RIP to a real one.
The Soul of a New Machine may be the best technology book written, but House was a beautifully-crafted and deeply humanist book. Funny too!
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Adrian Hon
@adrianhon@mastodon.social
mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-06Founder and former CEO of Six to Start, made Zombies, Run!, wrote "You've Been Played" and "A History of the Future in 100 Objects".
Associate Artist at the Traverse Theatre. Writing a book about the history and future of immersive experiences. Designing Strandfall, a highly physical outdoor larp using custom spatial computers.
2535 Followers
99 Following
39 Posts
Joined November 26, 2016
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It’s a desperate attempt to force a consensus that *this* is the place to find meaning, *this* is where you’ll find friends.
And foundationally, a way to justify the unique privileges that institutions like churches retain and other, newer forms of embodied togetherness do not.
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This keeps happening - conservatives grasping at every piece of evidence, reliable or not, proving that the only way forward is back.
How can we find meaning and enchantment and mystery and thrill together in a world that seems so alienating and disembodied? If it were church, we’d know.
For all the Brits harrumphing that this is correct and good because other countries do it, I will remind you that the British Museum's favourite reason for keeping all its stuff is because they're a "world museum" freely open to all.
Take away that and things get even shakier...
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/mar/26/ministers-tourist-fees-arts-museum-collections-uk
Big news: I'm making Strandfall, an highly physical outdoor larp using custom spatial computers!
This is the first project of Experimental Social Scene, a new collective founded by me and Alex Macmillan, and we're delighted to be supported by Immersive Arts UK funding.
As bizarre as this game might seem, during the medieval period it was incredibly popular for people to undertake "virtual pilgrimages" in which they imagined they were following the footsteps of Jesus or Mary, and at points actually *be* them.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1198970/I_Am_Jesus_Christ/
Neat take: backrooms and the whole “spooky liminal spaces” genre as the re-enchantment of late modernity through the places that seem most disenchanted - corporatised corridors
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/backrooms-and-the-rise-of-the-institutional-gothic/
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Quick bill of materials:
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Challenger RP2040 LoRa “embedded computer” with Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller, a battery charge controller and a LoRa radio for long distance, low power networking
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Quectel L76K GPS radio
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STMicroelectronics LSM303AGR with accelerometer and magnetometer
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Waveshare 2.13in ePaper display
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420mAh LiPo battery for 4+ hours charge
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Two buttons for simple input, and a set of eight “DIP” switches that can be toggled for … fun. Because DIP switches are cool.
Announcing Jubensha Con's full talk schedule! Ten speakers from around the world will explore:
- How to make jubensha approachable
- Adapting it for new audiences
- Commercially publishing jubensha
- Running jubensha at the British Museum
- Trends in China
and much more!
We are currently sold out of convention tickets but we are looking into recording the talks and putting them online.
No promises and obviously it depends on whether speakers agree!
I would like a short anthology of essays on the rise of gambling-adjacent video games, covering their design and philosophy and economics.
Raccoin, Cloverpit, Balatro, Scritchy Scratchy, things of that nature.
Oh and they should be accessible and not too academic. Is that too much to ask?!
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Something's got to give.
You have to either stop pretending you genuinely want teens to go outside and do things, or you have to massively increase the amount of funding and, crucially, *space* for activities for young people – some of which will be self-organised and, yes, a little bit scary.
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Many larps have futuristic gadgets, and through role play participants collaboratively imagine and perform the supposed function of the device.
In Strandfall, we're creating true “spatial computers” that can be networked together with real long-range radios.
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I could even say that’s a core part of my upcoming book on immersive experiences.
Before Sleep No More there was Tamara; before Tamara there was environmental theatre; before environmental theatre there were directors like Okhlopkov and Piscator and Evreinov.
Before them, modern pageants, re-enactments, before them, masques; and further back to Robin Hood games and mystery plays and tournaments, and back still beyond the scope of my book to Ancient Greece and Egypt, and on and on.
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Serious whiplash from this bit:
"So much of [teens'] life is now digitised online that they want to meet people in the real world." True true!
"I’m not saying police should be monitoring every Discord chat [but...]" Ummmmmm yes that is a great way to instil trust
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Look, at this point *everyone* agrees we should spend more time away from screens, children and teens especially, outdoors even.
But it's not going to work if you say teens should never do physically boisterous stuff in large groups. They're gonna do it anyway because it's thrilling and fun!
Many believe larp and immersive experiences provide the agency they lack in everyday life. Is that true, or is the promise of "sovereignty" even stronger, darker pull?
(The video for my Nordic Larp Talk last year is finally up! This was me thinking out loud on ideas I've since developed...)
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Those two are at satellite events, whereas the next is at Knutpunkt proper:
Fri: Nikolai Evreinov and a Larp for Oneself: How an acclaimed and largely forgotten early 20th century Russian director anticipated many ideas of live action role play, decades before his time.
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It is beyond obvious that La La Land is heavily inspired by New York, New York, with the welcome change that the male protagonist isn’t a one-note asshole for most of the movie.
Nothing wrong with taking inspiration btw!
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They can be used correctly and incorrectly. They can break and be fixed. They can be stationed, configured, hacked, charged, shaken, oriented, rebooted and interlinked.
Here's a non-exhaustive list of the things you might do when you join the Strandfall expedition team!
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Ideally you recognise that some people need to let off steam and figure out a way of channelling and containing that activity in a slightly safer way that isn't expensive or exclusive.
In practice the govt already does this by permitting marches and sports fans to do rowdy shit. But teens? No!
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In actual reality, not tabloid headlines or Nextdoor alerts, our current generation of teens might be the best behaved in human history. Really!
So they deserve to let loose a bit.
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I have *another* 2-3 minute talk on Thursday at Knutpunkt, summarising my chapter in this year's conference book on Evreinov, but that really doesn't count since I'm basically repeating it on the Friday. But it'll be fun!
I'll be in Gothenburg from Tuesday – do say hi if you're around!
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Not going to Knutpunkt but interested in what I'll be talking about?
A lot of my Austenland talk is taken from my April Fool's post, which I swear was not actually meant to fool anyone but just be more of a silly joke! But maybe I should explore this genre more...
https://mssv.net/2026/04/01/austenland-the-worlds-most-immersive-austen-experience/
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The Critical Backlash to Participation will be covered in my immersive experiences book in more detail.
It touches on Nicolas Bourriaud's relational art, Claire Bishop, Jacques Rancière's emancipated spectator, Richard Schechner, and Marie-Laure Ryan.
Almost certainly overstuffed!
Finally, the Evreinov talk is based on my chapter in this year's Knutpunkt book, which will be released as a free PDF, probably next week.
It will also be covered in my immersive experiences book!
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And in between, everything! Happenings, ren faires, the SCA, human exhibitions, living history museums, dinner theatre…
Nothing is new and everything is new. But it doesn’t hurt to know your history.
Death Stranding's ambulation + Eclipse larp's Explorer gameplay + PUBG's shrinking play area = ???
Strandfall, the highly physical outdoor larp I'm designing, has many influences. Here are three of them!
Love to be clearing retailers out of their accelerometer/magnetometer/compass IMU stock for strandfall.com!
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@philgyford@mastodon.social I've never seen that before! Why do you think it's happening?
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@debcha@saturation.social @jaybushman@simian.rodeo Yep! It's surprising how much people will believe. I did an April Fool's this year that was absolutely not meant to fool anyone and rather just be a joke, but in the end a ton of people though it was real…