Primitive Objects
Technopolis, Athens 2019
Primitive Objects is a site-specific game accessed through an online mobile application. Designed to be played at Athens Technopolis, a tech hub and events venue located on the site of a former gasworks, Primitive Objects is a tour led by a fictional artificial intelligence that travelled back in time from a future in which humanity became extinct before we were able to sufficiently train machines to understand the world we created. In this way, the game echoes the guesswork involved in the descriptive interpretations of ancient Acropolis ruins. The title Primitive Objects references terms used in both archaeology and technology.
The AI uses an image recognition database to guess what the objects placed in its camera view are. Certain objects trigger a scripted response - each acting as a fragment of a narrative describing the AI’s perception of humanity, how we used to live and our ambivalent relationship to our AI offspring.
︎ Playtest on your mobile device here
︎ Read the full list of selected objects and the responses they trigger here
Primitive Objects was created in collaboration with Tomo Kihara, Bronwin Patrickson, Katerina Magarini and Robb Mitchell during a 48-hour game-jam at the Trust in Play urban game design training week, Innovathens 2019.