Interview: ‘Arcade’, DARKFIELD
Ahead of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024, we’re chatting with a range of creatives who will be heading to the city over August to find out more about their shows. Today we’re chatting with the team at DARKFIELD about their latest immersive audio experience, ARCADE.
Can you tell us a bit about you and your career so far.
I’m a writer. I’ve written and published novels, written plays for Radio 4 and have made work collaboratively with various artists for 20 years. I started working with David Rosenberg in 2012 and we founded Darkfield in 2016. David was a member of the shunt collective and also makes work with choreographer Frauke Requardt
What is your show about?
ARCADE uses the nostalgic 8-bit aesthetic of 1980’s video games to tell an interactive narrative exploring the evolving relationship between players and avatars. It is a choose-your-own-path experience in a completely dark shipping container, employing 360 degree binaural sound and sensory effects.
Players guide their avatar through a world ravaged by endless war. There are many routes and many different outcomes.
What was the inspiration for ARCADE and what’s the development process been to get to this stage?
Our last show, Eulogy, toyed with the idea of branch narratives and we wanted to explore more this idea that every audience member could be having a different experience within the same world of the show. It’s been a year-long plus process - writing, recording and editing the story alongside work being done on the arcade cabinets - designing, prototyping and finessing them.
What made you want to take ARCADE to the Fringe?
We love coming to the Fringe. Edinburgh has been a great place to showcase our work and we’ve been every year since 2017, with the exception of Covid year 2020. We generally premiere a new show at Summerhall and for the last three years have also managed to open some of our other containers outside the Pleasance Dome.
Apart from seeing ARCADE , what’s your top tip for anybody heading for Edinburgh this summer?
I haven’t had a chance to peruse the programme yet and I am only around for a few days to open the shows. I will try and see a few shows in the short time I have though - last year the stand out was Dark Noon by Fix+Foxy, which I randomly picked on the day. I’m hoping to catch something as good again this year.
Why should people book ARCADE ?
Our shows offer something different - they’re short and intense and audiences can fit them in between other shows they’re watching. They run at various times throughout the day, which helps when people’s schedules are full. And they’re recognisable - they all come in 40ft white shipping containers and although the shows are very different from each other, returning audience members know something about the quality.
When and where can people see ARCADE ?
ARCADE is on outside Summerhall (The Terrace) between 31 July and 26 August. It’s on at various times every day from 12 noon and lasts for 30 minutes.
