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Dr Heidi Colthup has been involved in the arts for over twenty years and during that time has taught in schools, colleges, and universities on subjects ranging from art history, film, media, marketing, journalism, to creative writing of all forms.
Her writing has been published in the International Journal for New Writing, the International Journal of Transmedia Literacy, Hinged Press, Synergy, as well as a variety of commercial magazines, not least of all The Farmers Weekly where she was a columnist for a number of years.
She has also worked as a freelance journalist, editor, and staff writer for a variety of magazines, and has given talks on subjects such as new literary genres, 'Gamification', creative storytelling, and video games. Heidi currently teaches Film and Media at the University of Kent.
About the Wye Story Stones Project
This was a practice-based guerilla storytelling project was carried out during 2021 when the UK was still in lockdown as part of the national measures to prevent the spread of the Covid 19 virus. It was an attempt to recreate some of the elements of narrative video games within a real world environment.
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Continuing development in digital technology makes it easier for storytellers and writers to embed narratives into the environment for educational, entertainment, and cultural and heritage purposes (Azuma, 2015; Liestoel, 2019; Nóbrega, Jacob, et al, 2017; Santano and Thwaites, 2018; Spierling, Winzer, Massarczyk, 2017).
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In the spring of 2021 I carried out a site-specific guerilla storytelling project using QR codes stuck to painted pebbles leading to a secret website hosting stories inspired by the site of the pebble. Taking the elements of digital storytelling found in narrative videogames called Walking Simulators, this project allowed the player/reader to navigate the real space of a small rural village in Kent and find the narratives which could be accessed online.
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The project drew upon traditions of site-specific art combined with recent developments in digital augmented reality to attempt an embedding of digital stories found in the real world
'Walking Simulators', are a new form of digital storytelling closely associated with videogames, but with little action or traditional gameplay, and so-called as their main purpose appears to be walking around (Urban Dictionary, 2014). This is a growing area of scholarly interest (Ensslin, 2014; Heron & Belford, 2015; Koenitz, 2017; Muscat et al, 2016; Fest, 2016; Colthup, 2018, 2021). This project allowed the simulator of walking around to be reactivated within a real world small village setting, but maintaining the narrative elements that draws player/readers to the form.
Each of the stones (there were five in total, but there are now seven stories) were placed in the part of Wye village that had inspired the story connected with the painted image on the stone. In order to read the story there was a QR code on the underside of the stone, along with a request that the stone be replaced where found so others could also enjoy the story.
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Each story had its own webpage that could only be accessed via the QR code or if the exact web address was known. There were no links appearing on the page at all. This was done so the number of visitors could be carefully watched. From late February to early May - the time that there were stones in the village - 51 people interacted with the QR codes with many of the stories being reread by those visitors.
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All but one stone was taken.
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This was an anticipated outcome of the project - in fact one stone, the Fly stone, was replaced by an identical one when it disappeared, but the replacement went within 24 hours.