The Secret Cinema: A new trend- or a very old one?

For those of you who haven't seen it, there's been rumors of a series of events in London, the like's of which I've rarely seen before. Well, now they have a trailer, it seems.



Much as the idea of a trailer for secret cinema seems a bit strange, it should be noted that the idea of interactive theater is very old. I'm sure that most of us have heard tales of interactive plays in warehouses, going back as far as our parents time, but in our experience, the closest thing we'll have encountered is probably practices of LARP and historical reenactment. These however (at least in my limited experience), seem to be based either on direct combat, or tabletop role-playing rules. The reenactment side, especially, appears to be combat heavy, and hence difficult to get into, and sometimes appear to be closer to martial arts, such as the battle of the nations.


However, reports have it that the Scandinavian countries have developed a more theatrical form of LARP. I've been hearing such varied ideas, as a LARP using Tango, a study on dehumanization in prison camps, and perhaps most impressively, a BSG themed event, held onboard a former US Navy Destroyer.



Whilst my first reaction to seeing this kind of thing, is where do I sign up, sadly it appears that distance and locations become a problem. With that said, it seems to me, that over recent years, there appears to have developed an increasing demand for authentic and involved experiences, away from the limited, prescribed, one directional experiences, which can be found in film and TV. This may correlate with the rise of festivals, Zombie Chases in major cities, flash-mobbing, HvZ on college campuses (documentary pending), and a whole host of new experiences, ripe for the tasting.

I think that these types of experiences will continue to increase in availability and take-up over time, as resources and time allow. Perhaps these represent the development of a cultural balance (with a generations delay) against the now ubiquitous reality television: if television shows a more extreme version of reality- why should reality not show a more extreme version of fiction? At any rate, it seems a pleasing thought. To me, the next question is: how does this relate to the rise of Augmented Reality technologies? Will the established video games industry begun to merge with these experiences, creating a sort of hybrid reality? Or will this conflict with the need for these experiences to be user driven, and the inherent locatedness of these experiences, conflict with such a project?