It’s called the Vessel Project. The creation of Elliot Lake’s Dr. Kayt Lackie, it’s an alternative reality game, now in the development stages. The game is set in the physical space of Elliot Lake. It’s narrative begins online with clues and media and builds to a physical game being set in Elliot Lake, likely centering on Canada Day, 2019, next year.
Dr. Lackie who’s returned to the city of Elliot Lake where she grew up, is back in town after teaching at Bath Spa University in the United Kingdom, and is the Artistic Director and the driving force behind the Vessel Project. She’s an award winning writer and musician (pen name Kayt Burgess) Dr. Lackie and her team held their first digital arts writing workshop on April 21 this year and are now in the process of submitting grant applications for the necessary funding to make it happen.
Among the groups and organizations they’ve approached are NOHFC (the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation), the Ontario Arts Council and the Trillium Foundation. Also being pitched are FedNor – Ontario’s economic development organization for northern Ontario - CC Arts – and others.
Their partners include the City of Elliot Lake, Digital Creator North and ARIEL – the local Elliot Lake organization for the arts. Artists working on Project Vessel include Linda and Murray Finn and RJ Lackie. Dr. Lackie is planning to present some small scale virtual reality games on Halloween this year, as a lead up to the main stage of Project Vessel, the game, which will begin next January and wind up with the big event in July 2019.
The alternative reality game based in Elliot Lake will incorporate environmental, historical and cultural elements of our city and area, into the story. The experience will be created through people taking part in the community including organizations, businesses and individuals. As the narrative begins online with clues and media it will build to a physical game set in Elliot Lake over Canada Day weekend next year. Dr. Lackie likens it to a combination of a scavenger hunt, augmented reality game, live action role-play and interactive theatre – all rolled into one.
What will Project Vessel spawn as a transmedia project? It’s expected to create stories, art work, podcasts, video series and blogs not to mention emails, texts, fictional letters, puzzles, costumes and props. All these contributions will be archived on a website for players to discover and the clues for the reality game will be embedded in the media and artifacts. There will also be a location-based app.
Dr. Lackie sees the Vessel Project as an educational driver and a job creator, too. It’s expected to create two full-time year long positions and one short term full time job in the creative digital industry. There will also be paid workshop teaching opportunities for professional artists. Lackie says the Vessel Project will encourage people to look at Elliot Lake through a new lens so they can see the potential and magic in a space that many of us think of as mundane in our daily lives. She says it’s also an event that can be used to market Elliot Lake and promote tourism in northern Ontario.
Work on the Vessel Project started with research and preliminary work in 2017. It’s expected to wrap up with a study and report about the experiment in 2020. You can get more information in a number of ways including visiting their website. (Dr. Lackie says you may get a warning about the security certificate for the website - it’s not dangerous, just a little out of date.)
You can also check out the vessel project on Facebook and Instagram.