Ghosts of Solid Air

This version of Ghosts of Solid Air is a beta version.

This means that the app might crash or some features might not work properly. We have also not completed the accessibility functions and would like to hear from people about what they might find helpful.
We are releasing it to gather as much feedback as possible from a wide variety of users - more than we can arrange by ourselves.

At present, it is perfectly possible that the piece will work for you - but a number of issues have emerged for some users. If this happens for you - please let us know! By emailing us at ghosts@weareanagram.co.uk

Thanks from everyone at Anagram and the wider team!

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Ghosts of Solid Air is an interactive story that you explore on location in central London.

To begin - you must travel to Trafalgar Square. Voices guide you on a hidden pathway ending at Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.

On the journey, you are asked to speak and, in response, Augmented Reality visuals appear in the air.

Through the power of your voice, a ghost world of radical voices from across time is revealed. Shadows shimmer in and out vision, haunting the streets and whispering messages into the air.

Obey those in charge at your peril, they say. Speak up! And you will be heard.

More a story than a game - this innovative narrative journey can be experienced alone or with friends (on their own phones).

All you have to do is go to the fountains in the middle of Trafalgar Square, press START, and the voices will begin…

Selected as part of the immersive programme for the BFI London Film Festival Expanded 2023.


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HOW DOES IT WORK

Ghosts of Solid Air uses:

- Augmented reality visuals
- Speech recognition
- Geolocation based storytelling

Some of these functionalities are demanding on phones and batteries - particularly for older models.

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MORE ABOUT THE STORY

Ghosts of Solid Air turns your phone into a portal - a magical window through which you can see a misty ghost world with pink sky and indistinct figures all around you.

Once you’re in, you meet characters from across time who were radicalised through personal experience and forced into disobedient action.

These characters are based on real people.

You meet Olaudah Equiano haunting the statues of Trafalgar Square - enslaved as a child, he became an abolition activist with one of the earliest-known examples of published writing by an African in the UK.

Udham Singh paces around in Horse Guards Parade - an Indian revolutionary, he witnessed the Amritsar massacre of 1919 and eventually murdered the British Army general who was responsible.

And Josie McGowan - the first woman to die at the hands of the Dublin Metropolitan Police in 1918 - keeps watch on the police stationed at the back of Downing Street.

When you reach Parliament Square, voices from now occupy the airwaves.

This story asks:

Where does disobedience come from?

And what does it take to speak up?

Walk with the ghosts - and decide for yourself.



MORE ABOUT ANAGRAM:

Anagram is a multi award-winning creative studio specialising in thought-provoking interactive storytelling and immersive experience design.

They are the studio behind Goliath: Playing with Reality, winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best VR Immersive Work at the 78th Venice International Film Festival (2021), and a News & Documentary Emmy Award in the Outstanding Interactive Media Innovation category nomination (2022); The Collider and Door into the Dark, winners of the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival Storyscapes award, the 2019 Sandbox Immersive Art Award, and part of the Best VR in 2019 at the Venice International Film Festival.

Find out more about their work at: www.weareanagram.co.uk