Tag: Psychogeography of games

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Recent games, writing, performing.

An image of me talking at Videobrains, hannah nicklin, videobrains, games, performance, writing

 

It’s been a while! It was 3 months ago I last posted an update on here, largely due to a lot of the work I’ve been doing having it’s own dedicated online presences.

An image of me talking at Videobrains, hannah nicklin, videobrains, games, performance, writingSince last writing, I’ve finished the community storytelling project Your Home From Here in Lincolnshire, which resulted in a gently interactive sound piece for the village green in North Hykeham. Accompanied by some lovely sound work by Daniel J. Harvey, you can have a bit of a listen, and read some workshop participant’s stories and poems over at yourhomefromhere.com

I’m now 3 months into my residency at Videobrains, which is taking up a lot of my time and money, but is also super great and challenging in all the right ways. Helpfully, Rock Paper Shotgun picked up the talks for a series of features, the first 3 of 6 you can read below, and also, if you’re interested in anything to do with psychogeography and games, there’s still plenty of time to help support the work over on my Patreon. In the meantime:

  • Read about Jake Elliott, the scale of the US, and the landscape of our late capitalist lives: here.
  • Read about Holly Gramazio, being an incomer an play in the city: here.
  • Read about Kerry Turner, the European and American Gothic, Disneyland Paris, and Malham Cove in Yorkshire: here.

EFAMB Flyer imageI’ve also almost finished work on Equations for a Moving Body. And I COMPLETED A FULL or ‘IRON’ DISTANCE TRIATHLON. It was hard, but I was equal to it. That’s a cool feeling. You can see a lot of the process/thinking/writing/research for that show on the subdomain ironman.hannahnicklin.com — and there’ll be a premiere in Leeds/Sheffield end of October – look out for me announcing it on Twitter. Hopefully we’ll get an Autumn 2016 tour together out of that.

I’m continuing to work with UEL on socially engaged performance and interactive practices, this Autumn running a series of 4 sessions working on a new piece of community participative art with the Applied Theatre BA. I’ve also done a bit of guest lecturing/mentoring for the Game Design course at UAL, and for performance/theatre MAs over at the university in Chichester.

Oh! And there’s a book out on DIY theatre with a contribution from me on what we mean when we talk about interaction, you can buy that right now for £15 on Unbound – there are some great contributors.

Hannah Nicklin speaking at the V&A as part of the Pushing Buttons Late on radical game designI’ve performed/spoken at the V&A radical games Late Pushing Buttons, and in 2 days will present as part of Now Play This a new piece of writing born out of the Games We Have Known and Loved story collecting game (tickets still available!).

And really excitingly, I’ve just begun a brand new commission working with the Social Housing Arts Network working alongside Poplar HARCA on a new piece of community storytelling that will hopefully result in a brand new game-type-thing. Initial thoughts are to use Twine to map the stories of the estate, but of course the work will respond to the community, so I’m looking forward to finding out what they have to tell me.Social Housing Arts Network, SHAN, HARCA, Hannah Nicklin, art, community, games, Image of Limehouse Cut in Poplar, overlaid with the Social Housing Arts Network Logo

Finally, I’ve release a limited run of 50 of a brand new little zine collecting some of my poetry, following Songs For Breaking Britain I’ve been writing a lot more, you can buy it over here for only £3 +p&p, with a bit of cover art from a life drawing class I went to.

Phew!

I don’t have much money or time, but boy when I write it all down like that I don’t think I could describe a better way of going through life. Cool. Onwards!

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Announcing: the game designers

a screenshot of games of each of the makers I'm walking with

a screenshot of games of each of the makers I'm walking with

So a week or so ago I launched a brand new project A Psychogeography of Games. I’ve very excitingly been invited to be the new resident speaker at VideoBrains, starting in June and as I have 6 months to play with I thought it would be great to use the time to develop a series/idea/take some fun risks. This lead me to propose THIS PATREON for the project, inviting people to support me building 6 brand new 20 minute performances/talks born out of walks across hills, cities, and beaches with great game designers. Thinking about where we come from, how we live, and how that affects what we make.

And here they are! Here are the brilliant people who have consented to walk with me. They are (in order of how nicely screencaps of their games fitted together, not in the order I will be walking with them)…

Kerry Turner – @reallyfancy – therabbitclub.com

Kerry Turner is a programmer, game designer and digital artist who spent much of the last decade working as a programmer in the games and tech industry. In 2010 she began making experimental games and digital art. Since then, her work has been featured all over the place, including The Guardian, Edge, PC Gamer and Rock Paper Shotgun.

Ed Key – @edclef – visitproteus.com

Ed Key is a game developer who lives and works in Cumbria. He made Proteus, with David Kanaga, a meditative game about spending time immersed in a mysterious place without people. He is a regular conservation volunteer and an irregular hill-wanderer.

Jake Elliott – @jakevsrobots – dai5ychain.net

Jake makes games, music & artware. He’s currently working on the game Kentucky Route Zero with his friends Tamas Kemenczy and Ben Babbitt. With his friend jonCates, he runs the internet radio station NUMBERS.FM.

George Buckenham – @v21 – v21.io

George makes weird stuff. Things like iPad games you play by stacking pieces up in a careful pile, pianos you can play Doom on, or bowls of custard designed to be punched. And some things that aren’t games, like Twitter bots that tweet quotes from the Library of Babel. He helps put on events like the Wild Rumpus, too.

Holly Gramazio – @severalbees – hollygramazio.net

Holly makes games that usually have some sort of physical element: events and installations and that kind of thing. She curates stuff too. She likes writing and talking about games, making work for public spaces, and exploring the intersection of game design and other cultural forms.

Llaura Dreamfeel – @dreamfeeel – dreamfeeel.com

Llaura is a queer games author and fiction writer living in Dublin Ireland. She’s interested in strange, poetic and punk game-like things, and being involved in small creative communities outside traditional digital spaces.

I’ll be doing the first walk in April, with Jake Elliott – it’ll be the only walk that will happen by correspondence (as he lives far far away beyond the dreams of my budget), but with his current project being all about wandering into different times and spaces, folds of maps and bits of reality eroded by static, that feels really appropriate. There’s a lovely little idea we’re working on, and I’ll let you know about it closer to the time.

I’m so glad to have these excellent folk on board to walk with me and talk with me about how their surrounding affect who they are and what they make. I hope you are too!

If you like the sound of this idea, then it would be amazing if you’d consider putting in $5 or so a month to support it – you can stop supporting or change your pledge at any time! Every bit helps me not make a massive loss, and means I’ll make and send you a zine out of all the walks and the finished texts and pictures and whatnot. Rad. Thanks.