Project Eixogen (2023)

urban-role-play game
Duration: 6 weeks, including 43 hours long role-play sessions
(A collaboration with Louisa Teichmann)

Eixogen is an urban role-playing game that unfolds online through the Eixogen travel app and within the urban space of Rotterdam. Over the course of six weeks, a speculative future story addresses social and ethical questions arising from the development of smart cities. Eixogen uses elements of LARP (life action role play) Geo-caching and Psychogeography. The game aims to simulate the use of smart city travel apps within urban spaces while encouraging subversive ways of engaging with the technology.

The story begins in the year 2025. Rotterdam takes the next step in becoming a smart city by launching Project Eixogen, a city-wide network featuring an intricate web of interconnected smart lampposts with a remarkable purpose: collecting behavioral data and seamlessly guiding citizens through the bustling city streets using the Eixogen travel app. In this transformed reality, citizens have become users of the cityscape, each possessing a personalized user ID that meticulously records their every movement and interaction within the city.

Yet, in the underground of the automated city, resistance thrives. A group of outliers and rebels has coalesced around the 868MHz underground online radio station, serving as a platform for expression, connection, and dialogue amidst the challenges and changes in their everyday lives in the smart city. However, a problem has arisen: one of the members, Nine, has gone missing and appears to be in danger. Through secret radio broadcasts and geocaches hidden throughout the city, the 868MHz community communicates to unravel the mysterious disappearance of their friend, Nine

Story and role-play design: Sophie Allerding
Idea and Game-design: Louisa Teichmann
Coding: Louisa Teichmann, Vo Ezn, Joseph Knierzinger

Eixogen took place at the MaMa gallery, .zip, RIB gallery and Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam.

Featuring performances by artists: Jack Bardwell, Auryn Parkinson, Roos Groothuizen, Rosa Zangenberg, Simon Labbe.
With the support from Mama gallery, Het Nieuwe Institut

Photos: Louisa Teichmann

Further links:

thisismama.nl/en/events/irl-en/role-playing-game-eixogen/

nieuweinstituut.nl/en/events/eixogen

uitagendarotterdam.nl/alle-artikelen/modding-the-mirror-world-toont-een-akelig-realistisch-toekomstig-stadsgezicht-voor-rotterdam/