Who

CORE TEAM

Holly Gramazio has a complicated Venn diagram to explain what she does, but anything involving at least two of “London”, “stories” and “games” is probably on it. She curates the Sandpit, designs her own games, consults on other people’s, and writes and talks about things. More at Several Bees. (email holly@hideandseekfest.co.uk)

Alex Fleetwood is a producer and games designer. He founded Hide and Seek with Gideon Reeling in 2007 after attending Come Out and Play in New York and believing it was the future, man. As well as Hide and Seek he works with artists and broadcasters on lots of things, including The Eternity Man, a film opera for Channel 4, and The Soho Project, an ARG for the London Games Festival. (email alex@hideandseekfest.co.uk)

Kevan Davis is a London game designer and web developer, responsible for the zombie apocalypse browser game Urban Dead, the household dungeoneering of Chore Wars, and a few other things. More at kevan.org. (email kevan@hideandseekfest.co.uk)

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS

Andy Field makes things. Alongside Polly Webb-Wilson he created Exposures for the Brighton Fringe Festival 2008, an experience involving disposable cameras and an excess of imagination. He is co-director of the Forest Fringe, a new venue for experimentation and play at the Edinburgh festival. He also writes for the Guardian, Culture Wars and Curtain Rising Magazine, as well as maintaining a theatre blog.

Annette Mees creates theatre, games, installations and adventures. She likes her ventures to involve opening secret doors, interacting with strangers, magical surprises or blurring the boundaries between reality and fiction.

Coney is an agency which makes adventures, games and playful stuff. Coney has made adventures in surprising places, indoor and outdoor games for Hide & Seek and Come Out & Play, ARG-like work for the National Theatre, the Dana Centre, BAC, Hodder & Stoughton and a BBC workshop, and a number of ongoing projects including at BAC, the NT Studio, and a few others necessarily veiled in secrecy for the time being at least. Coney is supported by BAC. Rumours that Coney is led by a rabbit are unsubstantiated.

Duncan Speakman is an artist based in Bristol, UK. His work explores how we use sound to navigate geographical, personal and political environments, creating experiences that physically and emotionally engage audiences in public spaces. More at duncanspeakman.net.

Gary Campbell obtained his BA in theatre design for performance from CSM in 2004. He continued his research with Shunt where he posed as a barman for three years whilst secretly creating performative installations, defining his aesthetic and amassing a vast network of collaborators. In 2005 he co-founded Coney, a secret society of codenames creating adventures. Gary is also a founding member of the Stoke Newington International Airport, a new performance space in the centre of N16.

As Francis Barking, Gary has developed a number of ambient and pervasive games with the Hide&Seek collective.

Gethan Dick is an education artist. She tries to create spaces where, through dialogue and through interaction with things and ideas, she can persuade people to suspend their disbelief. More at gethan.org.

Gideon Reeling is a purveyor of bespoke interactive experiences. Mr Reeling has traveled extensively and has been fortunate enough to have had fruitful involvement in many fascinating projects and positions through his career. He has offices in London, New York and Tokyo, and is always looking for new and challenging business ventures.

Lost & Found are bespoke interactive nonsense facilitators with an emphasis on getting people involved. Lost & Found’s aim is to be a catalyst for interaction and fun. The things we do are directed by a desire to release people from overactive self awareness.

Minkette has a long and intricate manifesto about why she makes and plays the games she does. She also doesn’t like it when people get that glazed-over look, so tends to keep it to herself. She has produced a broad variety of games and interactive experiences ranging from street games and art installations to ARGs and a site-specific radio play on the London Underground. Minkette may or may not be fictional.

Sheer Lunacy are a creative collective dedicated to the installation of daydreams into the modern world; A mixture of performers, artists, designers and creators with an ongoing mission to combat perceived reality through playful acts of chaos, mania and pleasure.

Simon Katan composes music, performs it, runs workshops, swims, cooks, cycles and designs social games. His algorithmic compositions (strangely not dissimilar to games) have been extensively performed by his performance art, comedy, improvisation ensemble Halal Kebab Hut and also by his new trio Brainer . Simon also spends a lot of time putting dots on lines and forcing computers to make strange sounds. More at www.simonkatan.co.uk.

Simon is a partnership of Simon Evans & Simon Johnson. The Simons first worked together in Media Sandbox researching swarm dynamics in pervasive media environments. Their game The Comfort of Strangers came out of this research and has been presented to acclaim at Come Out and Play in New York and Hide & seek in London.

Tassos Stevens is a game-designer and theatre-maker who’s been involved with some of the stuff mentioned on this page, including devising the prototype Soho Project in which he was Dr Bill Savage. He has a playful beard.

Hide and Seek 07 photography by Alex Simmons