LOVE LETTERS TO THE FUTURE
Genre - | Global Transmedia Campaign, Alternative Reality Game |
Released - | |
Producers - | Amit Breuer (Amythos Media), Patrick Crowe, Thomas Wallner (XENOPHILE Media |
Directors - | |
Project Manager - | Maayan Cohen |
Creative Director - | Ralph Dfouni |
Written by - | |
Original Concept and Writer - | Thomas Wallner |
Collaborators - | Greenpeace International (The Netherlands), University of Basel (Switzerland), HIRES (UK)Suported by Digital media Fund OMDC |
Status - |
Love letters to the future is a global trans-media campaign aimed to raise awareness about the rapidly expanding dangers of climate change. Supported by Greenpeace International and a group of NGOs, Love Letters to the Future is a narrative game-like experience across the web, mobile and urban spaces. The project kicked off with a magazine style website www.loveletterstothefuture.com which offered a unique opportunity for the public to send letters to future generations about our planet. The letters with the highest number of votes were selected to enter a specially constructed time capsule and to be opened in the next 100 years. Shortly after the site launched, mysterious letters from the year 2109 signed by Maya began to appear. Each letter contained an encrypted message that directed the viewer to a hidden portal within the site. Solving the clues revealed video transmissions from a world hardly recognize as earth. The letters were in fact a plea from Maya, who lived 100 years in the future, asking us to save her devastated world. Maya hoped to alter the result of the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and save her world from devastation. The experience gathered tens of thousands of participants, who followed and documented Maya’s story in social platforms, blogs and forums. The alternative reality game featured 13 international cities where Maya’s symbol was attached to a local phone number or a 3D augmented reality image on a mobile phone. In a live event on December 2009, during the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Maya’s message was featured on a giant screen and the time capsule was officially sealed for the next hundred years.
**Alternate reality games (ARG) blend the game world with reality, using many forms of media to deliver an interactive narrative. ARGs empower players as investigators who collaborate to uncover the story and solve plot based challenges.