In this multimedia exhibition, current MFA students will read from fiction, poetry, and a choose-your-own-adventure inspired by a playthrough of The Quiet Year, a generative tabletop role-playing game. Through exploring the lives of collaboratively-developed characters and the evolutions of game-prompted geographies, students will display both the performative and narrative capacities of autonarrative devices – forms, like certain games, with narratives that prompt the creation of new narratives. Audiences will trek through the sequestered valley town of Pigeon Hole, a small civilization where magic has recently been introduced, houses flip upside-down, and a van full of elderly folk steal gemstones. Through traveling the town, hearing tales of its inhabitants, and ultimately directing a character themselves, audiences will examine the ways that stories build from stories – how authorial agency transfers from writer to form to writer, and how internalized discourses may emerge. This exhibition will also partner with Working Title: A Literary Arts Podcast to publish audio of the performance’s generation, and an interview with Joshua “Dez” Deshaies – current MFA student, game designer, and narrative games researcher – that sheds more light on autonarrative devices and processes.
Run time: 60 minutes.
Joshua's follow-up interview about the process of autonarratives can be accessed here.
Interact with the game directly while you follow along with the audio performance.