An interactive, immersive group game experience by Colin Schmid (Interaction Design, Zurich University of the Arts), Lena Seefried (Curatorial Studies, Zurich University of the Arts), Lisa Schwabe (Stage Directing, Zurich University of the Arts), Timo Raddatz (Theatre, Dramaturgy, Zurich University of the Arts) and Chan Clair Ka-kiu KK (Fine Arts, City University of Hong Kong).

Intro

Our group started with the keywords spaceship and bondage. The third topic revolved around the words of utopia and matrix. The spaceship gave us an idea of the aesthetics we wanted to achieve. Several films and series like Pacific Rim, Enter The Void, Love, Death And Robots etc. inspired us. The topic bondage gave us different access to a wide range of interests like BDSM and Shibari (traditional form of using ropes, as art and not as sexual liberation), a metaphor of gaining freedom by losing some of it, basic human interactions, power regulations in politics and colonialism. For the media, different TV game shows from the 80′, 90’s, 00’s from Germany, Switzerland, China and Japan inspired us.

Concept

T.U.B.E Hong Kong 0.1 alpha is an interactive, immersive group game experience. The game lasts for 20 minutes and eight people can play the game together at a time. The rules are simple: There are four teams (two players per team) playing against each other. They have to answer questions, do activities with their partner and share intimate stories about themselves. The task is decided by shaking the light cube. Once a player shakes the cube, blinking lights indicate a color that definite the task to fulfill. The room will react to that with video animation and sound. There are six different categories like Devotion, Tie Up or Group Challenge.

T.U.B.E Hong Kong 0.1 alpha gives you the ultimate bonding experience with a twist: Why is bonding always related to a binary systems? Can there be relationships without power and control? What are your personal bonds? Are you willing to share intimacies with your gaming partner? Where are your personal borders? Will you need to make use of the safe word?

Process

From the beginning on, we were a very self organized group. On the first meeting, we talked about day structures, methods and ideas. On day one and two we discussed topics and our personal interests. By mapping these, we tried to find a coherent artwork and wanted to create something “not too serious”. The idea was born to create an interactive game. From this decision on, we worked a lot by ourselves. Mainly because everybody in the group had different abilities (from building an interactive cube to programming it, from recording voices to editing it and writing the game structure and the game content, create animations and videos or translating from German to English and from English to Cantonese). After the phases we worked on our own, we met again as group and talked about the process and decided about things, we needed to sort out together. At the beginning of the project we were five people. KK was in the process of discussing with us, but then she had to leave the group because of other work. From then on, we were a group consisting all German Participants and one guy from Switzerland. Our communicating language changed to German and we did not work transculturally anymore,  which was a little bit sad, but we could not change the situation. KK did some translation work from English to Cantonese for us, but the whole concept of the game, she was not involved in.