Lost London: Pervasive Gaming On The London Underground

Emilie Giles is a new media practitioner and gaming designer, whose Lost London project, part of the MA in Interative Media: Critical Theory and Practice Degree Show at Goldsmiths College, just launched. A pervasive gaming project that examines unfinished London Tube stations, the game utilizes Twitter and Foursquare to set the pace of the game. Giles recently sat down with PSFK and discussed the projects use of psychogeography, it’s relationship to pervasive gaming, and the perils/benefits of social media and gaming.

Can you explain the background on your project?

My initial interest in the London Underground as an area of focus was through watching a short documentary called Unfinished London by Jay Foreman and Paul Kendler which looked at the Northern Heights project. This was a planned extension of the Northern Line which never occurred, largely due to the Second World War. Watching this began my interest in tube stations which were never completed, or ones which had become disused.

I had developed an interest in psychogeography from working on a project in October 2009 in which the idea of an aimless journey was explored. This involved getting the data from an Oyster card (a pre-pay travel card containing an RFID tag used on the London Underground), choosing a journey which it had been used for, and then traveling between those two tube stations in any way desired whilst documenting the journey. What I gained from this was an awareness and intrigue into what was around me, created through the openness of it, but also through the task of documenting the journey. I thought that this would be a great thing to turn into a game, and by using disused tube stations as a starting point you are already encouraging players to open their eyes more and assess their surroundings in a way that they might not normally do.

How does the idea of psychogeography figure into your game?

The basic idea of psychogeography is how someone’s geographical environment affects them emotionally. Guy Debord defines it as:

The study of the specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals.’ [1]

By inviting people to wander between tube stations and document what they find interesting, I’m asking them to let the way they view and record their environment be dictated by their emotions. This is interesting, as it will be different for each person. For example, one person might be wandering between two stations and take a photograph of a Norman church, whilst another person might choose to photograph a piece of Brutalist architecture; both people have had an emotional reaction to their environment, but react differently. The game allows people to take the time to embark on this, and by requesting them to send their images back to the Lost London website it turns it into an algorithmic task. Games consist of algorithms.

What attracted you about pervasive gaming?

I have had an interest in gaming since being a kid, but mainly video games. What attracted me to pervasive gaming is how it pervades its environment, bringing gaming into the ‘real’ world, therefore allowing for an element of performance to develop. I also like the social element of it. If you play an online game like World of Warcraft, you of course have the opportunity to talk to people and build up relationships, but what is great about pervasive gaming is that you are doing the same thing but face to face.

You’re using Foursquare and Twitter to galvanize people. Are you afraid of people confusing your project with viral marketing or branded ARGs?

Not really. What is nice about the way I’m using these social media applications is that the game features them, but it does not revolve around them. People can use them to either be more competitive, to gain information, or make their journeys traceable live. I think that the way I have introduced people to the game on the website very much suggests that it is more of an arts project and is also very much about the experience of doing it rather than just ‘playing’ the game.

As a new media practitioner/artist, what are the benefits/downfalls of utilizing social media?

The benefits are that you are using something that already exists, therefore making your production time shorter. It is something which by piggy-backing onto, you already have a set audience who may be more willing to engage with your project due to their enthusiasm for the social media. It is also useful as a tool to promote your project, as people will come across it accidentally. Lastly, it’s just good fun!

The downfalls of utilizing social media is that you do not have direct control over it. An example of this is adding places to Foursquare. If you make a mistake on it then you have to wait for the people who run the site to correct it. If it was your own software, you could amend anything straight away (in theory). When using something like Twitter you need to keep up the pace. If you haven’t tweeted anything for even a few days people can start to lose interest. There is also the issue of ownership. If you are using someone else’s applications within your game does that mean that the project isn’t completely your own?

Lost London