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Paper short abstract:

Through the lens of ecologies of belonging the city is reconceptualised as a complex collage of place, participation, and affect for transmedia storytellers. A form of sympoiesis that brings into being a shared memory, a becoming-with the city for the community that resides within.

Paper long abstract:

Through the lens of ecologies of belonging The City as Escape Room transfers a simple and commonly held understanding of the escape room into a metaphor that reveals a complex collage of place, participation, and affect in meaning-making for transmedia storytellers. It situates the city as a play space in which community participation, meaning making and co-creation are interwoven as meaningful story experiences. By mirroring the practice of urban foraging, the discussion explores transmedia storytelling as a form of sympoiesis that brings into being a shared memory, a becoming-with the city for the community that resides within. Avoiding the common placemaking tropes associated with public sector marketing and economic (re)generation, city-wide transmedia storytelling is instead considered as a form of speculative fabulation that can defamiliarise the familiar and generate affective story experiences. The offering of a series of case studies that contrast commercial and community-driven transmedia experiences further illuminates the ways in which immersive experience design can take hold of a city as a play space and render it as a meaningful story experience.