If Dundee’s local media was capable of promoting the creative arts, a lot more people would know about OTHER and why it has massive potential.
Lack of information.
Confusion.
If Dundee is genuine about becoming a hub for the arts then the local media will need to wake up.
Appalling is the only word to describe the underwhelming coverage of OTHER – an innovative, transmedia project from The National Theatre of Scotland.
If the internet does eventually put the likes of DC Thomson and Tay FM out of business, a new vision for how we access information locally, not held back by prehistoric thinking and personal agendas, could flourish. It’s hard to be sympathetic towards the decline of print journalism in particular when they don’t see the big picture.
The National Theatre of Scotland would be forgiven for wondering why they bothered.
What is OTHER?
The word transmedia might make you cringe but hold on a second because this is actually very cool.
At its core, OTHER is a location-based horror game set in Dundee for iPhone, developed by the National Theatre of Scotland and independent game studio Quartic Llama. Think a more interactively eerie Foursquare for horror fans – taken to the next level – and with a local twist.
Being a creative project, a wide range of artistic talent was called upon in the creation and launch. Writing groups, audio “noise” workshops, short films, and local music acts have all been involved.
The game itself sounds brilliant.
Beginning at the Dundee Rep Theatre, the player follows the route through Dundee uncovering hidden stories and buried secrets by finding locations and solving puzzles. As the journey develops, a fictional, darker side of the city is discovered, where the world of Dundee is subverted, the possibility of horror is around every corner, and the secret of Other is revealed.
Why wasn’t this a massive story in the local media? Why is art PR so neglected in Dundee?
This is exactly the type of innovation that Dundee needs to embrace to encourage more of these projects to happen.
Ireland’s cultural pulse, Galway, would be shouting from the rooftops if they had something as cool as this to tell the world about. If your city has a cultural heartbeat, other creative industries set up there.
For example, international corporation EA who make million selling video games, had one of their games divisions Bioware open up a center in Galway creating hundreds of jobs. Companies don’t invest in a place where employees won’t want to move to. The misguided negative perception of who would want to live in Dundee? is still far from being addressed.
Yet local media were hardly bothered about telling other Dundonians let alone the rest of the world, that the city is embracing a new cultural-led future. Fans of ‘Creative Dundee’ the popular Facebook group wouldn’t even have noticed OTHER was happening.
As part of the promotional launch, a series of live music and film events were held at Duke’s Corner, over the weekend 31 May – 2 June, 2013. A review of the third day’s events will appear on this site tomorrow.
READ OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE HERE
VISIT OTHERDUNDEE.COM FOR MORE INFO
