Tassos Stevens - Improving Reality
Channel: Lighthouse Arts
Date: 2011-10-25

Lighthouse Presents
IMPROVING REALITY - 23 September 2011 - Pavilion Theatre, Brighton

A series of inspiring talks by thinkers from the technology, film, education and art worlds, exploring how technologies like augmented reality, 3D printing, and pervasive gaming are changing our understanding of the world. 

Tassos Stevens:
Tassos Stevens is an ex-psychologist, artist and wrangler, and co-director of Agency of Coney. Coney is a collective agency making live interactive cross platform play for people wherever they are, following principles of adventure, loveliness and curiosity. Coney have worked with the National Theatre, the Science Museum, and Tate Britain. They have collaborated with digital indie Somethin Else on broadcast projects such as Nightmare High and the award-winning SuperMe, both made for Channel 4 Education. 
In 2010, Tassos dreamt up the world of Papa Sangre, a highly innovative game made for iPhones, rendered entirely in sound. 

Talk Synopsis:
Tassos' presentation is entitled Really Playing Something. How can games, or better still play - by definition a 'what if' mode of reality - possibly have any impact on 'what is' in the real world? It's not as easy as it looks. Charting some of the approaches that Coney has made and tracing his own perennial scepticism, Tassos will examine the kinds of relationships between people that might empower and inspire more to play, and ask why anyone might bother getting involved in the first place.

http://www.lighthouse.org.uk

"Improving Reality" is part of the PARN project (Physical and Alternate Reality Narratives) which designs, develops, creates, exhibits and analyses contemporary forms for storytelling in a pan-European context. PARN as well as "Improving Reality" is made possible with the support of the Culture Programme (2007-2013) of the European Union.