Coulton, Paul and Wilson, Andrew (2012) The Peoples Republic of Monsters. In: Performing Monstrosity in the City, 2012-09-01.
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Abstract
Free All Monsters! is a location based game where players turn their iPhone into a Magic Monstervision Machine and spot invisible monsters on the city streets. The game draws upon Lefebvre’s agenda of ‘the right to the city’ by encouraging the appropriation of everyday space in which to play the game by presenting players with lusory goals anchored by environmental conditions relating to that particular space, and at that particular moment in time, rather than the desires of the designer or controller of that space. Further, these goals are not defined by us as ‘the designers’ of the game but by their fellow players who put into practice their own interplay between context and situation by setting a their own monster free. Within the game setting a monsters free involves players hand drawing or sculpting their own monsters and then taking a picture before uploading then to the game via the App. Therefore for us Monstrous’ is not used in relation to being ‘hideous or frightful’ but rather relates to these fabulous imaginary creatures and as there is no limit to the number of monsters that can be set free we intend the game itself to become monstrous, meaning on a gigantic scale, self generating and beyond our control.