Playing with Reality

Charting the limits of reality

How is our reality created? What does it mean to explore someone else’s reality? Does everyone experience reality the same way? Playing With Reality by ANAGRAM is an interactive experience about how we distinguish what is real from what is not. Using an extract from the award-winning virtual reality documentary Goliath, this exhibit follows the story of Jon, a man who lives with paranoid schizophrenia. After a long and difficult period spent in a psychiatric institution, Jon finds friendship and support in the world of online gaming.

This exhibit takes the story of the ‘unreal’ worlds of the video game and the psychotic episode to explore what makes us see and understand reality ourselves.

Medium: Interactive web experience

Year: 2022

Process

Artists May Abdalla and Barry Gene Murphy speak about the process of creating the documentary Goliath, upon which Playing with Reality is based.

Team

May Abdalla

Immersive Director

May Abdalla works with technology to create sensory stories that help us to reimagine the world and our place in it. In 2013, she co-founded Anagram, an award-winning creative studio specialising in thought-provoking interactive storytelling and immersive experience design. Their work has toured internationally at festivals, public space and museums. Goliath: Playing with Reality—an experience about how we create reality told through the prism of the story of a gamer who suffers from psychosis—won the Venice Grand Jury Prize for Virtual Reality in 2021.

Barry Gene Murphy

Mixed Media Filmmaker

Barry is a mixed media filmmaker working with Anagram using new technologies.

Leon Denise

Shader Developer

Leon is a shader developer exploring visuals with code experimentation.

Joe Bain

Game Developer

Joe is a game developer from England, now living and working in Glasgow. He makes games, VR experiences, museum installations, cakes, bread, enemies, friends, bad decisions, mistakes, and other things. He also runs development studio Hairy Heart Games

Aaron Cupples

Composer, Record Producer and Mix Engineer

Aaron is an Australian composer, record producer and mix engineer currently based in London, UK. Cupples is known for his use of bespoke instruments built in his studio using unconventional materials and techniques. His first feature-length score for the 2018 film 'Island of the Hungry Ghosts' was nominated for several awards including 'Best Music' at the British Independent Film Awards 2018, and was released on the Berlin label PAN as a deluxe vinyl edition in early 2021.

Kirsty Jennings

Multidisciplinary Producer

Kirsty is a multidisciplinary producer and strategic leader with a proven track record in securing international commissions and producing award-winning artistically ambitious works. Prior to joining Anagram, Kirsty worked with Blast Theory, Documentary Campus, 104 Films and Sheffield Doc/Fest.

Madeleine Dunnigan

Writer

Madeleine is a writer who lives in London. She writes essays and fiction, alongside working with artists and organisations on specific projects.

David Chalmers

Philosopher and Cognitive Scientist

David John Chalmers is an Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist specializing in the philosophy of mind and language. He is a Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science at New York University (NYU), as well as co-director of NYU's Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness.