. This gives both my collaborators, or has given both my collaborators a new understanding of their own practice, and introduces their exploits as something deserving of an audience, because in many cases, they are just doing things for themselves. So through this process, people who might not have been familiar with the individual or group in question are introduced to their activities, and audiences who may have some prior knowledge are asked to re-evauluate their various assumptions about that activity and possibly acquire a new perspective, or at least that’s generally the goal.
As far as my work for this exhibition is concerned with the Elsewhere Public Works Agency, something a little different happened. At first I used the word failure, and that’s definitely how it felt. Even as recently as a few months ago. However, despite our failure at communication and the faily aggressive angry letter that I received ... I found a sort of ... maybe redemption isn’t the right word, but a sort of peace? Where before I felt frustrated and thrwarted, I now feel a sort of equilibrium about the whole exchange. In looking over the artist’s statement that I sent to the Southern Exposure curatorial committee, I re-read my closing paragraph ... that is, something I wrote before any of my interactions with the Elsewhere Public Works Agency ... and the sentences still ring true ... but suddenly the words took on a new significance. If you’ll allow me to break one of those public speaking rules and quote myself, maybe I can better explain what I mean.
“Throughout these collaborations I see it as my role to aid these individuals and groups in the process of defining themselves as well as offering up new perspectives that they might not have previously considered. This work brings the opportunity to change the context in which activities are seen; it also requires a degree of invention and introspection to complete the exercise of re-presenting seemingly familiar ideas or concepts to a new audience. Through these processes, I believe that new meanings can arise from places that previously seemed ordinary or well-established.”
So. That’s just the last paragraph from the artist statement that has kind of formed over the last five years. Re-reading these words back after I completed the project and assembled what’s hanging on the wall over there, I thought maybe our roles are reversed ... perhaps I’m the person who’s been asked to re-evaluate what I thought I knew. How to go about these collaborations with non-arts-oriented groups in a gallery context. So I had a set way of doing this, that I kind of figured out this formula I thought that worked pretty well in a lot of cases, but all of a sudden it was me, not the audience that was being asked to re-evaluate.
As I spent more time with the objects that came in the very generous package from the EPWA, I continued to research and broaden my understanding of their agenda and practice, as far as I could figure it. At first I was confused. And then ... as I read more I was very confused! Then I began to embrace that feeling. After all, that feeling was what attracted me, I realized, to the fenceline over six months ago ... that feeling of being confused. And really, just to get back to that paragraph for one more moment, it’s the meaning of the last sentence that really transformed for me as this project took shape. The sentence “I believe that new meanings can arise from places that previously seemed ordinary or well-established.” Now, I’d be the last person to say that I understand the EPWA. That’s pretty clear after our breakdown in communication ... but ... I am grateful that through our interactions I’ve seen that lessons work on myself ... I’m someone who feels most comfortable when I can put words to a thing. When I can spell out the various references or meanings and put all of those things in a nice paragraph or ten ... I think that’s one of the things that drew me to this kind of zone between being an artist and being a curator, this kind of crossover place that more and more people are occupying these days ... and I think a lot of my previous frustration with the EPWA was in part because their practice resists this type of treatment. I don’t think it’s any clearer than the case of my efforts to research, and to the best of my ability give an explanation and context for the objects in the vitrine over there ... and so if you take a look at my explanations – as best as I put them to those objects – and then the words that the EPWA sent to accompany those items in their package I think you might get something of a feeling of the frustration that I was having where words didn’t quite cover it. I ended up putting myself and my voice on display in this project more than I generally do, because after our correspondence fell apart, it seemed like the only way to communicate what became the most important part of the whole interaction for me, this journey of trying to put words to a thing, failing, and realizing what I found was most evocative outside the reach of these words.
Okay ... now I’ve probably rambled on and told you more than you wanted to hear about my inner crises, which is not generally what I talk about in this kind of situation, but I think in the case of this project it made sense. But maybe it’s time to open the floor to some questions.
Uriah: Ohhh kay. Thank you Audrey.
Jeff: Thank you Audrey. Geez. [laughter]
SOEX: I had a quick question for Audrey if she had seen the contents of the black envelope.
Jeff/Uriah: Audrey ...
Audrey: I believe you’re referring to the black-orange stamped envelopes that are to the right of the display case? Right. Those arrived in the same package with most of the other items in the vitrine and they came in a separate smaller box, and there’s a note with very bold type that specifically instructed me not to open them and then you’d see on the back there’s the “Not for Audrey” ... but they were addressed to somebody, and there were quite a lot of them ... so I thought that perhaps I would still be able to respect and honor the wishes of Elsewhere Public Works by putting them out and distributing them in this way since they’re clearly intended for someone ... at many points in this collaboration it was difficulty to define what the wishes of the EPWA were or are ... but at least in this case it was pretty explicit ... it said not for me, but it said for someone ... and I hope that this solution would meet with the approval of Elsewhere Public Works ... I didn’t open them ... there were quite a lot of them ... I have heard some interesting reports about the instructions they contain ... but out of respect to the EPWA I have resisted enquiring further about their contents. Next question.
Capt King: When you started this whole project, where there any areas of San Francisco you really wanted to explore but for whatever reason you just couldn’t do it whether it be like for monetary reasons or whatever the case may be?
Uriah: Let’s see what Audrey has to say about that.
Audrey: Oh! I’m going to let Jeff or Uriah handle that question.
Jeff: Thanks ... Audrey ... There’s a lot of places that we scouted and we were digging to try to incorporate them into the thing but every time you’re trying to design an experience there’s problems that come up along the way, and it can be simply a geographic thing or a permission thing ... most of the spaces are public so there aren’t that many financial barriers but certainly there’s stuff we couldn’t afford to do and spaces we weren’t able to occupy. The locations of a lot of our stuff that you’ve experienced aren’t necessarily the first stage of play that we wanted to do ... we’d go out and see what’s manageable, we beta-test it, and then it gets re-designed and synthesized, and then it becomes the locations. For instance, episode one, we had thirty other things on the list, some of them worked, some of them didn’t, we whittled it down and got it down to this kind of core experience that we have a [...] sense of flow ... so those are some of the kinds of questions or problems we’re trying to solve [...]
Uriah: It seems from a production sense, or so I’ve noticed, it comes less down to money and means as much as it comes down to time .. everything takes three times longer than it looked like it was going to take when you embarked on it ... which is one of the reasons things got whittled down to the nitty-gritty a lot of times.
Tony: How much time did you guys spend planning episode one?
Jeff: Actually, that had been gestating in my mind for years, and then we started work on it ... really pre-production in June 2008, and then production really started to roll when Sara got on the project ’cause she’s just so able and organized, she is thinking about every single little detail ... so once she got on the team, stuff started to move. That was in July, and we launched it in September ... so it was really just a few months of real production.
Audience member: I have a question for Audrey ... I was just wondering, has she heard from Elsewhere Public Works since their last letter to her?
Jeff: That’s a good question, we don’t know the answer to that ...
Uriah/Jeff: Audrey? Audrey! Auuudrey ...
Audrey: I haven’t heard from the EPWA since the last letter [at this point the EPWA breaks into the feed] and I sincerely hope that the project evolved in a way that they’re happy with ... I certainly
have mixed feelings about not having their full consent and support, but I do feel that what’s in this gallery is a good-faith interpretation of their wishes as far as I can understand them. I wish things
had unfolded differently, but I feel like at least personally I’ve gained a lot over the course of this project.
Jeff: That’s just typical.
Jason: That happens a lot, doesn’t it. [laughter]
Duckstabd: Those guys are good.
Jeff: A lot of the times we can go to a certain space or do some initiative because collaborations fail. So the whole thing with the Public Works Agency kind of represents that, we’ve done a lot of collaborations with institutions, individuals and spaces and businesses and things, and some of them have been very successful and some of them have been like what the fuck is wrong, like can’t get it together, can’t seem to make it function. Seems very clear [...] you need to have an agreement, that’s kind of a curve, but lot of times it’s really unpredictable.
Uriah: Some times you set up A, B and C, and someone else wants to do four or twelve, or triangle ... [laughter]
Jeff: They have their own interests, and again it’s failures of communication like Audrey was talking about, I feel like that’s a lot about what this piece is about, the idea that we’re going to come together and do something super lofty and grand and change the world and yet can’t even tie our shoes, that’s what the EPWA represents.
Jason: You talked a little bit, you mentioned that you considered the whole production is in chapters but there’s a very non-linearity to it that you can kind of walk into the hidden narrative, and hidden meaning literally hidden within the city in multiple locations, how do you plan for that and how do you orchestrate that?
Jeff: Well, it didn’t come out like we planned. We actually planned to launch all of the episodes at once ... it was just going to be this huge thing that you could enter into at any point in the story. So the fact that has had this chapter format or episodic format is out of design of necessity just realizing that there was going to be so much more involved, every little idea unfolds into all these other ideas, we actually have a new –
Uriah: Ah yes ...
Jeff: – practice at the office ...
Uriah: Whenever someone says “Hey, I got an idea,” we club them over the head. [laughter]
Jeff: The idea club, anytime anyone says “I got an idea,” we just [mimes idea-clubbing] [laughter]
Uriah: Often times, really great ideas are really terrible ideas, and we love them anyways ... and they’re great ideas, but yeah. Yeah. It’s funny saying the idea of everything having been dropped at once, is, now that we know, laughable at this point ... the idea of the scope ... that would be such a pie-in-the-sky thing to try to achieve ... but I think it’s rolled out well.
Jeff: Yeah, it just took a lot longer. And also the fact that the theme of this entire show which is our vision for the future ... what is our vision of the future but ideas ... And so, when you actually try to put your ideas into actuality, it doesn’t look exactly like your idea.
Audience member: I have a question for Audrey as well ... I’d like to know what she hoped to achieve with her collaboration with the EPWA.
Uriah: Audrey.
Jeff: She’s a little slow.
Jason: Well you know, the internet is clogged.
Audrey: That’s a great question. I think, deep down, I had hoped the EPWA would reveal, in the words of Bruce Nauman, “mystic truths” about our present and future. But when I first saw the fence sign, I kept coming back to it, because it was at once perfectly absurd and utterly sincere ... and these two things kind of co-existed in this incredible way that just drew me back, you know, I’d go out of my way to walk by it ... and ... I tried not to have expectations about the outcomes of different collaborations so they can evolve according to the needs of the collaborators ... but of course I did hope that something out of this would end up in the gallery and there was a moment of panic when I feared that that wouldn’t happen ... I think you can read in my second letter on the wall some of my early suggestions to the EPWA about what form this might take, but of course that was all suggestion and speculation ... as you can see, the course of events turned out a little differently.
Jeff: It’s cool having a sidekick. [laughter] We should send Audrey around everywhere.
Uriah: That would be great.
Jeff: So, can we continue this discussion in any way?
Uriah: Any more questions?
Audience member: I came in a little late so I may have missed a cardinal rule of how things work ... can you talk a little bit about your movement between the sense of a game that certainly happens at the beginning of the induction at the Jejune Institute where you’re clearly participating in a treasure hunt, and what you hope to do when you move back and forth between that and something that seems so, so realistic, as when you segue into Eva.
Jeff: Yeah, wow. Yeah. I hadn’t considered, actually, how absudist and surreal the Jejune Institute and Elsewhere Public Works would be in constrast to the experiences of Eva and the Savants? And so, when we dropped that one, I felt there was a kind of sense of silence about it. People didn’t know how to react or interact with it, because it did have more of a realistic and pseudo-documentary tone about it ... I think a lot of people doing the initial stuff really liked the sense of escapism like “I’m just going to another world, yeah!” It was successful because of that. I’m actually not so certain how successful the other thing was even though it’s much more closer to my heart and much more of a story of characters that I believe in and identify with ... so that experience for me is a lot more meaningful and loaded than the other ones, but the other ones are obviously more fun ... a little more excitement and fun.
Audience member: Which is the other thing?
Jeff: The Jejune Institute and the Elsewhere Public Works Agency. Which is kind of how we’re encapsulating episode one, Jejune Institute; episode two is the Elsewhere Public Works Agency centered around the radio broadcast, episode three being Eva and the Savants’ experiences around Coit Tower and there’s been a bunch what we call mini-episodes inbetween that continue to happen such as this one, is a little branch-off from the main story.
The Urban Phoenix: When designing, how much space do you leave for the interactions of people actually going through the experiences and the things they kind of come up with along the way or their take on those. Do you leave room for that in the design or is it more like as good things come about you just take or ...
Uriah: It’s weird because that’s kind of one of the things we’ve been learning along the way, is where to draw the lines and where to leave the lines open. Because there’s definitely an experience we want to give along with ... we definitely want to give that room for people to take that experience and make it their own. As far as where a line is drawn it’s hard to draw a line because one of the things over the course of this is that people are infinitely more unpredictable than you could ever believe. I would say that there’s aspects of the story ... correct me if I’m wrong ... I would say personally that it feels like there’s aspects of the story that have partly taken shape around the way people have reacted to it.
Jeff: Certainly. We tried to create this feedback loop between audience and producers where they’re taking the themes and running with it. There’s definitely experiences we’re trying to design now where it’s like you have to make a choice and the choice is to take a risk ... and I think that’s the way other things feel, that’s where it’s a choose your own adventure, you can either go down do this mysterious thing or not and follow the instructions or not ... but if you make it totally up to the individual to do what they want then it’s not a replayable experience. You have to make sure that it’s replayable for other people to come down, so that’s why we do beta-testing and try to fit things into a way where people will follow the instructions and so that’s kind of a balance we’re playing with actually as we learned ... how do you make it so the audience person is truly deciding and forming and shaping the experience and still providing for other people to do it after that.
Uriah: Actually I would bring up a somewhat-specific instance or an example, sometimes we will draw a line when we realize that it’s a point where things could go awry. Some of you participated in a little action that happened from Union Square and beyond and basically there came a point where we wanted to – “a great idea” that came up ... pretty late in the game ... there was some theatrics involved [...] It was one of those instances, well, wait a minute, we’ve got this mob of people [laughter] This could get out of hand ... we need to give an instruction, so that people know how to act. And that’s sort of the line right there - okay, this could get out of hand, so let’s give an instruction and it still got –
Jeff: Yeah, the instruction was not “mob the limo” ... that was not silent jazz hands ... and yet, people saw Octavio and mobbed ... and the limo driver had no idea what was going on at all ... he was like “what’s going on!!??!” ... and Octavio was like “it’s cool” ... he had to calm down the limo driver. It’s a great example of okay, we’re putting it in their hands, oh god, we put it in their hands.
Uriah: Jeff calls me W.C. Scenario at times ...
Jeff: I.B.C. Scenario ...
Uriah: And there’s a balance there ...
The Urban Phoenix: I really like the re-mix quality, where things get kind of blended back in where we go, “oh, that’s us!” ... that element’s really fun ...
Uriah: That’s was actually another example ... like when we enlisted the chosen few ... it was incredible the way those of you who were involved here went with that ... we started hearing about it ... we started hearing about our event from our friends who didn’t know we were involved [laughter] “Oh check out this thing!”
Jeff: And you didn’t see the bell in the exhibit, that was completely user-generated ...
Jason: No, we got it from Drybones, because someone who went to Game Developer’s Conference interviewed Drybones and Drybones said something about “the Jejune Institute hates the sound of bells, that’s how you know, you should ring one” and then Garland picked up on that and then we were like “oh, we should pick up bells! We should do that!”
Jeff: I had no idea ...
Uriah: That is another example of the line where that ... even though it was from a member of our team, an extended member, it wasn’t like a plan ... it just kind of ... in fact, Drybones is often times not a plan and he goes “wooooo” ...
Jeff: He’s going rogue a lot of times ...
Uriah: A few collaborators go rogue now and again.
Jason: It’s almost a real-life manifestation of what this exhibit is about, when communications go badly because on your side you know everything of what you’re planning and what’s going on and you try to plan for every contingency, but on our hand we’ve got a mystery box and we’re going to poke it [laughter] as much as we can, because we don’t know what the hell’s going on ... oh, we got another email address, let’s start firing off crazy emails and see what happens! Oh, that dude said bells, let’s get some bells! [laughter] We got another weapon, all right! So when we mobbed the limo it was more like ring ring ring! Jazz hands! I don’t think anyone there would have like touched the guy ... but you don’t know, because you don’t know what we’re doing, so surprise ... we get to surprise each other which I actually think is a lot of fun, hopefully we don’t hurt anybody in the process [laughs; laughter]
Jeff: I’m always surprised by what’s going on, the costumes, other installations, these miniature Jejune items, just like wow, so impressed by the involvement, the level of the people who participated is way beyond what I could ever hope for, I’m just really pleased.
Jason: I’m a little chagrined because I don’t even show fannish behavior, ever, until now, and I’m like “oh shit, I’m a fan! Oh my god. I’m a fanboy!” Oh my goodness. But it’s super fun ...
Jeff: But you’re [...]
Jason: Oh thank you! Great! How come Audrey is tele-commuting ... what exactly happened?
Uriah: She’s didn’t feel comfortable being here ... she was, would I use word, afraid?
Jeff: She was nervous, she was apprehensive ... there was some noise about the EPWA showing up ... and she just ... there’d been an abduction recently, and she just didn’t really want to be hanging out here.
The Urban Phoenix: So she’s aware of the abduction.
Uriah: Word’s gotten around.
Jeff: People are talking about it, definitely ... it was a discussion.
Jason: It’s pretty messed up.
Uriah: We tried to assure her things would be fine if she had come, but we also don’t blame her for not feeling comfortable being here.
Duckstabd: She’s not by herself there, is she? I’m just saying [laughter] ... seems kind of risky ... scary ...
Capt King: So where’d the initial idea for all this, the entire experience come from? The story, everything?
Jeff: The format for the story, like ... yeah, it’s one of those things that if I had a club at the time, it would have been really useful. But I was doing work in public space in Oakland as the Oaklandish project with these posters and projections that would show up that were addressing the history and some of the things that were happening culturally at time, the change that was happening in the city ... and then I was gluing things to boxes and putting up stickers with little messages and I somehow wished that each one of those ... I guess when I see street art, say a graffiti tag ... I wish that it had this ... huge other great meaning like the little horn in Crying of Lot 49 where you start to pay attention to it and things would happen and then the story would unfold ... and so it was a little evolution from the street art that I was doing at the time when trying to add links between different street art installations where like if you paid attention to this you’d start to see this ... and then so the idea of the whole tear-off fliers thing, came about where you if you dialed the phone number you’d start to realize the connections between the other fliers you saw ... that was really the scope of it at the time, “I’m going to put up all these fliers” and that was it and then it just snowballed. [laughter] I had no idea about alternate reality gaming at all, it was like I was scheming at these things years ago, so when I learned ARGs existed I was like “ ... Okay, all right, let me show ’em what we got.”
Capt King: It’s a lot different than most alternate reality games out there. How were you received at the conference up in Portland Oregon? The ARG conference?
Uriah: We were received pretty well.
Jeff: Their jaws dropped. There was a standing ovation. They just hadn’t seen anything like it.
Uriah: I think what was great was one of the most uproarious applauses was from a member of the team basically sort of getting in their face on their ground ... but in the spirit, I wouldn’t say in a confrontational sort of way, but in the spirit of creativity and spontaneity of it.
Jeff: Yeah, Sean Aaberg who’s been a collaborator of mine for a very long time he’s done a lot of writing and some design work on the thing, he lives in Oregon so he joined us on the panel ... and he just grabbed the mike at the end and said “I don’t even like games ... I don’t like art ... I like fucking with people in a good way.” [laughter] And kind of continued to explain himself what he meant by fucking with people as this provocateur and so they were kind of floored by it ...
Uriah: He was mobbed after the talk.
Jeff: It’s not ... this is not a product placement promotional thing, it’s not trying to sell anything to you, it’s trying to provide very real experiences and very real questions and considerations that come up as a result of interacting with the world in a different way which doesn’t fit into the ad marketing kind of paradigm that most ARGs have in the past so we’re kind of on a different playing field than the other producers. A lot of whom I really respect and I gained a lot and learned from their panels I’m sure just as much if not more than they learned from ours. It’s interesting to see everybody’s got a different niche in this and nobody’s really ... well some people are doing some redundant stuff but everyone kind of occupies their own area, there’s the urban gaming movement, and the urban playground movement, and then there’s interactive narrative as it exists online, there’s this experimental marketing thing, we’ve got our little piece that we add to it. There seems to be something that’s happening in number of different fields and you see it pop up ... what are the different festivals, Come Out and Play ... there’s there’s one in New York, there’s one in London, one in Belgium, all of these different conferences that are about play, new ways to do that.
Uriah: One thing interesting about being in a conference was finding a lot of the stumbling points and pitfalls that we had run into ... and sort of without having any prior knowledge of ARGs, I’d heard of them, never played one ... I believe we were all in the same boat with that. There were many pitfalls that people were aware of that possibly that we could have seen coming – we handled them, but at the same time also I think our lack of knowledge – we actually ended up solving a couple of problems with ARGs that we didn’t know existed. But when we presented they came back at us with “oh wow!” ... the perpetuality of it ...
Jeff: The main thing about the replayability, people hadn’t created a game before that everyone can do, we’ve been running it for a year now and people can still go in fresh to do it. On the other hand, the problem we run into with that is that it has to be local, it’s not an international game ... and so if you’re trying to reach an international audience, it’s going to be hard doing it this way.
Uriah: Which is another aspect of us doing our best to keep it tied to the fact that we are doing our best to keep in the real-world and offload the web element. A lot of ARGs are web-based with possibly some real world thrills ... I like to think more that we use the web as a utility for our real-world experience.
Audience member: So, it seems like you’re developing a community out of this ... would you say you could categorize the demographics as male, white, between the ages of 20 and 35. [laughter]
Jeff: Honestly what you just described would probably be a large segment, there’s obviously outliers, we have some very prominent female players, obviously different ethniticies ... but yeah, the core of the community is as you described it, even people in the 40s. I thought it was going to be gamers, hipsters, and artists. I think that’s true, but it’s also it’s gotten onto different boards, “what’s something to do with your kids?” so parents and kids are starting to do it together, “what’s something to do when you visit San Francisco?” so now like travellers ...
Audience member: And probably gamers have longer attention spans, because like those kind of involved processes, probably more than artists or hipsters ...
Jeff: Actually, I hadn’t considered that ...
Audience member: I came in late, so I’m sorry, the third member, this woman, what’s her name?
Jeff: Sara Thacher is our lead producer. She’s dynamite. She makes it happen.
Audience member: So did that change the dynamics, bringing a woman into your group?
Uriah: She’s been around practically since the beginning.
Jeff: We were trying to jumpstart the project before she got involved and then she got involved and then it started, really. And it was never meant to be a homeogenous group of people ... when we were interviewing people, we were looking for the best people ... she came in and actually took another guy’s job. This other guy was stalling out, and she came in and ran circles around him, kicked him to the curb and made her lead producer. She came in as an assistant PA and I saw what she was doing. Now she plays a core, critical role in the entire thing. It hasn’t changed the ... I don’t know how to answer that. Because I think it took a similar course, you know. She’s kind of one of the guys, honestly. [laughter]
Uriah: I never really looked at maybe the nature of the medium is what locks the demographic but as far as the nature of the story ... I don’t really see it being, something that has really any gender-specificity to it all in my eyes ... it’s not like with video game demographics, video games are about running around blowing things up ... in a lot of ways that tends to gear, let’s be realistic demographically toward a certain gender. We’re not about running around and blowing things up, it’s creativity, it’s mystery, the protagonist is female, is really what it boils down to.
Audience member: I wasn’t trying to say that it was very [...] I was just reading from all of the stuff that I’m trying to ...
Jeff: No, it’s a good observation, what is this community and who are they, the people who have predominately been drawn to it, and it’s interesting to consider it ...
The Urban Phoenix: Since a big piece of this is kind of changing people’s ideas of how public space is utilized, have you ever run into instances where the way you were using public space wasn’t really met with the kindest of reactions, or ...
Jeff: Yeahhhh. [laughter] A lot. The whole thing we were doing in Oakland were these guerilla drive-in screens from 2000 ... I was trying to create crowds. Create crowds of people in public space. A lot of times public space has these certain sanctioned activities ... commuting ... shopping ... drinking lattes ... when people who are in tinfoil hats and bells [laughter] you do get pushback, and I’ve been shut down a lot. It seems to add a whole vibrancy to the experience when you can say “Okay, plan B everybody!” and go to a new location and start again there, and to kind of push up against the boundaries is part of what makes it a vital thing.
Uriah: It also brings a lot of maintenance into to it, for example –
[recording media change at this point]
Audience member: The security guard spent about ten minutes complaining to me about the stickers on the door. I said why is it an issue? They said, it’s public space, blah blah blah, that they felt that they had to care for.
Uriah: That’s one of those tricky things when you’re leading people around. Me personally, I’m like whatever. But from the perspective of the building, in a sense it’s private space. I guess I could understand, to a degree, their concern. And that’s another one of those unpredictability – to a certain degree we try to get people to break out of the mold and be maybe where they weren’t supposed to be –
Jeff: Why aren’t you supposed to be there? I disagree with Uriah. That’s a corridor, it’s a passage for pedestrians –
Uriah: I was speaking more conceptually, like the technicality about these telephone poles, and hanging up flyers. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with that, but there is. Apparently.
Capt King: So they don’t like the whole idea of flyers on telephone poles? Really?
Jeff: Yeah, but these same people wouldn’t complain about a Marlboro billboard over a junior high school playground, or a Coca-Cola, or Dos Equis because they’re ubiquitious. But as soon as you put your own message and that they’re going to put you on a list and give you a call, there’s this little community, I think it’s run by one guy [laughter], letters from this community committee about our flyers.
Audience member: Based on any feedback that you may have received or maybe the lack of feedback, are there any parts of the episodes where there are still undiscovered corners?
Jeff: There isn’t anything that going to open up a whole new chapter out there, but there’s definitely content that as far as I can tell, people haven’t discovered. Documents, words, themes, links.
Audience member: It almost makes me feel like the people who put up the flyers, and they’re putting them up for real, about the UFOs are coming in league with Frank Chu and blah blah blah, that there is something still to discover in some of these.
Uriah: Kind of like you said there isn’t an episode of things out there just sitting there. There’s many dots that have yet to be connected I would say from a conceptual narrative storyline point. There’s discoveries about things going that we have yet to hear about.
Jeff: And also, those boundaries where the story and this universe ends, they’re meant to be elastic, and so when you see some of these other flyers, people are like “is it Jejune?” You know, we wanted the original ones to be authentically kooky so you don’t really know at what point ... and people talk about this experience while you’re doing it you start to think people on the street are in character, in-game, and you start to question what aspect of it is the production and which aspect isn’t the production, and –
Uriah: I almost ran into Drybones on the street ...
Jeff: I feel like it’s meant to be deep and vast in that way ...
Jason: He found me on the train once.
Audience member: [...] Well I don’t know, because I’m jumping in ... so people are kind of diverting from the path you’ve sent them on?
Jeff: I want people to perpetrate their own concepts –
Audience member: [...]
Jeff: I don’t think creating your own character or plotline within the element that means you have to, you know, subvert or destroy the existing ones ... you can supplement, you can weave yourself into that isn’t going to destroy the experience for other people [...] we want people to participate with their own characters and plotlines ... I don’t know, it’s the same problem we run into all the time, how do you keep it replayable, how do you keep the universe so there’s equilibrium there for other people ...
Uriah: Yeah, I would also kind of bring up the idea that we referred to an action that took place, and one of the ways that this action took place, it took place on the street, it took place with participants, there was a theme, and there’s things going on, but it was definitely about getting out there and meeting people, interacting, going out there and frankly, making a spectacle. And we heavily involved a select group of partipcipants in organizing this thing. We didn’t hang flyers for this event, we didn’t, beyond a very passive way, we spread the word a little bit but it was up to this group of people to make this thing happen in a sense, and we gave some guidelines. And I think to a degree one of the things we had hoped would eventually come out of these things is for people to recognize the themes and ideas of the story and then using their own initiative, execute them.
Jeff: Yeah, I think Organelle is a really good example of that, of someone who became a character in the game, and from the beginning people were like “is this guy part of the game or is he not part of the game?” and the whole time we’re like [...] I’m not saying if he is or he isn’t ... but it definitely wasn’t part of our plan and he wove himself into it in a way that wasn’t subverting our interests, he was supporting the universe ...
Uriah: He [...] came up with a pretty intricate experience ...
Jeff: Yeah ... and he actually sent me a clue recently that I still don’t – all right you cluenies [laughter] ... it was ten astronomers had gotten together and they for years hadn’t – I’ll send it to you guys. [laughter] He sent something for me and he said “it’s going to unlock this link” and we all looked at each other and we were like “I don’t know ...”
Uriah: That’s exactly like taking the spirit of the experience, taking the initiative, and then he totally injected it in.
Jeff: Yeah, and lead other players and participants on other adventures that really, I don’t know how much they have to do with our universe or not, he was kind of using a little bit of the formula to create his own thing [...]
Audience member: I work here, and just getting to work with you guys on this project, understanding how to fit what you do into the context of an art organization and a group exhibition and other thematic ideas; for someone stepping into your project through this ... how do you plan on sort of having a ... I don’t know, a table of contents, or ... it’s like a whole world, and people accessing it through this one point, do you ever have plans to kind of create a guide to what you’ve done ... like how do you want people to step into it who don’t know about it until right now?
Jeff: A guide, that’s interesting ... for the entire experience, or to contextualize this experience?
Audience member: No, just in general, it’s a pretty intricate complicated world for maybe someone coming here, and picking up a piece of it. Ideally how would you want people to get caught up on this larger experience that you’ve been working on for a long time now?
Jeff: This experience, if you do follow the steps along the way will lead you to all of the other chapters, it serves as an in-road or side hatch or portal ... I’ve thought a little bit about creating an ultimate map or an online version that kind of shows you how it’s all laid out and it’s not something that we’ve gotten around to at all. But I think part of the fun is kind of discovering things along the way. I don’t want to create blinders for anybody but also learning that ... actually we’ll be able to document who does come in through this because they have to dial a phone number and then they get a return call and we’ll be able to see who called us from that number, and maybe in later points of the game be able to reference that phone number like if they end up calling another number, or if they end up on this constellation, we can kind of start to chart and track people’s path through it ... and so we’ll be able to, at some point, out of game context, approach those people and say “did you get involved through the Southern Exposure exhibit and what was like, and what was the route that you took” and start to analyze it a little bit, their participation ... but I really, this is ... I have no idea exactly how this overlaps with the other work going on in here and the audiences who are coming in and seeing this as a whole so ... I think I’m really interested to find out.
Audience member: It’s good to that you have websites where if you go to it it encourages people to step out of their [...] their computer, whereas this way you have to [...] to find out and get involved, I mean isn’t it for people who are into persuing ideas? I mean really getting out and ... do you really want to make it any simpler for someone to just get back on their computer and ...
Uriah: That’s been a [...] line that we’ve dealt with, like the radio show issue.
Jeff: Which one?
Uriah: Well, just the fact that we kept the radio show under wraps for quite some time.
Jeff: Oh right, excessive [...] you’ve got a real little core group of people who are adventurers, they’re risk-takers, the people who are blazing the trails ... and it’s not meant for couch potatoes, and at the same time we’d really like to grow our audience ... [...] until this moment, or I guess the ARGfest, we’ve never really come out from behind the curtain and said, hey, we produce this thing and it’s a game and activity that you can do ... everything has always been like a recondite family awaits, all this culty stuff and all this very sub-cultural ...
Uriah: Not even telling our friends what we do ... [laughter]
Jeff: Yeah, we’ve been behind this curtain for so long, we wanted to come out and say “hey you guys, there’s this fun activity you can do, and some people describe it as a game, and why don’t you do it?”
Audience member: Can you talk about that about that a bit? I know you have this video of Audrey talking about re-evaluating the artist-curatorial relationship, it’s kind of like a play on everybody who’s doing artist curating kind of stuff, but you guys have actually gone through some space of collaborating with people and fucking with an audience, but obviously, this, you’re coming out from a previous role ... what are the types of re-evaluations that have gone on with you guys that has lead you to this position that you’re having with this public talk is different than what you were doing a year ago and maybe you wouldn’t have thought about doing this in the same way a year ago ... what are some re-evaluations that you guys have had?
Jeff: I don’t think we would have done it anything differently in terms of re-evaluating the way that we’ve done it, but I’m thinking that we may have saturated those people who are going to discover it through tearing off a flyer on a telephone pole. Those people who are curious enough to take the incentive and dial the number ... you’re sitting in the room. And there’s a couple thousand people who have been through the institute, but some people need a little more hand-holding and I don’t want to make it inaccessible to those people just because they’re afraid of really joining a cult.
Audience member: Do you see it as a way for you to increase your audience or increase your contact with an audience or both?
Jeff: This isn’t increasing our audience, in here, but by coming out from the curtain in the course of time, we’re going to be able to promote it [...] but in terms of us being here and doing this discussion it’s a huge relief for me to be able to talk about it, I feel like [laughter] [...] living in secrecy, there were times where we thought we were being stalked by Jenpop [laughter], we’d look out the little shutters of our office [...] because she’s like “we’re going down there!” and then I was getting calls in the middle of the night, “I want my recondite family! I was told dadda-dadda-da!” ...
Uriah: There was a post on the wall that said “watch out for this person” ...
Jeff: We didn’t know who she was ...
Uriah: This is like week one or week two, we were like “what are these forums, who are these people?”
Jeff: Exactly, to be able to establish an open dialogue, or a more kind of – I hate to say out-of-game – but just like honest, open discussion is new for us, and definitely helpful, just for us as artists and people to be able to sit here and say ’My name is Jeff Hull’ not [...] Octavio [...]
Uriah: It feels like stages, too, we went through a stage where ... and trust is an issue, people going through the experience and trusting because you’re asking somebody to go down to this random building in the financial district and walk in, like they know what they’re doing, and ask them “go in this room unled,” and then go through this experience ... and some people are ready to do that, blindly ...
Jason: Or at least assuming that they know what it is.
Uriah: Or on the recommendation of a close friend ... but some people need to know that this has been done before and it’s being presented as something to do, because trust is a big issue there [...] the crowd with that level of initiative, we might possibly be [...] we have them ... but we want everyone to be able to have this experience.
Jeff: So you’re going to start to see a little more of that, us out of character discussing it in the context of the game, whereas we didn’t do that as a rule for the first ten months, now we’ve kind of reached a stage ... you guys are going to kind of see that a little bit and we were concerned about it, that [...] rub people the wrong way, or whatever, by being a litle more directly promotional [...] we had a year of secret behind-the-curtain fun, mysterious, and enigmatic play – there is more of that – but we’re also trying to open the gates a little more.
Duckstabd: So what’s next, after this? After the Jejune and all that, what are you going to do next?
Jeff: This narrative experience?
Duckstabd: Yeah, after you finish ...
Jeff: Well, there’s more to this, and we want to keep it going ... we want to be able maintain the games in the future because we still feel like there’s a critical mass who can experience and we’re also starting to develop other projects that are collaborative in nature and also gain clientele for creative services, and to start to build these kind of experiences for clients and we’re just starting to do that, based on the work we’ve done with the Jejune Institute ... and we’d also like to be able to produce these things independently in the future, we feel like it’s an entertainment medium in itself, it doesn’t need to have a product to – it is the product, the experience is the thing, it’s not a [...] Happy Meal or Pepsi or video game, no, this is the thing. And we think there are ways that it can be kind of self-sustaining. That’s our ultimate goal, and in the mean time we’re doing work with clients.
The Urban Phoenix: So with the secrecy, has the media been your biggest enemy or your biggest friend as far as getting people pulled into the experience, or have you looked at stories and just cringed going “oh my god, they’ve blown months of work.”
Jeff: Well, there really hasn’t been that much stuff in print media, besides The Guardian [1 2] which I thought was really flattering. I liked the Guardian pieces, they really caught the spirit of the thing. Besides word of mouth and the blogosphere one of the reason there hasn’t been more coverage of it is because ... how do you explain it in headline, put it in nutshell for people ... “well, it’s this thing, and it’s this other thing and it goes to this thing” ... it’s hard to encapsulate, so I’ve learned how lazy journalists are. [laughter]
Uriah: I have a hard time talking my friends into going down. “What is it?” It’s like trying to explain to somebody why they want to go see a movie, but you don’t want to tell them what the movie’s about. And then on top of that, it’s like trying to do that to somebody who doesn’t know what a movie is. [laughter] As far as the media thing, we kind of [...] to a degree, the fact that we can’t, control, to a degree we have to [...] spoilers, because they’re going to come, we can’t control that, we can’t stop it, we can’t argue against it ... there’s a few that are out there and oh well.
Jeff: I think it’s going with this incremental time frame, though, like phases ... there’s people discovering it, and then they’re telling their friends, and there’s documentation online, and then you can go read the whole Unforum thing and walk your way through the whole thing. The piece in the Guardian didn’t do anything more or less than the Unfiction Forums do, which are available to everybody anyway.
Capt King: What was your first reaction to the forums, when you saw that pop up? How did you feel?
Jeff: Honestly?
Uriah: [...] animosity ...
Capt King: Was there really?
Jeff: There was fear.
Uriah: There was fear and animosity.
Jeff: Yeah, not animosity so much ... Oh! Antagonism. [laughter] I don’t know why ... because it was ARG/gamer culture convention as it existed up to this point, and us having no idea the conventions and rules of that, and then when I posted on the forum the first time, the video, people were pissed off and I was like “why are they pissed off?” [laughter] and I had to learn that okay, there’s reasons why they want to keep us off the boards ... that’s one aspect of it, and then the whole idea of somebody going and telling what was out there was something we had to get used to, and I think we’ve kind of reached this equilibrium or this peace about it where we’re all forging a culture, mutually.
Capt King: Yeah, we’re all on the same page at this point.
Uriah: And there was also that “Why are they decompiling our code?” [laughter]
Jason: I was pretty impressed when MOR did that too, I was like “What are you doing?”
Jeff: That was one thing that really actually pissed me off, we had designed this thing with the floating cards and music and [...] to interact with it and then within 30 seconds of us launching it they’re all [...] cards on a list and I’m like [sounds of distress] ... I called him up, I got his number and I was like [...] [laughter] it took me a month and a half working on it and a minute later it’s online as a list! That hurt. That was hurtful. Oh someone put my number up on the forums, and I was like that’s the line, I can get your phone number too! [laughter]
Uriah: Well, we didn’t know! We didn’t know!
Jeff: It felt like we were under siege at the moment where we had to take this defensive stance and that was around the same time that Jenpop was like “let’s all go to the financial district” so all of these things happening at once, it really, we were really on the defensive, for that period of time, we were like “who are these people, why are they trying to [...]” ... you know, you guys are really excited about this thing, and like you said, trying to find out what to do with it.
Jason: That was the thing too, since you hadn’t researched ARGs at that point, there were people coming to your experience that you were building and talking about it in a language you were unfamiliar with, and there was no other language really to describe it. How do you get people to go see a movie if they don’t know what a movie is, like how do you talk about it, and there’s already this framework in ARGs that has existed for the last eight to ten years but you don’t know anything about it ... and then people are still talking about it like it’s a game ... and I’m like “well, it’s not really.” I keep trying to push “interactive narrative” and when I talk about it, but again, how do you talk about it? There’s in-game and out-of-game, which is the easiest, most convenient way to talk about where does this experience lie and this conversation had happened to whom and what and in what context but there’s no other language for that.
Jeff: I started to use the language too, at first I resisted this idea of in-game/out-of-game ... the one that I will not use is “puppetmaster” ... I am not a puppetmaster ...
Jason: Right. Well the thing is, I think this got misunderstood because I think somebody else misunderstood what it was is that the puppets, correct me if I’m wrong because I hate ARGs normally, [laughter] is that the puppets are the characters that you create as part of the story, not us. So you’re the puppetmaster behind Eva, or behind Commander 14 or whoever. And so it’s not us, we’re not the puppets, we’re going to do whatever we’re going to do. But I’ve heard that phrase before.
Audience member: [...] trying to reach a broader audience ...
Jason: Sure, that’s a freaky thing, that’s a freaky thing.
Uriah: What was it that The Guardian called us once, Dark Overlords? [laughter]
Capt King: I’ve really have to say, though, I’ve been an avid player of alternate reality games for a long time now and you guys have really kind of shattered this whole idea of what is considered chaotic fiction, like a narrative, it’s different than anything ever done before, and that’s really impressive, it’s really pretty cool.
Jeff: I am so glad to hear that. I’d like to talk to you more about games you’ve played, what you think is out there that’s cool, recommendations on roads to go down.
Capt King: You guys have actually almost created your own offshoot of alternate reality games now, where there is a whole story, but it’s more than just Youtube videos, it’s more than just trying to solve a puzzle, because there’s very little actual puzzle solving, and more just ... discovery ... and discovery that’s really different, really new, and lot of people in the community are really starting to like it.
Uriah: There’s a lot of people at ARGfest, I’ve heard from more than one person: “I hate puzzles.” [laughter] There was definitely a lot of people going “man, I hate puzzles.” I believe, oh god, I don’t know her name, she was the math and literature [...] university, very interested in plots and storylines, and she was the one who pointed out, in the real world, how often do you encounter ... puzzles? From a narrative standpoint, she said, “for me, that takes me out.” A random puzzle thrown out in the world. There’s some problem-solving, there’s some creativity, but a lot of the games are based on, like, oh, you go to this website and you’re arranging pieces, and have you ever seen [...] website?
Jeff: What’s super-ironic about that, and I share a sentiment of “I hate puzzles,” [...] but we use them as little gatekeepers, so people have to go to one point before they reach the next point, it’s not meant to be prohibitive, it’s not meant to stump anybody, it’s meant for you to pause and go to the location and see the thing and fill it out and go to the next thing. Our first clients: we’re doing all puzzles.
Capt King: They all want puzzles.
Jeff: Will you design puzzles for a game? How did we become puzzle [...]?
Capt King: [...] kind of changing what it means to have an alternate-reality game and that’s cool.
Audience member: How do you feel that having paid clients has changed the nature of what you do? I’ve been working for the past four years with a performance group [1 2 3] on and off, and we develop maybe 24 to 30-hour performances designed specifically for maybe one to five audience members, who we’ve spent months researching, and who we’ve videotaped, and maybe surveilled, and talked to their friends, and it’s a massive, massive undertaking. And if we were to charge for it, what do you charge? Thousands of dollars. And thus all of a sudden it becomes something that is so heavily commodified ... and so as we’ve talked over how do we deal with our expenses, being that we don’t really have an audience per se, except these several highly participatory people, who are actors in a play designed specifically for them essentially. It’s hard to get grants by saying “you can’t really see this, but if you want to play such-and-such role for an hour in this scene, that’s how you can see this and thus give us a grant or whatever.” So we end up doing very inexpensive things that take a lot of time. But as we’ve been talking how to fund ourselves, the topic of charging people comes up and is shot down, constantly, because it seems like it would really change the fundamental nature of what we’re trying to provide, which is: totally fucking with people, but also creating a, to some extent, transformatory experience.
Jeff: That’s incredible.
Audience member: It’s completely wonderful to be involved in. I’m thrilled by it even though I’ve been doing it for awhile.
Jeff: So you really select [...]
Audience member: Yeah, we solicit applications –
Jeff: Oh really? So I can apply?
Audience member: Yeah. Then we meet people, then we, depending on what our interests as a collaborative group, and we’re always changing ....
Jeff: So obviously really deep and intensive and creative and personal that’s something that you can do because you feel passionate about it and there might be some other version of the future where that’s going to be highly valued and you’re going to be paid a lot of money to do exactly that, and in the mean time there’s work that we do to pay the bills. And so we want to continue to do this thing which is exactly what we want to do, there’s no boundaries, there’s no limitations – well, we’ve run into limitations but creatively there isn’t – and work for clients there’s very strict limitations there’s very strict [...] what you can do. It’s very different. It can be fun and it can be rewarding and it can be fufilling in a different way but that’s not our end game.
Audience member: Okay.
Capt King: So, as you can tell right now we’re probably coming to the final chapter at least in a little while, after the crescendo, after it’s all said and done, will the institute stay open, will you have something almost like a statue or something that’s left behind to show that hey, this was here, this is what we’ve done. Do you plan on leaving anything behind for future people?
Jeff: I would like to see what I can do about getting the maintenance of the game to happen beyond the final act. I guess I shouldn’t talk too much about the future. I don’t want to close it down. I don’t want to close it down.
Uriah: It’s definitely that very question is something that comes up that we’ve discussed ... in the beginning there [...] and there was an end ... to everything. And now ...
Jeff: And now I don’t want it to end. It costs us X amount of dollars every month to maintain it, and it’s not that much.
Capt King: Really?
Jeff: In the grand scheme of doing a huge multi-media interactive narrative production that thousands of people can experience every month in a multitude of ways and different areas around the city, I’m thinking that we can fund it if we do these other pieces right. Or find public or private sponsorship for it and have it exist in perpetuity. That is what we want to do. Whether we’ll be able to do that remains unseen.
SOEX: On that note ... speaking of future. Is Audrey [...]
Uriah: Audrey, we’re wrapping up now. Wake up. She looks a little [...] Live video ... hey Audrey!
SOEX: Oop, there she is.
Audrey: Okay! I think we should probably wrap up, I want to thank everyone for coming out, I want to thank SOEX for hosting this event and this show in their amazing new space. I want to thank Jeff and Uriah of Nonchalance for having me here, and thank you all for coming out. This show wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you in so many ways. Thank you.
Uriah: She moves fast.
Jason: It’s a warp zone.
People shuffled around as they tend to do when shifting from one mode to the next, then there was some mingling with Nonchalance. The one item of discussion I remember being greatly amused by was that although there were people that re-paint the green electrical cabinets when they’ve been hit by graffiti etc, they would actually paint around the EPWA warning stickers.
After the whole thing broke apart, Cal Bruin, Capt. King, and Jason helped apply the Penelope Houston poster to the Valencia Wall in a forceful and enthusiastic manner.
Penelope Houston (December 17, 1958)
On vanguard of the San Francisco Punk movement, Penelope Houston scorched the stage with her wild energy, wit and bravado. The Avengers (“San Francisco’s best punk band”) hired her on as their lead singer early in their formation, guiding the band to a raw, hard sound combined with complex melodies. Her lyrics were politically savvy, hip to social conciousness and the current events of the day, at the same time intensely personal.
After the band split up, she worked with Howard DeVoto, then began stretching boundries as one of the founders of the West Coast post-punk acoustic music scene.
“Ask not what you can do for your country
what’s your country been doing to you
Ask not what you can do for your country
what’s your country been doing to your mind?”
– The American in Me
The Urban Phoenix checked in with some armbands his wife DangerJen made.
Capt. King and Crumbly Donut coincidentally both left notes at/with the Jejune Institute asking for Octavio’s guidance immediately after the kidnapping (TRAITORS!). They later got a quick note along with a mysteriously blurry legal document:
Mr. Crumbly Donut:
The Jejune Institute would like to thank you for your inquiry. A formal response is attached.
Spearmint & McHorowitz P.A.
Attorneys and Counselors at Law
While trying to find the hidden path to Other Things that Nonchalance mentioned, I ran across two real-world precedents for Jejune Institute technology. An article on James Randi’s site describes the rumor of a “Chronovisor” built by “Father Pellegrino Marcello Ernetti,” a Benedictine monk and mentions a spurious historical precedent, a “Radionic Camera” developed by George DeLaWarr, a “well-known quack.”
Another site, Aquathought, conforms exactly to the JI’s Aquatic Thought Foundation, right down to the Cyberfin exhibit, which apparently at one time was an exhibit at the New Jersey State Aquarium.
Of course this rabbit hole goes deeper ... “may also have an interest in pyramids” ... you don’t say. [FX: backs slowly out of the room]
I also ran into a real-world precedent for Polywater called ... Polywater. Never have so many been led so far astray by so few items of dirty glassware.
Dr. Felix Hoenikker, the absentminded scientist, was a caricature of Dr. Irving Langmuir, the star of the G.E. research laboratory. I knew him some. My brother worked with him. Langmuir was wonderfully absentminded. He wondered out loud one time whether, when turtles pulled in their heads, their spines buckled or contracted. I put that in the book. One time he left a tip under his plate after his wife served him breakfast at home. I put that in. His most important contribution, though, was the idea for what I called “Ice-9,” a form of frozen water that was stable at room temperature. He didn’t tell it directly to me. It was a legend around the laboratory—about the time H. G. Wells came to Schenectady. That was long before my time. I was just a little boy when it happened – listening to the radio, building model airplanes [...] Wells came to Schenectady, and Langmuir was told to be his host. Langmuir thought he might entertain Wells with an idea for a science-fiction story – about a form of ice that was stable at room temperature. Wells was uninterested, or at least never used the idea. And then Wells died, and then, finally, Langmuir died. I thought to myself: “Finders, keepers – the idea is mine.” Langmuir, incidentally, was the first scientist in private industry to win a Nobel Prize. – Kurt Vonnegut, The Paris Review #69 Spring 1977
Finally, the James Beard 2008 Humanitarian of the Year Award did not actually go to Octavio Coleman, Esq., but France Moore Lappé, author of Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad.
On December 7th, the EPWA posted an article entitled “Enact Nonsense” on Kelvin’s commandeered weblog. “There’s absolutely no reason why allies and operatives should be sleeping through The Age of Incongruity.” Okay. Enact nonsense. Got it.
Jason suggested the mask for Halloween. Unfortunately, Halloween with 580Jr. was cut short when my beard bailed. Bummer.
A day later, Audrey was kidnapped. In the video, Kelvin has fully converted over to the EPWA’s side of things but has a beef with not being given the low-down about the Jejune Institute etc and Audrey seems relatively fine with a bag over her head and such.
Say, why not continue on to the next part: Assemble.