_outsideinside-out
_unscene199
The show, The Candidate, examined and subverted the concept of ‘the family’. This concept was derived from the Langham Club, which for many years has functioned as a communal, intergenerational living room, with all the love and fall-outs, gossip and giggles, fond memories and baggage you’d find in any tight-knit community with a lot of history. The show involved about 25 performers, aged 21–84, five live musicians and several designers. A couple of the club’s long-standing members performed in the show too, including the bingo lady, who starred as herself. The club was open to members during show nights, so the audience were never quite sure who was a performer and who was a punter, or what was spontaneous and what was rehearsed.
The Candidate was a site-specific, immersive theatre piece that was devised and staged by Persona Collective in 2019 at The Langham Club; a traditional working mens club on Green Lanes, near where we all live in Haringey, north London. The club has existed for over 100 years but its numbers are really declining. We became members and spent several months hanging out there, getting to know the regulars and attending bingo nights before developing the show.
The Candidate is the first and last piece of a perpetual cycle. It is a surreal exploration of the family concept, where characters act as family members to fabricate a false reality.
The story is a metaphor for a failed socio-political and financial system in which the role of the family is to prepare themselves to form part of an absurd and competitive system, with no way out. Here, the strange pathologies of human behaviour are dissected and the characters find themselves falling down a symbolic rabbit hole, slowly losing control of events and culminating in an intoxicated awakening that is a celebration of human affairs and rituals.
The Candidate was a site-specific, immersive theatre piece that was devised and staged by Persona Collective in 2019 at The Langham Club; a traditional working mens club on Green Lanes, near where we all live in Haringey, north London. The club has existed for over 100 years but its numbers are really declining. We became members and spent several months hanging out there, getting to know the regulars and attending bingo nights before developing the show.
The Candidate is the first and last piece of a perpetual cycle. It is a surreal exploration of the family concept, where characters act as family members to fabricate a false reality.
The story is a metaphor for a failed socio-political and financial system in which the role of the family is to prepare themselves to form part of an absurd and competitive system, with no way out. Here, the strange pathologies of human behaviour are dissected and the characters find themselves falling down a symbolic rabbit hole, slowly losing control of events and culminating in an intoxicated awakening that is a celebration of human affairs and rituals.
The Candidate was a site-specific, immersive theatre piece that was devised and staged by Persona Collective in 2019 at The Langham Club; a traditional working mens club on Green Lanes, near where we all live in Haringey, north London. The club has existed for over 100 years but its numbers are really declining. We became members and spent several months hanging out there, getting to know the regulars and attending bingo nights before developing the show.
The Candidate is the first and last piece of a perpetual cycle. It is a surreal exploration of the family concept, where characters act as family members to fabricate a false reality.
The story is a metaphor for a failed socio-political and financial system in which the role of the family is to prepare themselves to form part of an absurd and competitive system, with no way out. Here, the strange pathologies of human behaviour are dissected and the characters find themselves falling down a symbolic rabbit hole, slowly losing control of events and culminating in an intoxicated awakening that is a celebration of human affairs and rituals.
The Candidate was a site-specific, immersive theatre piece that was devised and staged by Persona Collective in 2019 at The Langham Club; a traditional working mens club on Green Lanes, near where we all live in Haringey, north London. The club has existed for over 100 years but its numbers are really declining. We became members and spent several months hanging out there, getting to know the regulars and attending bingo nights before developing the show.
The Candidate is the first and last piece of a perpetual cycle. It is a surreal exploration of the family concept, where characters act as family members to fabricate a false reality.
The story is a metaphor for a failed socio-political and financial system in which the role of the family is to prepare themselves to form part of an absurd and competitive system, with no way out. Here, the strange pathologies of human behaviour are dissected and the characters find themselves falling down a symbolic rabbit hole, slowly losing control of events and culminating in an intoxicated awakening that is a celebration of human affairs and rituals.
> the halfway house / behind the scenes
> the halfway house / behind the scenes
From March to November 2024, I led a research project funded by Arts Council England’s, Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) programme, in collaboration with creative technologist Sami Sabik.
The project explored merging immersive theatre with video game mechanics, focusing on storytelling and audience engagement. Below are some insights into the research and development process of The Infinite Game.
Research on Interactive Storytelling
Link A (left): Research - Pixel Chronicles 🎮🕹️👾🖥️
Link B (right): Research - Video Games_genres and Analysis.
Link C (left): Good Design 💾 🥌 🎮
Link D (right): Research-Interactive Art Installations
Game play in The Infinite Game
Player skills for navigating The Infinite Game environment
Electro-sleep Machine: This skill promotes fast speed relaxation and deep sleep. Will give you the ability to enter dreams (...)
⚠️ WARNING: Entering dreams opens up rich narratives, but don’t get lost in the surreal (...)
ELIZA Whisper Machine: This skill grants you the unique ability to converse with machines, engaging in dialogue (...)
⚠️ WARNING: Machines may reveal truths you’re not ready to hear (...)
Stone Tape Machine: With this skill, you can "play back" sounds from the past - that may have become "trapped" in the environment (...)
⚠️ WARNING: While this skill allows you to uncover secret stories, overusing it could lead to auditory fatigue (...)
Einstein-Rosen Bridge Machine: This skill will give you the ability to rewind time, enabling you to correct mistakes (...)
⚠️ WARNING: Rewinding time can save you from mistakes, but beware of becoming reliant on this power (...)
Game play: interactive website
A prototype interactive website introduced the background story and enabled audiences to select their characters skills before the performance.
⚠️ To view it, click the image on the left and use your Citizen ID: K3N7Y9
Game play: Interactive Props - conversations with machines
Interactive radios that provide secret information when tuned to the right channel, and a hidden tape machine on the street where you can hear new narrative details.
One of the rooms in The Infinite Game, where the audience would arrive and interact with a retro computer, engage in conversations, and discover more about their characters and the story. The room also features other machines, like the flip-dot display (used in old London buses), which is pre-programmed to show text.
Work in progress and Moodboards
Crafting the game=play aspect of
The Infinite Game
Timelines (right) of The Infinite Game for each audience member, in relation to the skills of their characters.
