Artist-In-Residence: ‘Lost Eons’ by David Blandy
LOST EONS is an interactive game developed by artist David Blandy and the Cambridge Biomedical Campus community.
David Blandy’s residency took place online, working with CBC employees and students who participated in drawing, writing and active play workshops to create a future world.
They generated self-portraits projected into a far-distant time, where humans have adapted and merged with the area’s flora and fauna. These new characters then developed new myths, with maps, legendary figures and illustrations. The project forms a future archaeology of Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
Their designs and writing have been published in a Role Play Game Handbook, which is available either to download as a PDF or can be found on-site in a boxed gaming format at various locations across CBC. Lost Eons artworks can also be found throughout the campus to lure other Campus users to enter into this new world and form new connections. The Lost Eons website acts as a portal into this new space where campus gaming groups might be formed from across different sectors and spaces and continue to grow.
Lost Eons successfully created a space where participants were able to connect with others from different organisations on Campus and there is the hope that this new game will flourish and grow through time as it is discovered by chance on site and will bring people together to think about the future in a different way.
The Participants:
A wide group of campus and student organisations were represented, including:
- Department of Public Health and Primary Care at University of Cambridge.
- Cambridge University Medical Library
- MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
- Angela Ruskin University
- Addenbrooke’s Hospital
The Artwork:
Lost Eons is a collective imaginary space that can be entered through engaging with the Lost Eons roleplay game. It creates an alternative future world for Cambridgeshire, thinking about the way the environment could have changed after recovery from our climate crisis and the societies that might emerge if evolution was accelerated. David has created five wall-based artworks to be placed around the campus. These act as portals into the Lost Eons world. They reflect different aspects of the game that was imagined with participants – there is the forest, the sea, the giant floating archive city of the Calyx, the Cambrian society of crab-people and maps of these new lands, based on topographical maps of the area after sea-rise. These portals open up Lost Eons to new audiences and encourage exploration and game playing as part of the legacy of the project.
Where to find the Lost Eons portal signs:
The Lost Eons portals are being located and installed at CBC in October 2021. Once in place their locations will be revealed. Each will be accompanied by introductory text and a QR code for mobile scanning to access the online game website.
Alongside the installation of these permanent artworks, Addenbrooke’s Art will be hosting a temporary exhibition of Lost Eons, including much of the background material created by David and participants. This will be on show from mid-October 2021, located in the main Addenbrooke’s ground floor corridor.
“Enclosed in our covid-enforced bubbles, isolated and under strain, Lost Eons became a place to escape, to build a new world together, a space we could control and mould while the world was so uncertain and traumatic. I can’t wait for others to experience this world too.” David Blandy
The Legacy: The LOST EONS game
Lost Eons is available for everyone to play, on and off campus, from members of the public, patient groups, employees or researchers.
Lost Eons is a Role-Playing Game (RPG) for 3-5 Players and a GM, the Guide and Mentor.
The role of the GM is to facilitate the game, creating problems and opportunities for the players to explore.
The role of the players is to make their own way in this post humanity world. To play, the players must create characters in this world, and the GM must create a scene for the players to encounter. A typical starting point would be the player group seeing the surface world for the very first time. What does it look like? How does it make them feel? What do they meet? Is it dangerous? Play to find out!
Two ways to play Lost Eons:
- IN PERSON with the box set of booklets and dice available at locations across the campus. Or contact andy@futurecity.co.uk to get a copy.
- ONLINE through the Lost Eons website:
www.davidblandy.co.uk/lost-eons-intro
How to Play link: https://losteons.carrd.co/
Lost Eons credits
Written by David Blandy & Laurie O’ Connel
Edited by Nakade
Primary Illustrator Jacob Barry
Layout by David Blandy
Campaign rules by Andy Prentice
Co-written by Andy Prentice, Pawel Stachyra, Noah Rodríguez, Katherine Parkin, Kate Brockie, Piotr Czosnyka, Jessica Figgy, Amy Mason, Clair Carli, Chris Joynes, Jazmin Morris, Craig David Parr, Polly Barnes, Mansi Shouche and Susuana Amoah.
Other illustrations Jessica Figgy, Katherine Parkin, Polly Barnes, Cat Rogers and David Blandy
Funded by Liberty Property Trust and Countryside Properties, Cambridge Biomedical Campus expansion developers. With thanks to Cambridge Biomedical Campus Public Art Steering Group & curators Futurecity.
Acknowledgements:
This text would not exist without Oz Browning, Sean Smith, Andy Prentice, Matt Goulson and Daniel Locke. Also thanks to the FKR Collective Discord for constant inspiration and support, notably Nakade (@beeptest), @wendi, @CosmicOrrery, @ContrabandRimer, @PanicPillow & @Revenant’s Quill
Based on The World After by Matt Goulson and David Blandy. The World After was originally commissioned by Focal Point Gallery, Southend on Sea & New Geographies. Made with the generous support of Arts Council England.
