A cast of thousands (well, up to a thousand to be precise). Photo 24 HM
Graham Spicer drops by Brighton's Lighthouse to take part in a strange imaginary world populated by tiny people - Blast Theory's interactive artwork Day of the Figurines.
Igor Gratzik is from Minsk, wears brogues and an old hat and has been mysteriously dropped on the edge of town.
No, it’s not the plot from a spy thriller, its part of a mass participation artwork, Day of the Figurines, currently running at Brighton’s Lighthouse.
Gratzik was the name I chose for my figurine as I registered to take part in the work, and is just one of the 1,000 possible characters that can be involved.
To start, players need to visit Lighthouse and pick their small plastic figurine (the sort that are used for OO gauge model railways), choosing a name, birthplace and other personal traits for their character. It’s then placed onto a large desktop model of a fictional and rundown English town.
The town is created using silhouettes of buildings, cut and folded from the metal table top.
Staff at Lighthouse move the figurines around the table every hour, tracing their every move. Photo 24 HM
After that the game is played via text message on participants’ mobile phones as their figurines move around the town, completing tasks, meeting and helping others and responding to dilemmas.
Each of the figurines is moved by hand every hour for the duration of the game and players can return to the board to see how the game is progressing and even eavesdrop on other players using video displays.
People can join and leave at any time during the game’s 24-day progress - one day of real time for an hour in a day of the fictional town. A website gives information about the town and events as they unfold: www.dayofthefigurines.co.uk.
According to the publicity, participants will have a mixed bag of things to look forward to - a summer fete, Scandinavian death metallists and the arrival of an Arabic army are all promised.
Participants play via mobile phone, sending texts to make their characters move to locations and interact with other players. Photo 24 HM
Gratzik has already popped into a Kath’s Café for a revitalising cup of tea, visited the local pirate radio station, chatted to other characters and headed for the pound shop. The streets are littered and dark and it seems that something bad is definitely around the corner.
Day of the Figurines was devised by Blast Theory, a Brighton-based artists’ group specialising in interactive media. They have already been nominated for four BAFTAs and won the Prix Ars Electronica.
The game is designed to examine behavioural patterns and interaction between people in the anonymous, yet personal, medium of the mobile phone.
It is the world’s first Multi User Domain, or MUD, for mobile phones and was developed as part of the European research project IperG (Integrated Project on Pervasive Gaming).
This is its UK premiere, although it has already been run at the First Play Berlin Festival at the Hebbel am Ufer theatre in October 2006 and the National Museum of Singapore in December.
Let's hope that Igor survives to play another day, because after its stint at the Lighthouse, Day of the Figurines will go on tour in the UK.
