Announcing Camparc – a public space game for STRP

Over the course of the next two months we will be cre­at­ing a new pub­lic space game com­mis­sioned by art and tech­nol­o­gy fes­ti­val STRP. The game car­ries the work­ing title Cam­parc and Hub­bub code­name FUNKOROGASHI. It will be playable Sep­tem­ber 12–14 at Strijp‑S—a Philips indus­tri­al site con­vert­ed into city neigh­bour­hood. Read on below for a sneak pre­view of what we have planned. STRP have also post­ed an announce­ment in Dutch.

Cam­parc con­sists of large-scale, con­nect­ed objects with built-in cam­eras. Play­ers can freely move these “cam­era toys” around Strijp‑S, using its streets, squares and fur­ni­ture as a play­ing field, obsta­cle course or race track. Mean­while, the toys will cap­ture the play­ers and the space and show the footage back to them on screens placed in the same space. Besides free play, we will also sug­gest games to play using the toys, described in sim­ple writ­ten rule­sets placed at strate­gic spots in the game’s area.

The project is inspired by Kata­mari, goal line tech­nol­o­gy, new games earth balls, cam­era sur­veil­lance, self­ie poles, panoram­ic cam­era balls, skate­board­ing and Park­our. We hope it will pro­duce an eye-catch­ing, fun and inclu­sive expe­ri­ence which invites play­ers to reflect on new ways of tech-aid­ed look­ing and map­ping.

We have invit­ed Aldo Hoeben to join us for this project. Aldo is a ver­i­ta­ble wiz­ard when it comes to instal­la­tions involv­ing pho­tog­ra­phy and video. Keep an eye on our wee­knotes to fol­low the game’s devel­op­ment in the com­ing weeks and mark your calendars—we’d love to have you over to play.