Over the next 8 days Melbourne will be the site of a… well I don’t know if there is a word for it, but it’s a variation on the practice of geo-caching, where people hunt down objects in the real world using clues and co-ordinates posted online. It’s being called A-Lure, and it’s a game created using various types of media that will be played on the streets of Melbourne. The types of media include digital projections, interactive video and sound works. Mobile phones and the internet will be used as the tools to discover, interact and create.
The “game” was created by youth in collaboration with artist from Visionary Images and aims to address some of the “cultural lures” that young people identify as drawing them towards some less positive life choices. Above all it aims to get players engaging with real instead of virtual people.
"Our young people identified the fact that they're spending increasing slabs of time in front of a screen, be it a TV, a computer or a mobile phone," says Filippow, who set up her youth advocacy and arts mentoring organisation in 1999 after years working in artist-in-residence programs at youth refuges.
"They identified that (screen technology) is having a huge impact on their relationships with people and the way they communicate in the non-cyber world. A-Lure is a way of using computer games, mobile technology and the internet to communicate with people and get them out of their bedrooms.
So is this art?
A-Lure runs from the 12th until the 20th of April. Check out their website for details on how to register and participate.