GoKawiilIt's hard to take a photo of an experience when your phone's part of it. Scott Stein/CNET
I got an Uber across Austin to go to the Alamo Drafthouse, where I sat down in a big comfy seat in one of the theaters. But I wasn't seeing a film. I played a game, on my phone, interacting with the screen and people next to me. We shared our hopes and fears, and also voted on who we'd kill.
Escape The Internet (Part One) is a performance-slash-game made by Lucas Rizzotto, a brilliant provocateur artist who's been working in VR and AR for years, and a team of designers and animators. Escape the Internet was a semi-hidden part of SXSW, something he didn't even attach his name to on the program to keep it a secret. But even though it's part of the XR program here, it didn't use a headset. It was about being real.
Our phones connected to a private Wi-Fi link, which "took over" our devices (we used a browser link to play). We were asked to keep our silent mode off, volume up, brightness high: the opposite of any movie experience. We watched a game projected on-screen, a weird sort of brainrot-style story of cute smiley-face balls (which were the audience members, labeled and named). We were escaping the rotting internet made by tech titans, heading to an island called Sanctuary where we fell into a pit and had to journey into a dark castle together. We voted on the floor to head to…and had to play a game.
And we also answered polls on our lives: have we suffered heartbreak recently? DId we have issues trusting others? Do we feel lonely often? (Yes, for me, weirdly). The game assembled our tendencies.
And then we ended up playing the Trolley Game, voting on which thing to kill given two options. Pineapple pizza or regular? One person who shared our political views, or five who didn't? Everyone in the room, or just you?
Different playthroughs could end up on different floors, different games. What we discovered, narrated by Lucas Rizzotto as he stood at the front of the theater and spoke to us throughout like a performance art tour guide, revealed our tendencies and also highlighted how the internet can polarize and distance us. Here, at one moment, the game listed off people who answered they had heartbreak, or had lost someone, and other things we said. Those people's phones glowed. We saw them. We felt for them. People next to me talked to me about my choices. I talked to them. Did we sort of become a community over that hour? Sort of, yes.
Rizzotto wants to expand this to more parts at future festivals, and explore other ways to invite players. I loved its glitchy whimsy and sweet-yet-dark provocations. And, the way it made me feel like I do a lot: I need to spend more time offline with people in real spaces, with or without phones.