ABOUT THE PROJECT: Professor Sha Xin Wei, Montreal-based experimental phenomenologist & media artist, and Patrick Jagoda, Professor of English & New Media at The University of Chicago, in collaboration with Alkemie Atelier, celebrate the culmination of a year-long transmedia gaming project intended to explore the relations between digital media and space, the affordances of collective storytelling, the generation of new media theory through design, and the development of methodologies for studying the emergent art form of Alternate Reality Games.

The Project is an experimental Alternate Reality Game that combines transmedia storytelling, performative role-playing, and live gameplay dimensions. The game will unfold both online and through site-specific events in Chicago.  It will run from April 1-25, 2013. Over the course of these three and a half weeks, visitors will explore what at first appear to be three unrelated conspiracy groups. A collective of players will encounter a series of initiation and play events that tell a story through challenging games, audiovisual media, responsive environments, and interactions with characters. All of the events will be related to an undertaking known only as "The Project."

In the course of participating in an installation, watching a performance, solving a puzzle, or orienting themselves via web-based interaction, visitors discover a deeper myth that connects these installations to another world and strange phenomena called the Sandbox and the Anomal. Only the observant and curious will find the conspiracies and make sense of The Project.

The Project culminates on Thursday April 25th in an installation gaming event from 7:30 - 9 pm in the Courtyard, 014 and Performance Penthouse of the Logan Center for the Arts. 

From 8:30 - 10 pm, attend a reception and meet the creators in the Performance Penthouse. 

For more info:  Mellon Collaborative Fellowship / Alternate Reality: A Pervasive Play Project