The stays of the unique Griffith Park Zoo are imbued with recollections of the previous. Forgotten animal pens, decaying cages and stony backdrops now sit in numerous states of abandonment.
It’s, in different phrases, a first-rate location for a haunted narrative.
“Ghost within the Machine: The Outdated Zoo” is simply that, a site-specific interactive expertise by which specters come to life by way of our cell phones. Within the story, our units turn out to be a gateway to a different world — or, fairly, a midway level between our universe and the afterlife. We’ll see visions of a medium, hear fragmented remembrances and discover a path whereas discovering a story that seems like an intimate glimpse right into a grief-stricken previous. And we’ll be taught a bit little bit of Griffith Park historical past alongside the way in which.
The augmented actuality venture is the imaginative and prescient of Koryn Wicks, a skilled dancer and choreographer who has created her personal immersive leisure items whereas working within the broader theme park area. The venture is being remounted this Friday and Sunday afternoons at Griffith Park to coincide with “Ghosts within the Machine” being named a finalist for an award with IndieCade, a as soon as in-person impartial recreation competition that now exists primarily on-line.
Koryn Wicks, designer of “Ghosts within the Machine: The Outdated Zoo.” Wicks is an impartial immersive creator who works within the theme park area.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Instances)
John Houser, 43, from the San Gabriel Valley taking part in the augmented actuality recreation “Ghosts within the Machine: The Outdated Zoo.”
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Instances)
“Ghosts within the Machine” exists as an app in a testing section, therefore the explanation for the event-like method to letting company expertise it. Wicks will probably be stationed exterior the outdated zoo’s location for about two every hours every day, facilitating downloads and answering questions concerning the self-guided expertise.
As soon as those that decide to play are arrange with the sport and close to the outdated zoo, which opened in 1912 with a set of solely 15 animals and closed in 1966 to make method for the present animal park, they’ll obtain a name. A medium, however “not like a celeb medium,” has been making an attempt to succeed in somebody, anybody, and is vulnerable to shedding her reminiscence as she’s trapped between worlds. We’re requested to activate our digital camera, and by way of augmented actuality we see an alternate model of the panorama in entrance of us, one obscured by blue and inexperienced hues, and crammed with static. The photographs really feel fragile.
This medium, Phoebe, wants our assist, and if we agree, the sport begins. We’ll be directed to comply with a map towards abnormalities across the outdated zoo. Issues could get a bit scary. An apparition will seem earlier than us. But Phoebe is telling us ghosts are usually not meant to be feared. A spirit, she says, is often misplaced and confused.
“I wished to do form of a haunted location,” says Wicks, 36. “I’m a giant nerd for horror stuff. I actually prefer it. I actually like the thought of ghosts. I learn this e-book referred to as ‘Ghostland’ and it checked out ghost tales all through American historical past and the way in which they’re practiced and who will get solid as a ghost versus who will get haunted. So the primary scripts I used to be writing have been extra meta, they have been about ghosts normally. Then I progressively narrowed into an precise story with characters. That’s the dancer in me. I are inclined to suppose a bit extra abstractly.”
Because the story was honed, it grew to become one which targeted extra on familial bonds. With out spoiling the expertise, which ought to be capable of be accomplished in rather less than an hour, “Ghosts within the Machine” progressively transitions from a hang-out to a story that focuses on forgotten guarantees, misplaced family members and the lonely pings that may come from unresolved grief. “Ghosts within the Machine” begins with stress. It resolves as one thing extra meloncholic, a game-like story constructed for contemplation.
John Houser, 43, left, and Parker Cela, 26, proper maintain up their telephones to scan the staircase whereas taking part in the augmented actuality recreation “Ghosts within the Machine” at Griffith Park.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Instances)
And it’s staged in a location excellent for rumination. “Ghosts within the Machine” will take us up stairs, round pathways and into now-deserted zoo enclosures as we attempt to free a spirit from purgatory. There are some game-like mechanics as we’ll collect fragments of recollections hidden all through Griffith Park.
The park, the character of Phoebe tells us, is a “beacon for religious phenomenon.” All through, she’ll allude to tales of mistreated animals and the Griffith Park hearth of 1933, heightening the sense that we’re within the presence of unnatural occurrences. The area is pricey to Wicks: it’s the place her husband proposed, however “Ghosts within the Machine” pulls from extra painful recollections in her life.
“It had lots to do with grief and reminiscence,” Wicks says. “It may be so painful to have interaction with reminiscence once we’re going by means of grief, and it may also be actually sophisticated. As a result of there are good recollections and there are additionally sophisticated recollections. How do you maintain area for each? That was one thing I used to be considering of lots on the time.”
The venture was born in the course of the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Wicks, who had up to now staged quite a few dance performances for small teams, initially envisioned a present by which audiences would use their smartphones to comply with a dancer by means of an outside area. It progressively morphed into one thing extra ghostly.
‘Ghosts within the Machine: The Outdated Zoo’
With a tiny crew, a day job and the occasional instructing gig, Wicks has discovered that sustaining the app to the diploma by which it may be correctly launched has not been possible. As an illustration, for this weekend’s pop-ups, the map perform needed to be fully rebuilt. That’s one more reason Wicks will probably be on web site, aiming to assist those that could also be new to AR, or to troubleshoot on the assorted units viewers members could deliver.
“I believe we like to speak about know-how as having a permanence to it, however there isn’t a permanence to it,” Wicks says. “Only a few folks nonetheless have their cassettes. Data are nonetheless round, however know-how phases out.”
Wicks is open to the thought of continuous to develop “Ghosts within the Machine,” and has regarded into institutional or industrial assist. However she confesses she hasn’t hit on an answer but.
Within the meantime Wicks, who hopes to stage a present later this yr that intermixes dance with tarot themes, has created an expertise that makes use of fashionable augmented actuality know-how and but feels ephemeral. And that’s becoming, in fact, for a ghost story.
