Wednesday the 3rd of June started like any other day.

We had planned and planned for the culmination of our extended campaign involving two separate parties locked in a fierce battle of beliefs and morals. After securing the location of rooms weeks before to hold our installation in, we were feeling the weight of the deadline pressing down as the time grew closer to the physical manifestation of everything we had worked towards. We had been creating content separate to the online blogs and twitter accounts for the purpose of filling each space with artefacts to tell the story of ACTIV protest group and the politician Jeff Shroud, respectively. We also went through the process of finding actors to lead small teams of audience members through each room, in character. This was half successful, we acquired one actor to help, with the other room being lead by Mitchell.

The day of the event was ultimately a success. We created two separate environments that told each side of the narrative that had many different nuances and important pieces of information to discover. A slight unforeseen problem arose in the morning when we arrived, which was the fact that other class was using the room we had booked to conduct presentations. This issue was resolved peacefully however, and our setup process began after only a minimal hold up. We had placed an order for all the technical equipment we required the week before. The longest part of setting each of the rooms up was transporting the equipment upstairs and turning regular classrooms into our own immersive theatre spaces. This was achieved by clearing the rooms of most furniture and setting up our own perimeter of blacks, that we hung up with C-stands and clamps. This was effective in clearly marking the space we intended the audience to interact with. After these were set up, we arranged the furniture that was required: 3 desks in the ACTIV headquarters and 2 desks in Jeff’s office. We also hired several DEDO kits, which were set up as key lights to illuminate the artefacts on each desk and direct the viewers attention to the important content. After this process was complete, we filled the rooms with the actual content: posters, documents, in-trays full of folders, books, planners, diaries, notebooks, framed certificates and even a screen displaying a presentation on repeat.

Although we had marketed and promoted our event using an EventBrite page, and had sent invites out to our peers and Media staff, the actual turnout for the event left a lot to be desired. We realised that it was our project and our classmates weren’t required to participate, but after all the effort we put in we wanted to have a wider audience to experience and interact with our narrative. In retrospect, a cross-promotion on Facebook or other social media might have had a better effect on the turn out, rather than relying on our email invites. We had our deliberate reasons for not alerting people to the fact that we were orchestrating the whole installation, to preserve the truth within the narrative and not give away the concept prematurely. For those who did come, we managed to put on a successful display and they were able to move through the rooms as we intended. We also filmed the event in real time, as the audience was experiencing each room, for the purpose of creating an ‘after film’ to screen at the Media Showcase.

The day went fairly smoothly and nothing went wrong or deviated from the risk assessment that we had previously compiled. We had fun curating and monitoring the rooms and the artefacts and it was rewarding to see a whole semester of work in a tangible form to be explored. The narrative officially came to a close after Wednesday the 3rd of June, with the audience being left to make up their own minds about what they believe to have happened in regards to Jeff Shroud and ACTIV. The online components now lie dormant, narrative vessels that have set sail and served their captains well.