I spend the day at an interesting eScience workshop in Bristol. It’s particularly exciting to hear what Angela Piccini and Sita Popat are planning to develop for this call. We compare our projects and, although all fascinating, they could not be more different. In some way, I still wish we could have worked together, though I am of course now very absorbed in Blast Theory and Mixed Reality Lab’s collaboration and feel that I need to spend more time studying their work. Paul Sermon presents very interestingly, through access grid, as do Yukito Obara and Yukihiko Yoshida whose Hands Dance Project is amazing, so simple, so effective. I also meet Theresa Dillon and invite her to Exeter, but am too tired to stay for the rest of the afternoon.

In the meantime, I continue with my play, aware that we are approaching the end, unsure about what this will mean for me. For the moment, I have my saveloy and feel very fine indeed. I am still at the hospital, and can see that CLOUDYSUNNY would like BERLIN to use the defibrillator on them. I offer to run about to find them a defibrillator, since BERLIN, for once, are not prompt to respond. CLOUDYSUNNY, however, reveals to be poor but not dying and to be at Schlingensief’s Kaprow City. Suddenly the parameters of my world are shaken by an earthquake. This is the first time since I have been playing in Day of the Figurines (incidentally, is it playing in Day of the Figurines, or playing Day of the Figurines? I must come back to this) that someone refers to something outside the world of the game. CLOUDYSUNNY, I thus learn, must be in Berlin or thereabouts (as I suspected when we first met) and may be a critic, theatre maker or scholar (as I also suspected when we first met since he, or she, was the only person, I think, who spotted one of the intertextual references to my figurine). I am fascinated, shaken even, by this revelation, and spend a considerable amount of time thinking about what it means that I know where CLOUDYSUNNY actually is.

I reflect back upon my methodology and the carrying out of it throughout the last few weeks. The diary has been difficult to write, partly because I have never written in public in this way, and partly because of the circumstances in which I have found myself in. I have felt that this was a difficult task, not so much in terms of what to write (the game is so rich that I could still carry on writing for a while), but in terms of my own time committment and, especially, my energy. I have found it hard not to get any feedback, particularly from Blast Theory and Mixed Reality Lab, with the exception of one person, though, of course, I understand and respect the fact everbody kept distance from me. It is important to note that on a number of occasions, both inside and outside the world of the game, I have sought advice and direction from Steve Benford which he has always kindly provided. This has unquestionably influenced my writing and my understanding of this work.

This diary has made me think as to whether writing, rather than just photographing, for instance, is an interesting way to document this kind of art. Writing, unlike talking into a microphone, presupposes a level of distancing, but also of confession, closeness. So, for instance, I have always written after the event. This means the writing has been a reflexive rather than an immediate form of feedback, and although I have written as honestly as I could, I have of course never been able to offer an immediate response. However, I can say that my writing has definitively been an act of love for this project. Now that I know that I will no longer be working on its documentation, I can see that I will miss both the writing and the game, but also the proximity that Blast Theory and Mixed Reality Lab have kindly allowed me to have to their exciting and ground-breaking process.

I look at my list of destinations. Despite the fact that I have been in this game for 24 days, I haven't been able to visit all of them. I notice that the destinations become its players, their interactions, our social play. I wonder now whether I should have created links to the players as well as our destinatons. I also wonder what a grid of objects or foods, and their use, would tell about us players and the game. Capra once said - 'this game is so rich, it could be used in so many ways'. He was - is - right.

On my way to get some help for CLOUDYSUNNY who has been abandoned by BERLIN, I receive a dilemma. There is a worker lying outside. Do I help or stay in the warm? I guess that this time I give the right answer because I hear nothing further. As I leave the hospital, I notice that there is a scene of devastation. Many are too tired to even move. I, on the other hand, seem, for once, to be full of energy.

For my play tomorrow go to Day of the Figurines 20/10/2006