Dan Dixon is a senior lecturer at Bristol University of the West Of England, resident at the Pervasive Media Studio and a member of DCRC

Dan’s talk addressed some of the parallels, similarities and differences between pervasive gaming and primitive rituals. He presented a piece of research that will go towards his PhD called: “playing with reality”, which is an aesthetic framework for understanding pervasive games, it is a culturally informed work with an ethnographic basis, looking at every day practice and design practice in pervasive gaming.

Pervasive games mean different things to different people, as a term it is massively contested, it can mix reality and the imagination, the physical and the virtual, they can be played in the real world as well as online, they are technologically empowered, they carry across between devises, screens and technologies. Dan believes pervasive games come from the rhetoric of ubiquitous computing and poses the question: What happens when you release computers games into the real world?

Dan introduced three clear paths that have immerged out of pervasive gaming: street gaming, locative games and trans-media experiences. He explained: street gaming tends to move away from technology and is about gaming in the real world, in the urban environment.  Locative games are specific to a particular location, these have had limited commercial success but are beginning to take off, the interesting thing about these is that they do not often engage in the real world around them, they often use technology to create a game board or as map. Trans-media experiences are explained as alternate reality games, using technology around us to tell stories in a number of modes, focussing largely on story telling.

Dan observed from his ethnographic studies that a lot of pervasive street games look like primitive rituals, he used the example of Stag Hunt, by Hide and Seek. This game takes the primitive idea of chasing a stag, all sorts of ritual symbolism can be seen operating throughout the game, such as masks and markers, chasing and functionalities that work in the same way as rituals do, in the way that they have multiple meanings, the way that the symbols are used and the process and social aesthetic.

Within the similarities there are also discrepancies for example with games, although they are a temporary reality they present themselves as unreal, whereas rituals provide a real outcome. Dan uses a video of Trobriand Cricket  as an example of a ritual that looks like a game, it is a take on cricket taught by missionaries, that was adapted to create a ritualised version of inter-tribal warfare.

Dan referenced James Frazers’ book: The Golden Bough which included a comparative analysis on myths and rituals across the world, this became fundamental to how we think about rituals. Frazer explained that rituals enact myths and are the conceptual condensation behind the rights that people perform to make the world work. It this way myth and ritual go hand in hand. Dan applied this comparison to his work on street gaming and how contemporary myth elements are acted out, he uses the example of 2.8 hours later, which is an enactment of a contemporary myth: zombie apocalypse. Alternate reality games also take on this playing out of modern myths.

Communitas, described by Victor Turner is the feeling that there is no separation or social hierarchy and that everyone is the same. This is believed to be the case for rituals in preindustrial, tribal societies and similarly to gaming, the thing that people enjoy the most about taking part is the feeling of togetherness, that everyone is in the same boat, this link is what sparked Dan’s interest in the link between rituals and pervasive games.

Dan described a three stage process that describes all rituals: separation, liminal and reintegration. The separation phase involves symbolic behaviour that separates you from the normal world; this signifies detachment from the social structure and identities are broken down. The intervening liminal period the characteristics are ambiguous and unclear, this is the stage where you are not part of the every day world, where your identity is stripped. Reintegration is where you are brought back to the real world but through the whole process you are changed in someway. In the analysis of pervasive games there are some clear similarities to this process, most games use tools to clarify a separation such as masks, false moustaches and various symbolic props, there is a liminality where players are on the edge of reality, you enter into a new type of word and your identity is over taken by an alter ego and finally when the game is over you are reintegrated into the real world, but somehow, much like after seeing a film you feel somehow different.

A big difference between rituals and games is the idea of liminal versus the liminoid. Rituals being liminal, compulsory and games are liminoid, optional; you can chose to take part or not. Blast theory’s Ulrike and Eamon Compliant is an example of an interesting use of liminality; the player is asked to decide on a story, as it unfolds you get to understand the mind of a terrorists and at the end you are asked whether you would be willing to kill for something. The whole game really rings out the idea of choice, having to make choices and what effects they have.

Pervasive games enact modern mythic stories, bringing in ideas from contemporary culture such as computer games. There is a spontaneous communitas built into street games and other type of pervasive games. The liminal point is all about the deliverance of the separation and reintegration. Street games are a way to engage with social dramas.