In a darkened gallery, a monolith touch calls: a touch of color and sound encourages the visitor to start a game. A shower of light reveals a pedestal, on which the player is asked to place themselves in order to start the experiment Dive .
Until March 24, the gallery of the Agora Theatre (National Theatre of Evry) presents TRACES, an exhibit that blends digital artists and creative independent game. Since September 2011, this institution has initiated a unique artistic residency by inviting Remains One Life , a group dedicated to the creation of independent games, to make games and other artistic events throughout the season 2011/2012.
The season began with And The Rhino Says presented at the exhibition "Deconstruction" and "Cheat Cake", an exhibition of different sets of One Life Remains of arcade cardboard. Today is Dive , game combining exploration and musical composition, which is presented to the public, between the performance of the Blue Rider and the Architecture Invasion of Olivier Rats. First available online , and then presented as a performance Stéréolux (Nantes), Dive is played here on touch table.
Once placed on a pedestal, the player is faced with a touch table on which is a small square, he must move from a hand movement. "The player finds himself constantly carried to the limits of darkness and silence. The avatar is able to aggregate the sound units scattered throughout the play area and add them to the song being, "said Brice Roy, co-founder of One Life Remains." More music is complete, more the player will be able to venture further into the depths of the game, aided by the powers under each sound, "sound composition depends on the player, his style and his skill. For designers, the challenge is to "find a precarious balance between accessibility and mystery to give the player the desire to explore."
However, the device and context exposure makes the "public" version of the touch table is designed as a show for the non-player: "We wanted to give expression to the size of the game This choreographic version enhances the player's hand and all that it can have expressive: it touches the surface of the table, spins, seems to compose a pattern "continues Roy Brice, who prefers to speak of" tactile organ ". This show is also the result of a production, which, distinguishing the player of other spectators with a pedestal and special lighting, gives the status of performer. As with the development of this prototype, the group will bring new levels (new partitions) to Dive .
Founded in 2010, One Life Remains is the result of an encounter between different designers during a game jam. In the first edition of the art game weekend, Andrew Brice, Frank and Kevin Generations of working as a team, winner of the game, Tetris which seems to have met the architectural Malevich. A few months later, the group takes shape and takes up this project, a more radical version is presented to the Agora Theatre in November 2010. Other games are developed and are publicly available on the internet as a Super Tiny Leap or Pac Mad .
During the exhibition, the Agora Theatre and other cultural actors of the city continue the reflection on the game by offering lines of games, a "People's University of Digital" which runs from February 4 to 11, 2012. Between creative workshop on machinima Minecraft and projection, we will find some lectures and a new exhibition of independent games.
Marion Coville
TRACES
Until March 24, 2012
Theatre Gallery of the Agora, Evry
Open Tuesday to Friday (13h-19h) and Saturday (13h-18h)
