ITP Thesis Week 2009
Monday, May 4 - Friday, May 8

The Artizens

Adam Nash
Charles Amis

The Artizens is an Epic Story World Powered By Kid Creations.

http://itp.nyu.edu/blogs/cea276/



Over the course of this semester, we designed a fictional world based on artistic super powers and began production on telling the story of the world through multiple media.

This includes:
-Chapter outline for a book series.
-Design document for a video game.
-Website Wireframe for an online community.
-A physical sport.
-Two board games.
-Episode guide for an animated series.

In the online community, kids have the chance of adding their own designs to the ongoing epic.

Background
We've been inspired by countless story worlds like Middle Earth from Lord of the Rings, Arrakis from Dune, and Ivalice from Final Fantasy. The way they have all told their stories through multiple media is fantastic, but we also see a lot of room for improvement on the connections among the media.

On a theory level, Richard Wagner's gesamtkunstwerk essays and J.R.R Tolkien's writings on fairy stories have been greatly inspirational as well as Beat Signer's work with crossmedia.

Audience
Creative kids from 7-14 with big imaginations.

User Scenario
We plan on building The Artizens to launch with multiple media from the start. We want the audience to be able to enter into the world through any of these media and be able to seamlessly cross from one to another. They can go from being readers to players to watchers to participants and back again.

There's also the opportunity for the audience to have their designs added to the story world forever. Once a month we'll choose a project from the online community's creative uploads to add to the canon of the world.