[arg_discuss] Topic of the Week Oct. 26: Choices

[Yoms]

Hey all,

We have just finished the first run of a project over here in London,
where the question of choice, trust, and social responsibility played a
central role.

The object was to create an interactive film experience that people could
inhabit for two whole weeks. Participants had the ability to change the
path of an narrative by engaging with the characters or the plot, and by
doing this they could also extend the reality of the fictional world.

During our 'live' events, we had several 'plants' between the edgy parts
of the experience and each participant, though many did not know this.

With all the necessary precautions in place, people opted to stick with
the experience to the end. This involved various experiments, a
Milgram-type test, and a mock execution staged at 1am on an 8th floor
rooftop. One participant said it was one of the most exhilarating things
he'd ever done.

Some of the assets used were an Internet radio station (started
broadcasting 6 months prior to launch), a social network (full of
professionals eager to join a group that "mixed business with pleasure"),
and a spoof police site which urged the public to help fight crime
irrespective how "far fetched" some may seem.

Participants constantly probed behind the facade to check whether assets
were real or fictional, and our disclaimers always pointed them in the
right direction. The only snag was when people re-tweeted a report about a
police raid that took our radio station off-air. We're currently assessing
what happened, and working on a questionnaire to find out whether there
were enough safeguards in place, and how all the signposts were ignored by
the re-tweeters.

Here's a summary of one of the events:

http://www.argn.com/2009/10/out_of_breath_a_night_at_pleasure_principled/

More to come as the project enters the next stage.

All best wishes

Yomi