Exeter Cathedral
Following a positive response to the live videogame theater event, and the subsequent TEDx talk I’ve been invited to bring a video-game element to an Exeter Cathedral service. As you can see on the Exeter Cathedral Facebook page:
Andy Robertson will be facilitating an interactive video game throughout our worship where together we will enter a virtual creation and bring our own touch of transformation to it.
The service will make use of the PlayStation 3 game, Flower. The plan is that it will be played collaboratively by the congregation while the game’s music will form the background for other elements of the service. The controller will be passed around while other parts of the worship continue, and then brought to a conclusion as the first level of the game is completed.
The event is one offshoot from the live theater shows that I put on in April. The songs, comedy and radio-plays each respond to a particular game and were recorded in front of a live audience at Exeter’s Bike Shed Theatre. As you may have read in my previous post, footage from the shows were also included in my TEDx talk, where I aimed to justify spending all this artistic talent on mere video-games.
I was inspired to choose Flower for the Cathedral service after experiencing a public performance of it at the GameCity festival in 2009. There, the game was performed by one person in a old shopping center, but for me it was an undeniably spiritual experience. I’m really looking forward to discovering how the experience fits, contributes to and changes the Cathedral service.
Although at first this may sound like an odd thing to do, a videogame is actually an excellent fit for this sort of expression of faith. Not only is it inclusive, in that everyone can participate, but it also visits themes of creation, nature and our response to the world. The proof will be in the pudding this Sunday (13th May at 7pm). I will be to report back after the event.
