THE INSTITUTE (trailer from ARGOT Pictures)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6prbBFPsC-4
More clips here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ArgotPic/videos
Movie Review
A Bizarre Scavenger Hunt in San Francisco
‘The Institute,’ a Look at an Alternate-Reality Game
A scene from the documentary "The Institute."
By NICOLAS RAPOLD
Published: October 10, 2013
Spencer McCall’s puzzling documentary “The Institute” wades into the mysteries of an experiment in alternate-reality gaming that took place a few years ago in San Francisco. Curious gamers loved the scavenger hunt/ sub-Pynchon intrigues, engineered by benevolent creators representing a supposed organization; we learn about it, a little, which is not quite the same as playing along.
Participants, tickled pink in interviews and video, underwent a mock induction, then followed cryptic instructions by notes and radio to visit a chapel, dance in public, lead a parade, even rescue someone in a tunnel. Mr. McCall keeps up an air of mystery and discovery, festooning shots of the city with loony voice-over directions, dropping pseudoscientific jargon and playful insinuations of cult activity, and featuring explanatory interviews that never entirely shake the feeling that we’re being put on.
The Jejune Institute (as it was called) may well have been a liberating, if scripted, experience. Seeing the project crumpled into a quixotic movie, however, we’re simply sitting and watching other people play games. That can be interesting when we know the rules (sports) and sometimes when we don’t (the films of Jacques Rivette). But “The Institute” stumbles between documentary and exploratory simulation, at once confusing and pedantic. Personally, I prefer “Céline and Julie Go Boating.”
A version of this review appears in print on October 11, 2013, on page C12 of the New York edition with the headline: The Institute..
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/movie ... .html?_r=0
The Bay Citizen
Interested in the Jejune Institute? It’s Too Late
By REYHAN HARMANCI
Published: April 21, 2011
The induction room for the fictitious Jejune Institute in downtown San Francisco.
On a recent Sunday, 150 or so people filled the Garden Room at the Grand Hyatt in San Francisco. Next to a makeshift stage, a handful of men and women in lab coats fussed over some strange-looking devices — computers, maybe, or sound equipment — that had flashing lights. Another group of event organizers, in flowing white tunics and pants, greeted entrants.
Around 12:30 p.m., a blond, bearded figure stepped in front of a set consisting of a midcentury Modern chair and ottoman, a silver gong-like object and a reading lamp. The room stilled.
“I see you,” he breathed into a microphone attached to his face. “I’m here. You’re here. We’re all here. Aren’t we?”
And so began the Jejune Institute’s final chapter: a daylong event billed as “Socio-Reengineering Seminar 2011: An Afternoon of Rhythmic Synchronicity,” led by Antoine Logan.
Except that Mr. Logan isn’t actually a member of the Jejune Institute and the crowd did not come to learn about “interpersonal trust.” The institute and its constitute parts — like the Institute for Aquatic Thought, a dolphin-human research body — are a farce.
The whole event was the final act of an immersive game built by Jeff Hull, an artist based in Oakland who created a world of imaginary institutions and characters, from the cultlike Jejune and Octavio Coleman Esq., its founder, to its enemy counterpart, the Elsewhere Public Works Agency.
Since the game was started in 2008, more than 7,000 people have visited Jejune’s fake headquarters. Known as an example of alternate-reality gaming, it has become one of the best worst-kept secrets in the Bay Area: people learn of it through fliers or by word of mouth, go to an office building, ask for a key and get whisked down a rabbit hole of urban discovery.
The game’s story is complicated and has unfolded over the course of five “chapters.” First, audience members got directions at Jejune’s automated “induction room” for a series of missions around San Francisco; then the narrative became less linear. Participants learned of the Elsewhere Public Works Agency and the story of a lost tribe of creative souls, with a special emphasis on the fate of a young punk girl named Eva.
Mr. Hull spared no expense in designing his world. The chapters took as much as six months to create; all except the last one were beta-tested. Some clues were in the form of maps; others were props hidden at local businesses (like a boom box at a Mission video store) and others involved mysterious telephone calls or typed postcards.
A fake protest, drawing 250 people, was enacted for a “minichapter” created to delight hard-core gamers. The Internet is littered with videos and Web sites related to Jejune, and a low-wattage radio station still broadcasts near Dolores Park.
“I had totally underestimated the amount of work that would go into every element,” said Mr. Hull, who produced Jejune as a project of his art consultancy firm, Nonchalance, which also provides game advice to private clients like Greenpeace. The game, which was free save a few special events, did not provide income for Mr. Hull.
Explaining the project to others has been difficult. “I still don’t think my family has any idea what I’ve been doing for the past three years,” said Uriah Findley, the project’s sound engineer.
A native of the Bay Area, Mr. Hull said Children’s Fairyland, an Oakland amusement park known for interactive features like keys and “actual rabbit holes,” was an inspiration for Jejune. Also, when Mr. Hull was 15 he went to a few self-actualization classes, a precursor to the Landmark Forum leadership organization.
Mr. Hull, who studied creative writing at the University of Southern California, said he began putting together the concept “in his head” around 2000. In 2006, after he had spent several years helping to run Oaklandish Gallery in the East Bay, his thoughts began to drift toward a cast of characters he had already begun to name, including Coleman, the Lost Tribe of Nonchalance and Eva.
He enlisted help from others, including Sara Thacher, an artist who left Nonchalance in December, and Mr. Findley.
For the finale, the group knew it had to plan something huge. The Hyatt event was open only to those who had made it through all four previous installments. (Mr. Hull said attendance usually dropped off by about 75 percent per chapter.)
Mr. Logan, played by Geordie Aitken, who teaches leadership training for a living, brought the group through affirmations, chants and a video on a mental process called Juvenescence.
The mood in the room was a bit edgy, as some had come expecting a group revolt, carrying on the fight between Jejune and the Elsewhere Public Works. But in the end, there was no street fight, no elaborate action that had participants running through the halls of the Hyatt. Actors playing the characters — including Coleman, the evil patriarch — appeared on the dais with a message of unity.
That tableau confused many in the crowd, but as Mr. Findley explained, confusion was the point. “Our level of spontaneity had come to be expected,” he said, “so we wanted to give them the unexpected again. And the most unexpected thing was a real-life socioengineering seminar.”
The line between reality and fiction had been blurred again.
rharmanci@baycitizen.org
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 29, 2011
An article last Friday about an immersive game that involves a world of imaginary institutions and characters, had the incorrect surname for the man who played Antoine Logan, the leader of “Socio-Reengineering Seminar 2011: An Afternoon of Rhythmic Synchronicity.” He was Geordie Aitken, not Aitkin.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/us/22bcculture.html
Re: RI "Bad" Guys: UR DOIN IT WRONG
by Et in Arcadia ego » 18 Jan 2010 09:23compared2what? wrote:
Actually, scratch that and listen to Et.
If you really want to know what happened the last month here, this is where its root lies:
http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=8807&catid=85
viewtopic.php?p=313069#p313069
Re: RI "Bad" Guys: UR DOIN IT WRONG
by Cosmic Cowbell » 18 Jan 2010 23:55
...
A careful study of that style reveals much, as she is quite fond of wordplay, hidden references to obscure fortean, MC, SRI personalities and the like. This is also reflected in the styles of ET in Arcadia, Eve, Kid Kenoma, Tina Delgado, TeriLee and several other personalities that have come and gone. Always aggressive to a point, confident, oblique and always referencing at some point, MC/RA, Scientology, SRI and the personalities associated with all of these issues, some well known, many obscure. No one can say that this person hasn't done the research. The supposed ARG "The Last Statue" is filled with these kinds of references and TeriLees recent attempt to direction people to the Jejune Institute website also connects with west coast fuckery from the seventies. It is always what lends this person a certain aura of mystery which is key to keeping those targeted of interest. It also always tends to have a chameleon like nature to it, being the thing that the particular targeted person is most interested in.
...
viewtopic.php?p=313240#p313240
Re: The S From Hell
by JackRiddler » 26 Jan 2010 17:14justdrew wrote:
In 50 years is there going to have to be a snopes article refuting this?
I give it five weeks.
Yet another case of flooding out legitimate issues (hidden, sometimes sinister messages found in media symbologies) with satirical nonsense that's a lot less funny than it thinks. Aiming for cheap laughs from a demographic who are too sophisticated to ever consider "conspiracy theory," except with a sneer. In this case, probably not as intentional as the disgusting marketing for the "Jejune Institute."
Then again, maybe it's just covert Screen Gems marketing. They are still around, you know.
viewtopic.php?p=315629#p315629
