Information
Technology
Descriptions & Essays
In March 2004 Blast Theory premiered the world's first 3G mixed reality game, I Like Frank in Adelaide, at the Adelaide Fringe.
I Like Frank took place online at www.ilikefrank.com and on the streets using 3G phones. Players in the real city chatted with players in the virtual city as they searched for the elusive Frank. Whether playing on the streets or logging from around the world, players built relationships, swapped information and tested the possibilities of a new hybrid space.
The game invited players to search for Frank through the streets of Adelaide. Online Players moved through a virtual model of the city, opening location specific photos of the city. One photo revealed the location of a hidden object. Online Players then had to enlist a Street Player to go to that location and retrieve it. In the Exeter Hotel, in a pool hall and in saddle bags on bicycles were four different postcards each with a question for the Street Player to answer such as, 'Who do you think of when you feel alone?'Once an Online Player had achieved this they entered a new virtual Adelaide saturated in red where Frank was waiting in a photographic 'Future Land'.
Street Players received messages onto their phones that reveal that the creator of the game and Frank spent time together in Adelaide in the past. By walking through the north eastern part of the city Street Players followed in their footsteps. The game culminated with an interaction with a glimpsed figure at 'Future Land', a leafy sunken atrium between four mirrored office blocks. Via a video call on their phone they were invited to answer the question on their postcard and address it to an online player.
Three members of Blast Theory and two members of the Mixed Reality Lab spent 3 months in Adelaide working with five local artists and scientists (Bianca Barling, Brian Degger, Anne Marie Kohn, Justin McGuinness and Aaron Stafford) to create I Like Frank.
I Like Frank in Adelaide was produced during Blast Theory's appointment as Adelaide Thinkers in Residence for 12 weeks; an annual programme which brings world-leading thinkers to live and work in Adelaide. Programme partners included the Dept. of the Premier and Cabinet, Adelaide Fringe 2004, m.Net, SA Film Corporation, Australian Network for Art & Technology and Dept. of Education and Children's Services, with support from Internode, the Arts & Humanities Research Board, Australia Council for the Arts, Technology School of the Future, Australian Film Commission, Arts SA and Dept. of Further Education, Employment, Science and Technology.
(source: http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/bt/work_ilikefrank.html)
Literature
Exhibitions & Events