Gaming Response Research Foundation

Gaming Response Research Foundation

"GRRF" is the name of a fictional software development company which is, in reality, a performance art troupe, specializing in a new genre termed "Demo Noir". It began in 2004 at the University of California, San Diego, in conjunction with the Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts (ICAM) department. The group has one permanent member, Tristan Newcomb, who is the writer and lead performer. There is also a revolving membership of "student helpers", who generally act in the role of abused, bewildered underlings. The format of a GRRF performance is that they pretend to attempt a demonstration of their latest software project to a live audience, but the "interactive software" being projected behind them is actually prerecorded video footage, and all of the group conflicts, perpetual failures, innumerable glitches, existential crisies, and conflicts with the professor are all scripted and rehearsed in advance, appearing in sync with the footage behind them to create the illusion of interactive software. The performances are filled with enough absurd content to make the fictional aspects apparent, but are offered in such a straight, deadpan way that it most often hoaxes an audience into believing it is all real, often leading to angry, frightened exits of the audience (as most notably happened on May 19th, 2008).

The first piece [ [http://www.revver.com/video/104398/grrf-gaming-response-research-foundation/ 2006 Performance, Highlights Version (10 min)] ] was presented under the guise of "seeking student employees" for a new game company, and was usually performed to large audiences of student freshmen. What actually occurred was a gradual 22 minute meltdown of glitches, meandering game play, and escalating drama that results in conflict among members, desertions, damage to hardware, and, finally, harsh vocal condemnation from a professor, all of this causing maximum audience discomfort. The game being "played" was projected on a large screen behind the performers, and at the end of the 22 minutes, end credits scrolled up the screen, letting the audience finally know that what they have been watching is not a LAN gaming display at all, but a prerecorded hoax of edited game footage and faux glitches, the many accidents and frustrations having all been all been scripted in advance. In addition to Tristan, the cast for the first piece was Cy Cary, Lance Miyamoto, Huong Ly, Jesse Chapo, Jamilla Mahfudh, and Gary Wong. The professors who were in on the act, but feigned shock and dismay at the "incompetence" of the demonstration, have included Brett Stalbaum and Ricardo Dominguez, both of whom are current professors at the University of California, San Diego. Professor Dominguez's most famous contribution to the performances was his own improvised meltdown in 2007, in which he unleashed a blizzard of four-letter anger at Tristan for "wasting his class' time" and being so woefully unprepared. [ [http://www.revver.com/video/821506/grrf-the-31507-meltdown-nsfw/ 2007 Performance, Professor Dominguez's Improvised Outburst (NSFW)] ]

After being performed roughly a dozen times over a period of three years, the project received nationwide attention when, in September 2007, PC World magazine named the GRRF highlights video as one of the "Ten Greatest Fake Science & Tech Videos" of all time. [ [http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136912-page,3-c,scamshoaxes/article.html PC World: Top Ten Fake Science and Tech Videos] ]

The second project, titled "The Road to Nowhere", debuted on May 19th, 2008, again with the advance complicity of Professor Brett Stalbaum, who had a scripted role. Tristan was leading a new group of student performers: Ross William Campbell III, Jared Hinkle, Ben Ng, Jason Kwan, Lilia Hu, Kelley Kim, Fernando Gonzales and Cecily Madanes. The large student audience they presented to was not told beforehand that it was a theater piece. The software being presented was declared to be part of UCSD's new "mandatory GPS tracking of every walking student" policy, due to the high death toll from automobiles hitting student pedestrians. This was an absurd fabrication that did not even make sense as a cause-and-effect campus policy scenario, but the (fake) technical problems and (scripted) disputes between Tristan and his student group were so intense, that not even the inclusion of such elements as songs from the The Muppet Movie and clips from The Simpsons Hit & Run video game were enough to reveal the utter ridiculousness of the presentation, and the audience continued to believe the demonstration was authentic. Some of the students began to leave in hasty protest once professor Stalbaum made his angry (but scripted) departure from the room, in which he loudly kicks open a rear exit door in the process. [ [http://www.spectavic.com/GRRF2.html GRRF 2: The Road to Nowhere (20 min)] ] This is how GRRF has obtained its peculiar dual reputation as "performance art satire" and "bitter software development team", since many who attend the presentations leave early in dismay, not learning until much later that they had been duped by a postmodern theater piece.

References


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