I’ve been exploring play today, and came across and number of interesting organisations, some of whom have done work which I’ve seen and asked myself “who’s behind that?”
For example, the Agency of Coney is a collective (?) behind Historic Royal Palaces’ House of Cards, at Kensington Palace. HRP have struggled for years to bring the spark of life to these rooms, left-over state apartments “round the back” of a still-in-use Royal residence. I put together a for-one-night only experimental event there myself,scarily almost twenty years ago! I made a spontaneous visit in the summer, after I’d been to The Museum of Brands for work.
I enjoyed myself in the House of Cards. The once empty rooms were filled with all sorts of objets trouvés, peepshows and ephemera, that told a story I knew from my days own days at HRP, a story which started with the Glorious Revolution of 1688. I had great fun exploring, but left with mixed feelings. My visit had coincided with a large number of ladies of certain age, and one moment of eavesdropping haunts me – a woman rising up from a peephole saying “It’s just a room, there’s nothing there.” I wondered then whether I was only enjoying it because of the knowledge I’d brought with me, not because of the success of the storytelling.
I’d also been frustrated by discovering, part-way round, a card game that I didn’t quite understand how to play. The frustration was my own – I consider myself a player of games, and I felt I could have worked it out, if I’d given myself a longer visit, but my schedule didn’t give me enough time to get my head around it. And of course, if I’d planned my visit better, I might have discovered in advance the on-line introduction to the game which I think would have helped me enjoy it more.
Whatever the success of the game and its impact on old lady visitors, House of Cards is a brave installation and a very welcome addition to the Royal Apartments at Kensington. I’ll need to add Coney to my list of people to talk to…
The Interpretation Game 