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Photo E. Whittaker: Participant, Blast Theory’s ‘Machine to See With’, Brighton<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n
Immersion in the experience is predominately dependent upon the participant\u2019s willingness to role-play. The use of the mobile phone is successfully integrated into the experience as a legitimate \u2018prop\u2019 of a character involved in a heist. Unlike many locative narrative experiences, the presence of the devise is not incongruous within the story-world nor does usability break the suspension of disbelief. The ability to replay the last message by dialing the number is an important feature especially as the spoken instructions are the only method of navigating through the city and the story.<\/p>\n
In an informal debrief with participants Phil and Becky, the overall impressions\u00a0Machine to See With\u00a0<\/em>was of an engaging and immersive experience peppered with real tension. When the rules of everyday behaviour were challenged, receiving secret messages in a toilet cubicle, hiding in a car park and getting into an unknown car, greater immersion in both the role-playing and story was evoked. The duration of\u00a0Machine to See With<\/em>\u00a0was approximately an hour. It was generally felt that it could have been extended and that the ending came too soon (with possibly an anticlimax). There were a number of elements that did not seem to develop on this particular occasion, for example, the escape plans were not used or mentioned again. Further connections between the participants would have added another dimension to the experience.<\/p>\n
A participant that had taken part on a different day reported that the experience was marred by the fact that their starting time occurred after the bank to be robbed had closed and this rendered some of the story impossible.<\/p>\n
A Machine To See With<\/em>\u00a0offered a generally carefully constructed and well-produced Interactive Locative Narrative experience. Drawing upon the cinematic conventions of the heist, Brighton is augmented by the disembodied voice that successfully performs your transformation into a gangster, if only for an hour.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cBlending secret missions and high adrenalin, you will be in an interactive heist movie playing the lead role. It takes part in the streets of Brighton and is played through your mobile phone and your mind!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Blast Theory\u00a0 A heist is taking place and you are implicated. Outside the disused theatre, boarded-up, you wait. Glancing around … Continue reading “Blast Theory\u2019s ‘A Machine To See With’ at the Brighton Digital Festival 1 – 24 September 2011”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,40,46,36,38,54],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.expandednarrative.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.expandednarrative.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.expandednarrative.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.expandednarrative.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.expandednarrative.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.expandednarrative.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":900,"href":"http:\/\/www.expandednarrative.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions\/900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.expandednarrative.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.expandednarrative.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.expandednarrative.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}