Hive Heroes: the game test
When:
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Venue:
Birkbeck Central
The Covid-19 pandemic underscored the urgent need for new multispecies, collaborative strategies to tackle future pandemics and global health crises. Humans have much to learn from honeybees, particularly about immunity mechanisms deployed when under attack from viral infections. Like us humans, honeybees socially distance in the hive. However, socially distancing isn’t always possible, as they also have to continue with daily work tasks such as collecting and storing food, cleaning the hive and building the comb. The goal of the game is to enter the world of honeybees and to carry out daily tasks for the good of the hive and to keep the hive safe and healthy using the very techniques honeybees use. One of the techniques used by honeybees is to store antiviral RNA (vaccines) in Royal Jelly in a ‘Healing Cell’, which other honeybees are able to ingest and which helps them recover. Drawing inspiration from ground-breaking research conducted by The Maori Lab, Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge that explores how honeybees share immunity by transmitting RNA within the hive, S+T+ARTS Prize Nominee, Lily Hunter Green, along with The Maori Lab, will be testing their new collaborative work, Hive Heroes.
The game, Hive Heroes, is an exciting new interactive game where Art, Science & Play converge to explore what humans can learn from the cooperative healing practices of honeybee hives. This immersive digital experience uses wearable technology to engage players as ‘worker bees’ in a collective mission to halt the spread of a fast-moving virtual virus by applying the wisdom of the hive. Players will become bee-human-technology hybrids in a space where safety and health of the collective is a priority. Sound, light and space are all elements in the game and players navigate the virtual hive via music and visualisations that are guided by code that mimics the spread and limiting of viral spread.
Hive Heroes is much more than a game. Beyond the thrill of playing the game itself, Hive Heroes offers the public the rare opportunity to contribute to ground-breaking scientific research, with data and ‘strategy feedback’ collected from participant interactions feeding into ongoing studies on ‘RNA cooperation between organisms’ at The Maori Lab, University of Cambridge. Devised by artist Lily Hunter Green in collaboration with Dr Eyal Maori, his team at the Maori Lab, University of Cambridge and computer scientist Karun Matharu; data collected from Hive Heroes participants will feed into the Maori Lab research on RNA cooperation between organisms.
The testing:
We invite 10 selected participants to test the strategy, gameplay, and design of the game. As players you will be asked to take on the role of 'bee' and will be fitted with motion sensors and given costumes that will display coloured light that matches their location within the gameboard. The sensors and lights share information about the player's 'bee status' (sick, healthy, in place, mission success, etc). No biodata from your body will be recorded. The only data recorded will be your movement within the gameboard (the room), which will be collected using motion sensors that are put in place specifically for the test. The event will also be video documented for analysis and promotional purposes. Participants will be asked to sign a consent form to be filmed for research and promotional purposes.
This project is supported by the University of Cambridge, Wellcome Trust, and hosted by Birkbeck's research centres: BRCES and BIRMAC.
Contact name:
Rebekah Cupitt
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Lily Hunter Green
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Lily Hunter Green Digital Artist Lily Hunter Green makes interdisciplinary, ‘more-than-human’ hive projects that use digital art and performance to communicate changing ecologies, and humans’ role in that process. Recent exhibitions include Barbican Centre (London), The National Gallery (London), and Bozar Gallery (Brussels). HIVE HEROES has evolved out of an earlier work SILENCING THE VIRUS, commissioned by Chelmsford City Council & Essex Book Festival in 2019, and nominated for the S+T+ARTS Prize 2021