Reply To: Share your inspirations!

[rosiestrang]

Hello, Rosie here from Articulture, working with Annie G (see below) and others. We support the development of innovative, high quality outdoor arts and diverse engaged audiences in Wales.

The movement of pervasive or alternative reality gaming in recent years completely inspired me – the powerful way it draws creatives and participants from all corners of communities to re-imagine their public spaces and how we interact.

In the words of leading game designer Jane McGonigal games challenge players to tackle real-world problems at a planetary-scale: hunger, poverty, climate change, or global peace. Others are simply designed to make players happier in their everyday lives — by dancing more, say, or by being kind to strangers. And some have specific positive health impacts in mind – increasing physical activity.

Playing her game Cruel 2 B Kind and others at the UK’s first pervasive gaming festival in the heart of London in 2008 across the whole of the Southbank with 250 other people changed forever the way I experienced and interacted with others in public space – it opened up a whole new world of possibilities. Cruel 2 B Kind is game of benevolent assassination where your secret weapon is a random act of kindness. As assassins team up scenes such as groups of 50+ people kneeling and saying ‘I really love your shoes!’ to 75+ other people running away across Hungerford Bridge saying ‘I would love to buy your flowers!’ was beautiful, bewildering, and life changing. And withnessing all the envitable acts of kindness that get made to random members of the public in the process – resulting in a collective glow of love and appreciation across the whole of the Southbank.

Closer to home one of my favourite Articulture commissions with the Wales Outdoor Arts Consortium was ‘Electioneering’ by Mr & Mrs Clark. Through street performance they explore the body postures, facial expressions and hand gestures of those promising to hand back control and make their countries great, again. It culminates in members of the public being roped into to a ‘general election’. Vital work in the UK where political discourse is often distorted and divisive – its total timeless gold.