Daily: Out of tragedy, a video game against extremism

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Podmasters

News, Government, Politics, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2021

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When digital artist Dan Hett tragically lost his brother Martin in the 2017 Manchester bombings, he turned to the world of interactive fiction to help him understand what had happened – and ultimately he produced the game ‘Closed Hands’, which examines the causes and effects of a terrorist attack in a fictional UK city. Dan talks to Arthur Snell about the fascinating world of interactive fiction novels, how he turned his painful experience into a piece of art, and the role it could play in tackling extremism. “There is a route through the game that reflects my reality, but I’m the only one who knows what it is” “This game is me questioning society and us as a population, rather than my individual experience” “Closed Hands was difficult to write, difficult to research, and for some people it’s difficult to play” “Sometimes the decisions you make during the game are not black and white, and there isn’t a correct way of doing things” “If can reach one person through games, who hadn’t thought about this, then I’ve succeeded” Presented by Arthur Snell. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name is Stan. I'm at. Nice to meet you. So you took up photography where? I've always loved
0:05.5	photography but I turn it into earning a living at 60. I enrolled on a day course.
0:11.8	Well college. I loved going to college. It's good you can retry. I'm enrolled on the day course. But college?
0:13.0	I loved going to college.
0:14.0	It's good you can retrain and do something.
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0:55.3	look after theirs with dental life. Pick up dental life in the pet food aisle. Hello and welcome to the bunker I'm Arthur Snell. In May 2017, Dan Hayt tragically lost his brother Martin who was a victim of the Manchester
1:19.1	Arena bombing that killed 23 people at a Ariana Grandi concert.
1:24.0	As a way to help him understand and deal with that tragedy,
1:29.0	Dan has turned to the interesting world of interactive novels and he has produced a novel called
1:36.6	Closed Hands which examines the causes and effects of a terrorist attack in a fictional UK city. This groundbreaking cultural
1:46.1	form is new to me and I imagine to many of the listeners, so I'm delighted to have Dan here
1:52.2	with us in the bunker to talk to us about closed hands. Dan, welcome.
1:56.6	Nice to meet you. Thanks for having me. So Dan, what is an interactive novel?
2:02.2	Cricky, okay, so an interactive novel? Cricky. Okay, so an interactive novel, I suppose what we're talking about is interactive fiction very broadly and many of your readers,
2:10.0	many of your listeners, many of your listeners of a certain age may remember choose your own adventure books and that sort of thing.
	...

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