Project Stargaze by Roos Groothuizen and Derk Over
Project Stargaze
A Hybrid game by Roos Groothuizen and Derk Over
We are on the verge of a new evolutionary step – our transition into the hybrid human. This new body will be fully adapted to living simultaneously online and offline. For now, everything still feels uncomfortable and we are still getting used to having a digital presence alongside our physical one. Play the Project Stargaze game and experience the evolutionary process that lies ahead of us by providing a series of challenges for your physical and digital consciousness.
In this multi-team party game, you will pair up to help design the society of the future. One player in each pair will be physically present in the space while the other is online, connected to the game through a video call. Together, you will form a single hybrid body that ‘physically’ connects the online and offline player. How will you cooperate with your partner and the other duos to tackle the challenges of this new society?
Project Stargaze was a hybrid party game experience created by Roos Groothuizen and Derk Over. In it, they invited players to explore how the human body is developing in response to our increased use of technology. Players needed to team up in pairs: one was physically present at the IMPAKT Centre in Utrecht while the other joined online via a Zoom video call. The aim of the game is to cooperate in a series of tasks, and merge the physical ‘body’ with the online ‘mind’. In doing so, the players experienced the single hybrid body of the future.
When people arrive to play the game they see the IMPAKT exhibition center, transformed by geometric patterns marking the floors and walls in various tape colors. These marked the areas for each activity the player pairs would have to undertake. But first, each pair must calibrate their connection: the physical player connects to the online player via video chat on their phone, places their phone in a mount on a belt strap, and then attaches the belt strap around their hips with the active video call facing out from their buttocks. This way, the online player sees only what is directly behind the offline player. The ‘brain’ and ‘body’ communicate via headphones and the video call. The calibration exercise asks that the online player guides the offline player backwards along an irregular zig-zag by giving them verbal instructions.
Following the calibration exercise, the four pairs of players are asked to work together in a series of games such as charades and building tower blocks, but all done in their newly formed body-brain configuration.