Flipside Game
2012
Flipside Game 2012
Workshops with students in the creation of a public street game for the A MAZE Interact Festival 2012
Supported by A MAZE festival, Goethe Institut and The Bag Factory.
‘Flipside’ was a site-specific game created by myself and Berlin based game designer Sebastian Quack from ‘invisible Playground’ for the ‘A MAZE Interact’ festival in Johannesburg, 2012. I invited 3 performing and digital arts students from Wits School of the Arts and eight of her students from Vega Imagination Lab where she taught Creative Development.
Over the course of 4 weeks, through a series of workshops where the group eaves dropped and listened to the space of Braamfontein they created poems, that were then turned into scripts for the teams to perform in different locations. The game was tested out at the Playpublik festival on August 9-12 in Berlin for which I was able to attend. The final version was released at A MAZE. Interact in Johannesburg over the first weekend of September 2012.
For me, this project was a success in its process and a failure in its final execution. The process was incredibly generative in its interdisciplinary processes and engagement with the area, however the final game that was created was too complicated and difficult to play. In the future: less is more, and more fun! In addition, whilst I think the group connected and built strong bonds over the weeks, the participants who joined on the day felt out of their depth ‘performing in public space’. I would engage this with much more caution and care if I were to do this again. The joys of hindsight!
http://flipsidegame.tumblr.com/
Public Flyer text: FLIPSIDE: A game of Teleported Reality!
Teleport between Berlin and Jo’burg and record as many scenes as you can with your super uber cool production team! A collaboration between Berlin’s site-specific games collective Invisible Playground and Johannesburg’s first ever street game collective: Rock, Paper… Pavement!
In this real-life street game playable exclusively on the streets of Braamfontein (Jo’burg) and Friedrichshain (Berlin), teams of entertainment producers race to create a completely new kind of TV show: Teleported Reality. Starting in their city, players perform the teleportation ritual, which enables them to teleport to the other side. Players have to shoot as many improvised scenes as they can from both Berlin and Johannesburg within set periods of time whilst they are on the flipside. But watch out – shady characters will be watching your every move and the connection between the two neighbourhoods is only temporary…
