Find the Rabbit Hole: ARGs as Advanced Psychogeography
To the core of the city? This way, please: Down the Rabbit Hole. Let us explore its hidden structures, its inner guts. And then let us take over the system…
This may be the promise. However, meanwhile most of what comes up under the charismatic umbrella term “Alternate Reality Games” does so thanks to investment of major brands. With “Interactive entertainment” as the main tag, with a “puppet master” leading proactive consumers to the next trendy sellout ARGs are being considered, researched and developed as “a medium for lifestyle, marketing and advertisement”.

Sure, this is not a game. Yet, this is not what you’d expect from something called “alternate”? You think whatever might be considered as the potentials of collective intelligence and collective creative could take another direction? Like, in example, towards new ways of research and new ways of taking action in urban space? Ok. Perhaps all you have to do is just to try a little harder. Watch out for the Rabbit Hole. Enter the Game. And find your way to play… Departing from a brief introduction into the current state of the art of ARG theory and practice the lecture will take a look at projects that take alternate directions to explore urban playgrounds, and propose some thoughts on the potentials (and problems) of ARGs as a tool for collective/networked research and action.