Games Talks: Firepit Collective

An elegy for HYPER//ECHO, a lost digital world.

In this edition of RMIT and ACMI's Game Talks series, curator Jini Maxwell will speak with Firepit Collective, the videogames and digital art collective who created HYPER//ECHO, a durational, online interactive work commissioned for ACMI's Gallery 5.

Like Firepit's previous work creating spaces like the Freeplay ZONE and their Discord community, the Ziscord, HYPER//ECHO is a playful, non-commercial digital space that promotes curiosity and exploration. Unlike their previous work, it was never meant to last. On 1 July, HYPER//ECHO went offline forever, completing a three month exhibition run that saw over 10,000 participants contribute buildings, bridges, and cryptic messages to the world of the game.

This discussion will explore Firepit Collective's decision to end HYPER//ECHO forever, locating their game development practice within a broad field of artistic and cultural influences from zine culture to situationism.

We will reflect on Firepit's process in developing an ephemeral digital work, looking at the first influences and constraints on the work, the technical challenges, and finally looking towards the future. Even as the work itself ends, its reverberations that continue outwards, from poetic and artistic responses, to the new interactive timeline that Firepit will launch on the day, which documents every step taken and every message placed, in a realm that has ceased to exist.