The Institute Page #3

You can feel it.

You can feel it.

Feel the energy.

Oh, my god, it feels so good!

Get up here!

Get up here, you guys.

Keep rocking and keep trucking!

I didn't know... when they said,

like, "oh, yeah, you'll lead

it," I didn't know, like, I was

physically going to be like,

"Oh, we're going this way now. "

So, I didn't know exactly where

we were going.

There was no route assignment

given to me, and I don't live in

Chinatown.

So, I don't know the best way

there.

So, we took the long route, and,

of course, if you were there,

you know what happened.

I led us right past the

Jejune Institute, and obviously

Octavio was waiting there for

us.

And then they gave me a

handshake,

and then I never

talked to any of them again

after that.

You know, every day I would go

to this children's amusement park.

It was like literally a rabbit

hole that you could fall down

into that led you to these

dioramas or the magic key that

you could put into a story box,

and then it suddenly would be

telling you a fairy tale.

It was filled with wonder and

filled with discovery, and I

wanted to know why is it

contained inside the gates of

this little park?

And then you go out onto the

street, and all you see is

walk/don't walk, no dogs, or

this way or do not enter and all

these rules and lines and

restrictions.

And I wanted to crack it, and I

wanted to open it up.

And I think it was this very

subconscious influence for me

that there should be this kind

of play infused into the

architecture of our real world.

People would totally willingly

accept that there was a

Coca-Cola or a McDonald's or a

Kool cigarette billboard right

outside their home or their

schools, but they would be upset

by the fact that somebody did a

piece of street art there.

And that seemed really

backwards, and I was writing

essays about this theory that I

called "threads," in which all

kinds of media could intertwine

with each other to tell us a

story.

And that's really the beginning

of what developed into

nonchalance.

I just graduated school with

my degree in sound arts, and I

was doing work with Oaklandish,

both doing sound for some of

their events and just selling

clothes to make ends meet.

I knew of Jeff.

I don't think that we had met in

a way that either of us would

remember, but he's been very

influential in kind of the

grassroots arts community in

Oakland for quite some time.

So, I knew of him, but it really

started... I saw a post on Craigslist.

Through someone at

Oaklandish, I heard that they

were building an automated room.

I did not know what the point of

the automated room was, beyond

create an interesting

environment for players or

participants to engage in on

some level.

I mean, initially I was hired

on, contract for a small part of

the job, and then, when Jeff

asked me to come on full-time as

the lead producer, I started

asking a couple more questions

and being a little nervous.

I guess you could say I

learned about the project in the

way a lot of players learned

about the project, as the more I

became involved, the more

questions I asked.

And when those questions got

answered, a story started to

emerge.

Words like "urban playground

movement" and "alternate-reality

game," and it was very opaque.

I would describe it as...

a game that you play by going

out into the city and doing things.

And as you do that, you become

part of a story that's

unfolding in the city, in the

real world.

What we're doing with

nonchalance is giving people a

mission and giving people

permission to become an agent

and to explore the space in a

different way, to go in and out

from public and private spaces

and to explore and just to

discover hidden things in their

environment.

And to play... ultimately, to

bring spontaneity and play into

our civic spaces.

Some people thought

it was an actual cult,

and they were afraid to go

to the induction center.

They thought, "Oh, these guys

are like scientologists. "

And for me the signals were out

there that this was some kind of

a game.

But I definitely, in the

beginning, had the intention of

people going, "What the f***?!

Really?"

Or to give the notion that this

was totally, like, marginal

lunatic-fringe people putting up

these fliers.

And so, of course, it attracted

some of those types of people,

and we definitely got some

voice mails that were chilling.

I lived in San Francisco for

11 years and had to leave

because of gang-stalking

activities and being

surveillanced and monitored and

all the frequency manipulation,

and it's a really serious thing

to have done to somebody.

And if you seriously want to go

up against them, you need to get

it better together than kind of

these silly ramblings that

honestly don't really make any

sense.

Wow!

Like... Like... Like, literally,

I listen to these messages and

go cold because these people

were engaging with this.

This was their reality to them.

And for me it was this huge

fantasy.

And so there was this blurring

of the lines between a real

flier and real voice mails and

then the content, which to me

was absurd but to other people

maybe wasn't so absurd.

And Organeil's a great example

of that.

I saw a way to play that was

entirely new,

that would bring

together strangers under joyful

and hilarious circumstances.

I had realized that a place that

had previously been mundane

and sort of

enemy territory... I.E.,

the financial district... had

been "magicalized. "

And so, my hope was to help a

few people see that something

really magical and unexpected

could come out of this,

something really beautiful and,

you know, life-changing.

I created a web page about the

Jejune Institute and hid it

inside the Organeil material.

I saw people start showing up

suddenly, like, two or three of

them, which doesn't happen.

And these people were talking

about things that didn't make

any sense to me, that I didn't

understand.

They were clearly familiar with

this idea of an "ARG."

And them treating it like a game

offended me.

He definitely was so deep

into the experience that he

often spoke of it in such a way

that a person wasn't really

quite sure where they stood with

him, as far as where he drew the

line.

People would say,

"something-something game," and

Organeil would say, "You don't

understand.

This is not a game!

You're not taking this

seriously.

You clearly don't have the

vision.

This is not a game. "

He insisted that there was

more going on than just some

sort of game.

Whether or not... I don't know

what he suspected, but I think

we just disagreed on that point.

He thought that maybe this

was going to change the world or

be an opportunity for people to

really come together as an

organization that could uplift

the planet in some way.

And, you know, I don't think

there's any limits on the amount

of things you could do with this

kind of artwork.

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