The Storyhunter Files

Some photos

2010-03-27T16:59:00.000-07:00

A few Storyhunter's publicity shots for you:

Thanks Hennie.

The girl who loved to dance...

2010-02-16T08:51:00.000-08:00

We were asked to do something passionate and romantic for Valantine's Day with dance company Slanjayva Danza, that would tie their performance of some latin dancing mixed with some new and old pieces from their repetoire; I thought we could a version of Lady Purple (by Angela Carter) but that didn't go down well (necrophilia? on Valantine's day?!). So we came up with a story about a girl who loved to dance.

Spoiler Alert!!!

She's raised by Granny on a mountainside with no-one but goats for company. As well as teaching her the magic words to control the Devil's guitar (her only heirloom from her father) Granny tells her never to dance in the Spring Fiesta.

When Granny passes away the girl accidentally dances in the the Spring Fiesta and catches the eye of the Devil. He tricks her into signing a contract - she becomes the most famous dancer in Spain for seven years at which time he comes for her soul.

She tricks the Devil (with her father's guitar) and regains her soul but is cursed by the devil to walk the Earth until she finds the secret of the perfect dance.

After travelling Europe for a few hundred years, she sees some Salsa dancing and heads to the Knew World. In Buenos Aires she takes a job in a Taverna owned by the Montoja Twins (Andrew and I - twins on our mother's side). She finds the perfect dance to be the Tango but it is only when she dances it with her lover, Jose Montoja, that she discovers the secret of the perfect dance, is released form the curse and they all live happily ever after...

10D in Burley

2010-02-16T08:49:00.000-08:00

Brown - you got those photos from Burley? Get some up and active to show; saw Jeni today and will hopefully be getting the Slanjayva Danza pictures this week...

Malmo Photos

2010-02-16T08:31:00.001-08:00

Here's just a few images of the window display we did with Fasad in Malmo at the end of last summer. These are of the window display that we all worked on that summed up the notions of 10D; we did a performance in the evening too but I've still to sort photos for that...

Radio Silence

2010-02-16T08:28:00.000-08:00

Hey - looks like we haven't done anything for ages but we have; Malmo photos and news of some work we did on Valantine's Day with Slanjayvah Danza will follow shortly. Honest.

Midsummer Mustard Show

2009-06-13T00:03:00.001-07:00

Notebook - April 28th 2009

2009-05-10T01:06:00.000-07:00

This is a mindmap of the different aspects of Storyhunters - some we do (some we don't)

Next plan is to develop the 10 dimensions idea across everything - focussing, alongside performance, on a comic / graphic novel version.

So this is the macro plot of storyhunters:

We want to continue to base it in 'reality' using us as the protagonists and our world as the immediate world of the storyhunters. So here's a bit about Chapel Allerton and why it's so important.

And here's some background into the causes of the 'something terrible' that's going to happen and a bit of plot history:

more plot history:

The Storyhunters Take Malmo

2009-05-10T00:43:00.000-07:00

All's Quiet on the Eastern Front?
Think again - http://storyhuntersmalmo.wordpress.com/

We've been invited to Malmo to participate in a collaboration with CCRED.

Another Moorling story...

2009-02-23T01:16:00.000-08:00

One of Five
Polly was lying in bed doing that thing you do when you hear a noise coming form the kitchen at gone three in the morning. That is to say, pretending she didn’t hear anything; she’d gone through the “pricked-up-ears-on-ninja-alert” stage for what seemed like ages and heard nowt so now she’d gone into the “it-was-probably-nothing-worth-getting-out of-bed-for” stage. She snuggled down deeper under the duvet to escape the bitter, biting cold of her bedroom and was just letting warm tendrils of sleep creep back into her mind when there was another crash. This one was much louder and was impossible to ignore. There was someone in her kitchen! But she’d locked both front and back doors, hadn’t she? Surely her near OCD checking of the locks couldn’t have let her miss one?

“What do I do now?” her mind squirmed. “Do I just lie here and hope that they go away? Or do I shout down the stairs? Whoever made the noise must know that they’ve woken the whole house up! Have they already fled? Do they know that I live alone? Why didn’t I get a dog like my dad suggested? Oh bugger!”

She realised she was gibbering to herself and tried to get a grip. Her stupid, knackered mobile was downstairs recharging, a ritual that it seemed to need every day now that it was nearing the end of its life. She slipped quietly out of bed and quickly pulled on her freezing tracky Bs and hoody and hopped into her Gromit slippers, which were also freezing. “Bloody hell”, she said through chattering teeth and began to search the room for a weapon. Discarding the comb, hairdryer, hair straighteners, cheap Ikea lamp and the old suitcase she’d inherited from a great grandfather she’d never met, she settled on the riding crop (it had been in the built-in wardrobe when she bought the place and she had never got round to chucking it out, for which she was now really, really grateful!).

Thus armed, she crept out of her bedroom and down the stairs towards the kitchen.

Two of Five
Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, Polly saw to her horror that the cellar door was ajar. A chill of dread shuddered through her; had she forgotten to check the cellar door on her way to bed? Surely she hadn’t been that neglectful. She always made sure that she checked all the doors, at least three times, before going to bed. And the windows. It’s what you do when you live on your own.

She was frozen with indecision, just standing there at the bottom of the stairs, when she heard another noise from the pitch black kitchen. It was a muted muttering noise punctuated by disgruntled little snorts and snuffles. Two things happened in Polly’s brain as she stood listening in the darkness.

The first was that she was reminded of the voice of the guy who used to do the Mr Kipling adverts; he had a slightly “fudgy” sounding voice, as though he had himself overindulged in far too many sugary treats. Perhaps with lard on top.

She was a little startled by the arrival of this totally inappropriate thought, but before she could ponder its meaning too deeply the second thought arrived, which was this; that the noise issuing from her dark kitchen sounded at once like an animal and someone talking to themselves. She seemed to recall that racoons were notorious for displaying this very trait but was pretty sure that she would have heard on the news if West Yorkshire had been overrun by escaped racoons. Having said that, there was always Menwith Hill just over the valley and up a bit, which was full of US National Security Agents. Maybe one of them had a pet racoon that had escaped. “Hmm. And made straight for my kitchen. Unlikely!”

But that it could be some indigenous beastie with racoon-like traits wasn’t impossible; a badger perhaps? It could have fallen into the cellar and then waddled (one always thinks of badgers as waddling) up to look for food once the coast was clear. Feeling a bit braver, she inched towards the kitchen.

Three of Five
As she passed by the cellar door, Polly happened to glance down and then froze again, with a frown creasing her brow. There was a trail of filthy, muddy footprints leading from the door to the kitchen and great splashes of dark, peaty water with broken bits of heather in its wake. She was surprised that she hadn’t noticed the smell earlier but reasoned her wellies, which stood in the hallway, must have a similar odour after a day spent trekking across to Dick Hudson’s and back.

She glowered at the footprints with a recriminating stare; they were definitely human! No escaped badger-racoon hybrid then but an actual person and judging by the size of their feet a very small person, probably no older than nine or ten.
“Right you little bugger”, she muttered through gritted teeth and marched boldly into the kitchen and turned on the light. Her heart stopped and the “telling-off” that was ready to escape her lips froze. There in the kitchen was indeed a small person. But they were not nine or ten. Nor were they human.

The creature stood no higher than four feet tall and was painfully thin. Impossibly thin. It wore some kind of skin tight clothing that was ragged and shabby and black as pitch. This attire sheathed the thing’s entire body and most of its face; only its huge eyes and full, wide mouth were visible on its head and long, spidiferous fingers of a translucent, bone white hue protruded from its half-gloved hands.

Polly realised that she and the thing were both screaming in terror and decided not to hang around to find out what this alien being would do once it regained it composure. She turned on her heel and fled the scene of the horrid encounter. With thoughts of extraterrestrial abductions and rectal probes she bounded up the stairs with no regard for where her flight was leading. Diving into the bathroom she threw her weight to the door and lay panting on the cold tiles as she slid the lock into place. Her breath caught as she heard a faint scratching of nails on the locked door.

Four of Five
Horror and revulsion flooded through Polly and she had to struggle to keep herself from vomiting. Barely an inch away, on the other side of the flimsy bathroom door was a creature that had no place in her view of reality. An alien creature. An inhuman creature. A creature form nightmare; from a horror movie.

With a sickening dread she looked up from where she lay, shivering and sweating at the same time, only now remembering that the upper half of the bathroom door was frosted glass. As the thought came to her she saw the shape of the creature, obviously trying to peer into the room. It tapped the glass with its finger nails and uttered a single, guttural word, “Cheeeese.”

Polly blinked. Had the monster just said what she thought it had said? As if in answer the strange voice came again, “Pleeeese. Cheeeese!” Now that she took a closer look, she saw its diminutive form shifting uneasily from foot to foot as it delicately fingered the glass. This wasn’t the behaviour of a predatory beast and she didn’t think that aliens were likely to have travelled a quazillion light years in order to try and get some cheese. Well, not from her anyway; they probably had some intergalactic trade agreement with the French government for that. Again the light tapping accompanied by the plea, “Hmmm, pleeeese. Cheeese?”

Without giving herself time to question the wisdom of her actions, Polly reached up and unbolted the door. At the noise the creature’s obscured form seemed to flinch and jump back. Feeling braver than she had ever felt in her entire life, Polly grabbed the handle and opened the door.

The thing’s body language was all embarrassed apology as it stood there, slightly hunched and wringing its hands. It showed row upon row of needle-like teeth in a grin that nearly made her slam the door in its face, but she managed to smile back as she heard herself ask, “So, it’s cheese you’re after is it? What are you willing to trade?”

Five of Five
Half past four in the morning came around and found Polly sitting in her kitchen drinking a cup of tea. She’d put the central heating on as she doubted she’d be able to go back to sleep now but was also wearing her stripy dressing gown as she waited for the house to heat up. She’d have to phone in sick for work as she was sure that she wouldn’t be able to focus on anything other than her strange nocturnal adventure for at least the rest of the day; if not for the rest of her life.

The Moorling, for that was what it called itself, had been only to eager to bargain and had visibly relaxed once it realised that Polly wasn’t going to dash its brains out. It seemed to enjoying itself immensely as they sat down at the kitchen table with mugs of hot tea to begin their negotiations; the thing hadn’t actually drunk any of its tea, wrinkling its nose in disgust when it had tentatively sniffed the brew, but it had cooed softly as it had wrapped its overlong fingers around the mug for warmth.

She’d half expected the offer of fairy gold (if she’d expected anything at all) and was prepared to berate the thing for treating her as a fool. But the bargaining had been strange and she had quickly realised that she would have to rely on her instincts rather than her intellect, if she was going come out of their haggling with anything worth having.

She’d refused perfect recall from the day she was born and an exquisite gossamer gown spun from moonlight. She was tempted by the gloves of spider silk that could ensnare a lover’s heart and the crystal pendant that would always show its wearer the safest path across the moors. But in the end the deal she struck was this; to provide a cheesy feast for the little Moorling on each full moon thereafter. And in return she was given knowledge of her own true name, for knowing a thing’s true name gives you power over it and how many of us can claim to truly have power over ourselves? And as far as I know, the two still meet every full moon to this day!

Ghost Stories

2009-02-16T00:04:00.000-08:00

More live storyhunting, back at the Mustard Pot in Chapel Allerton. This time we've been requested to do scary stories. Here's the poster.

Start wearing purple...

Story Posters for Burley in Wharfdale

2009-01-15T06:24:00.000-08:00

One of Seven
“You’d best sit down and have a cup of tea. Here, let me move those things and you can perch yoursen down there. There you go.” I must have looked pretty shaken up. Hell, anyone would after what had just happened. As the old man tried to clear a space for me, I glanced around the hut. It was full of stuff. All manner of stuff; piles of newspapers and junk mail, wellies, ornaments, rusty bits of bikes and wheelbarrows, books, binoculars, garden shears and walking sticks. There was a collection of broken electric kettles huddling together in one corner looking for all the world as though they were trying to keep each other warm. There was also a disgruntlement of cats of varying colours and sizes who were either milling about in that way that cats do (solipsistically convinced that any human activity in their immediate proximity is a plot to get them) or idly slouching in the comfiest looking chairs in the cramped room. The old man picked up a tray of germinating seedlings so that I could have a seat, shoed away the cat that instantly took its place and motioned for me to sit, which I obediently did. He stood for a moment looking around for somewhere safe to put the tray but had to content himself with balancing it precariously on another pile and it took him some moments to get its position just right, so that it didn’t tumble to the floor along with the rest of the pile in a catastrophic junkalanche. A horrified shudder passed involuntarily through me as I contemplated being trapped there under suffocating mountains of the old man’s stuff. A cat jumped into my lap. ‘Get of him Germolene!’ ‘No, it’s OK, really. I could use some comfort right now.’ He gave Germolene a scowl but the cat was unperturbed and began purring as I tickled his neck absently. He boiled the water in a saucepan and passed me one of the teas. After a moment he started, “In the dawning of the Earth…”

Two of Seven
I was twenty four years old and had just passed my driving test. Quite literally; only a few hours earlier I had taken my second test and succeeded where I had previously failed, despite having the same examiner as my first time round. I was living with my mum but she had just left to go on a five month trip around the world (her ‘gap year’, as she loved to call it) so I was left in charge of the house and all its various plants and animals. This wasn’t a bad thing, as that spring I had jokingly given my green-fingered mum a batch of marijuana seeds for her birthday, which she had managed to grow into enormous plants in her front garden. As she was working as a social worker at the time I had suggested that she should remove them lest a nosy neighbour dob her in to the man but she insisted on keeping them as she found them beautiful to behold. One man’s (or women’s) eye candy is another man’s stoner high and I had been surreptitiously grazing off them for months. My driving test finished five minutes after the taxi taking her to the airport was booked and so when I got home I found the house empty of human life. If you can drive, you might still remember that magical feeling of driving on your own for the first time; being in the car with no-one else there and it’s allowed; no-one can tell you off and you aren’t going to get arrested and other drivers have no idea that it’s your first time (this was in the days before ‘P’ plates). My initial disappointment at finding the house empty was quickly replaced with a giddy desire to get out on the roads. I grabbed the dog, chucked on my wellies and windcheater and bungled us both into my little white polo (this was my mum’s old car which makes me sound like a bit of a mummy’s boy, getting a car from my mum, but this thing was fifteen years old and only still going by the grace of the gods of the roads). We headed straight for Ilkley Moor.

Three of Seven
In the dawning of the Earth, when all the world was still warm from the fires of creation and land and sea were restless and constantly shifting to find themselves more comfortable positions, only the mighty dragons had the gift of free thought. They ruled the Earth and all things on it and revelled in their own power. But they were proud and vain and cast envious glances to the heavens. In time, they challenged the gods themselves and in the war that they made were nigh-on consumed, their broken bodies being cast down into the Earth, where they still lie to this day dreaming of vengeance and past glories. The gods saw that the Earth needed guardians to keep it safe and so they mated with the elemental forces of land and sea and thus created the titans. The titans’ connection to the Earth made them humble in way that no dragon ever knew and they lived peacefully for time without measure. The lands slowly changed, as they are wont to do, with mountains springing up here; whole continents plunging below the waves there. Gods died and gods were born and under the wise stewardship of the titans all the animals and plants of the land and sea prospered. Now the new gods wanted to leave their heavenly homes and share the beautiful Earth with the titans. The titans gladly agreed and the gods seemed as falling stars when they descended to the Earth. But the new gods made war on the titans and again the Earth shook! The wars of god and titan only ended when the titans called on the oceans to rise up and sweep all away. As the seas receded, those that remained weren’t god or titan but man and woman, just like you or I, and the burden of rebuilding the Earth fell on their shoulders. What cared man if the monster in the wilds was god or titan, the remedy was the same; swift and bloody. Over time, the mighty denizens of old have shrunk further and further from life and into our dreams. Until now, that is.

Four of Seven
When the old man had finished his tale I didn’t know what to do or say. I looked at him blankly as my mind tried desperately to come up with an appropriate response, any bloody response, but instead all it found was white noise. Germolene, who had fallen asleep whilst the old man talked, suddenly stirred and began washing himself vigorously in that rather cross way that an elderly cat will use when you catch it doing something silly, like playing in the snow or chasing its own tail. That seemed to break the spell and the old man and I both started speaking at the same time then spent the next few moments “no, no, after you”-ing each other. He chuckled and I gave my small smile (when I was about fourteen, I was told in one of those throw away comments that stick with you for life, that I had a strange shaped mouth and have been self-conscious of smiling ever since). “Let’s have another cuppa then, eh?” When we had settled down with the second cup of tea I asked him why he’d told me the story. “Well, there’s many who would say it’s nowt but superstitious clap trap and then there’s those who’d say it was all a metaphor, for the creation of the Earth. But it seems to me that the things it speaks of have a ring o’ the real about ‘em. It’s my belief, and I don’t say this idly mind, that the thing you saw today, it was an echo from those days. And remember I’ve lived here for a right long while now, so I know these moors better than most. I’ve seen too many strangenesses these long years past to think that there’s nowt there but my imaginings.” I struggled to fit what he was saying into my mental picture of the world. I wanted to nod reassuringly as I backed slowly out the hut but that meant going back out there. Rational thought was saying run from the nutter but the new bit of me, the bit that had seen the thing on the moor was saying “He’s right! He’s right! Oh my god! We’re doomed!”

Five of Seven
I saw something on the Moors. It happened as the dog and I were bounding up the decaying wooden walkway that leads to the twelve apostles. This walkway has always fascinated me as it traverses one of the swampiest bits of the Moor – an essential thing then, as it stops one from becoming covered to the waist in black moor-mud (best case scenario) or sinking forever from sight into a bottomless bog (worst case scenario). Consequently, it is in a state of constant semi-decay, what with the weather up there and the peaty water, and I have often wondered about the poor bugger who’s job it is to maintain the thing, envisaging an endless Forth Bridge style task. On that day, as always, there were a few of the boards missing and many more that were on the verge of breaking and so my attention was focussed mostly on where my feet were going; I didn’t fancy being stuck there with my leg all busted up by one of the planks giving way. I would frequently pause, however, in order to take in the breathtaking view of Wharfdale, from the castle-like profile of Arncliffe Crag to the East and the jaggedy points of Simon’s Seat to the West. There were rain clouds over Addingham but they were creeping down the valley at a snail’s pace and besides, I had my windcheater and the dog was, well, a dog and liked getting wet and muddy. As I turned away from the view in order to resume my ascent, I happened to glance up at the craggy outcrop of black rocks that stand silent sentinel over this section of the moor. There was a figure silhouetted dramatically atop the highest of these rocks. It appeared to tracking my progress and I was struck by how skinny the figure was. I thought it must be some lycra-clad fell runner, pausing to take in the view as I had just done but it was midmorning on a work day and I had seen few other souls about. I stopped climbing but the figure remained, silently watching.

Six of Seven
We walked the Earth for a thousand millennia, undisputed lords and ladies of all that we beheld. We danced with the trees of the primordial forests and sang with the sea serpents of the deepest oceans. The glass towers of our palaces scraped the skies and we communed across time and space with a billion other beings. Our passions consumed every atom of our being in ways that no mortal mind could ever contain; the overflowing of our joys could create new species and our wrath could wither a continent. We had everything your puny souls yearn for in abundance! Love, power and above all freedom. True and absolute freedom; freedom of thought, freedom from harm and the freedom to be utterly ourselves with no worry or regard for how others might perceive us. And the freedom to change; to be a new being from one moment to the next, to reinvent on a whim. But even we, in all our majesty, could not hide from the tides of time forever. Even we had to fade; to be cast from light into shadow. But we did not go quietly and the long fall from grace was a bitter struggle that broke us and twisted us. We became petty little things of envy, jealousy and anger, no better than you hallow hearted humans, clawing at one another in the desperate scrabble to survive. Our once great halls became choked with filth and slime as our bodies withered and weakened. We fled from the light, crawling into the dark gaps between real places so that we could no longer be tortured when we saw what we had become. And we forgot. Oh, it took eons but eventually our minds grew too feeble to hold onto what we had once been. For a while we were actually gone, hidden away from the world in the edges of your dreams. Buried in the mounds; below still water; over the hills and far away. But the world turns. Slowly, but inexorably, it turns. And we are coming back. Creeping back towards the light. Back towards you.

Seven of Seven
I saw something on the moors. In this age of slasher movies and computer generated images, scepticism and hard-facts-science it might not seem like that much to you, but to me it was an encounter with something other. In a world of two-a-penny alien abductions and where “mass hallucination” is an acceptable explanation for strange events, you might be able to rationally explain my experience away and sleep easy at night. All I can tell you is that my instincts knew that something was different and definitely wrong. When did we start discounting instinct as a valued sense that has evolved alongside the other five to ensure our survival? I stood staring at the figure for several long minutes. The dog came and sat next to me, also seeming to stare at the figure. I only ever used to put him on a lead to reassure other dog owners or people who were obviously scared of dogs, as even up here in sheepsville he wouldn’t run off without checking to see if it was OK to do so first, and would generally keep more or less in sight. But his behaviour was odd; all his exuberance, a given on any trip to the moors, was gone, replaced with a quiet watchfulness that matched my own. All was still. When a grouse did its comedy laughing away to my left the spell was broken. The dog and I glanced over to the grouse and when we looked back, the figure had gone. I was a little shaken; even if this was my lycra-clad fell runner, then he was behaving oddly enough to put me on guard. We continued but found nothing on our arrival at the rocks so I decided to eat my sandwiches there; it was a magnificent view and I wanted to exorcise my uneasiness. My hackles rose at the same time as the dog began to whine. He was looking straight behind me and I could feel the presence of someone there. So I ran, without a backward glance and with the dog at my heels, all the way back to the car and the old man’s hut. But before I left the moor, I looked towards those rocks one last time. And there was the figure, once again keeping its silent vigil.

Each story must...

2009-01-09T09:08:00.000-08:00

Take the wierder path - why have a character who is a fish when you can have a gigantic talking toad covered with flies that lives in a brick lined Victorian sewer where flies buzz lazily through the shards of light and has a deep love for copies of the Beano but hates the smell of lemons (especially sherbert lemons)?

Use old/obscure/foreign folklore; beads for slowing vampires, King of the Cats, Bowing politely to japanese Kappa so that they spill their life liquid and thus become helpless and defeatable.

Tap into the feeling of lost worlds 1930s stylie (well, maybe 1850s - 1950s); the way that you could travel anywhere in the world due to the aeronautical revolution but the world was still full of mysteries and lost civilisations, secret valleys and inaccessible wildernesses - the world of Tarzan, R'lyeh, Shangri La (Lost Horizens), El Dorado, Tanis, Mu Mu, Thule, Atlantis, The Island at the Top of the World, The Land That Time Forgot, Skull Island, The Hollow Earth and Nimo's undersea head qarters. Different to the view of places like Prestor John's Kingdom that were so inaccessible due to the time it took to travel any distance. Places on our doorstep that allow us to be utterly and totally lost...

Theoretic poster for a gig at John's pub in Burley

2008-12-29T01:31:00.000-08:00

SPOILER ALERT - show 'scripts'

2008-12-29T00:05:00.000-08:00

These are the script notes for Anarchy and Baht'at.

Anarchy in the Ultraverse

ACT I

Intro – No Joe
Mobile phones – expect participation, but there will be chance for Qs later
Slide A
AB
CERN
- clear and present danger
Slide B
Slide D (thunder)
AB
Joe arrives
Got some storystuff
- storystuff is everywhere
- lately it’s been getting out of control
Slide C – biggest catch
JC
What we do
Monitor & Neutralise Storystuff
- get reports
- go out & find (battle past dangerous story)
- neutralise story
JC
How we do it
Storystuff = RUM
- Invisible & barely tangiable
- Cook it up / Soak in tincture
- Ingest it
AB
Get someone to cook RUM

AB
What’s all this about then?
Trying to understand it
- dimensional seepage
- not taken seriously by scientists
- science doesn’t explain things well
- quantum physics – the observer – 10 dimensions
SLIDE L – wormhole
SLIDE O – not really like that
- we investigated with books
- then just watched a video on YouTube
JC
What we’re going to do tonight
Journey through 10 dimensions
- show why there’s 10 dimensions & what they’re all capable of
- people can help us curb the tide
AB
Put RUM into tincture & put aside

AB
1D
First 3 are easiest – especially 2 & 3
- 1 is a line, difficult to imagine
- we sent a probe – video
SLIDE E
AB
2D
Flatlanders
- description of flatlander
- 3D person in a 2D world
SLIDE F
- flatlander escaping from another flatlander

JC
3D
Easier to understand
- but see 4th dimension as flatlander sees the 3rd – in slices
- We put our perception of universe into a timeline – we construct narrative
- That’s how we understand everything
AB
Take RUM out and eat it

AB
Spanish story

JC

END OF ACT I

ACT II

4D
Jumpers – flit around universe in no time at all
SLIDE G / H – stars
Space is really big – lots out there
AB
5D
Dr Who
- paths of least resistence
- time wars
- all very sci-fi
JC
6D
Complete alternative time snakes from the big bang split
- look to Earth to see differences
- Middle earth – a lot of fantasy
AB
Recap 1 – 6
All go together into a big pot
- makes everything ever, forever – infinity
- where can you go from infinity?
AB
7D
- the big burp
- Religion / heaven / impossible places
AB
Fairy Gate Story
SLIDE I – fairy gate
- were back putting warning posters up in Meanwood Valley – chased by parkie
- nowhere to hide – went through gate
- Fairy gate story
SLIDE N
- fairy dance
- end of fairy story
JC
8D
Traverse all that as though it’s a 3D world
- supers & small gods walk around manipulating the 8th dimension
- Plasma bomb one Chapel Allerton pub
AB
9D
Few 9D creatures – they think they’re the only ones
- because of their nature they’re deluded into thinking they are creators of things
- very lonely existence – imagine thinking you’re imagining everything & everybody
- difficult to take a wife
AB
Recap
1 – 9
AB
Any questions?

10D
SLIDE M
Final destination
- encompasses everything ever
- enlightenment, whole, Nirvana

JC
0D
Nothing / loop / doesn’t exist
Raindrop story – AB guitar
JC

END

`A Home
B Cern
C Slimy
D Thunder
E 1D
F Slice
G Space
H Milky
I Fairy
J time worm
K logo
L wormhole
M smells (like fearies) (10d)
N fairymusic
O It’s Not Really Like That!!!
P Fairy Gate with signage

S Sum

Ultraverse Props & Set List

Fake beer for Andrew –
Alc free becks with becks labels stuck on them.

Overhead projector –

Camping stove (ask Penny about Health and Safety)
I’ve got a FONDUE!
Jar for keeping the invisible story stuff in x2
I’ve got a petra dish with a cover
Things in jars x20 (toys n stuff so we don't have to craft them all)
Start collecting now? Or buy from WILKOS?
Projector with laptop
x:am projector and my computer
Stone/lense for seeing (and catching) dropped storystuff)
Make from fimo?
Edible story stuff (marzipan in jelly?)
Marzipan and jelly
Bottle of chemical to add to cook story stuff (to make it go hard and visible)
Diluted coke in a plastic bottle
Visual of what 1D looks like
C:\Documents and Settings\studio\My Documents\Story Hunters\video\1d.avi
Audio of what 1D sounds like
C:\Documents and Settings\studio\My Documents\Story Hunters\video\1d.avi
Box and cat (trainee cat?)
Trainee cat / box from work
A-Frame ladder
SEVEN or I’ve got one
2D puppets - Czech cartoon (body suit?)
Make at work – use cardboard – or out of cereal packets.
Samples of Czech cartoons

Animated MRI OR video of slices through of head (the eyes, arrrgh!)
C:\Documents and Settings\studio\My Documents\Story Hunters\video\male-coronal.MPG
Flatland piece of paper ('fact based facts!')
Joe to make
Fake moustaches
Boot polish? I’ve got some boot polish
Hose pipe for 4D demo
I’ve got a length of hose somewhere…
Doctor Who music
C:\Documents and Settings\studio\My Documents\Story Hunters\Anarchy in the Ultraverse\presentation\19 drwho.wma
Big Bang Habitable Zone Diagram - do we still need this
Draw it live
Joe to look for evidence of Life / Entropy scism stuff (or did I dream it?)

Picture of time worm
C:\Documents and Settings\studio\My Documents\Story Hunters\Anarchy in the Ultraverse\presentation\timewormman.jpg
Worm hole / black hole diagram and maybe time travel diagram
C:\Documents and Settings\studio\My Documents\Story Hunters\Anarchy in the Ultraverse\presentation\wormhole.jpg
Map of meanwood plus pins to show activity
?
Film of fairy gate

We need to make up a silly dance

Write action/adventure story through the fairy gate ending in the silly dance

(redcaps/seelie-unseelie)

QI stylie questions

Voice over recording for 10D

Strobe light

Flipchart and pens
borrow from work – all blue bits that say Draw it live

Blurb for Baht'at Posters

2008-11-20T07:12:00.000-08:00

In 1992, a crack storytelling unit was sent to prison by the Friends of Gledhow Valley Woods for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Chapel Allerton underground. Today, still wanted by the F.G.V.W., they survive as storytellers of fortune. If you have a story problem, if no one else can help and if you can find them, maybe you can hire...The Storyhunters!

Alternatively, you could just come to the Mustard Pot in Chapel Allerton on Wednesday the 19th November at 8pm to experience the world’s greatest practical storytellers as they use advanced storytelling techniques and music and stuff to take you on a journey from the beginning of time to the present day. And all for nowt too!

New Show

2008-11-12T15:16:00.000-08:00

Music to tell stories to...

2008-11-04T13:31:00.000-08:00

There appears to be legs on the idea of telling stories to guitar. Not rocket science, but there you go...

For years I've written (alongside actual songs) bits of noodly twiddly guitar music, some of which has eventually turned into a "proper song", much of which remains twiddly noodly guitar music. Perhaps the destiny of some of this stuff is to add texture to stories...

<BGSOUND src="http://www.paranoidlimited.com/storyhunters/1. missing in f.mp3">

<BGSOUND src="http://www.paranoidlimited.com/storyhunters/2. cant get back on my feet again - instrumental.mp3">

<BGSOUND src="http://www.paranoidlimited.com/storyhunters/3. something old something new.mp3">

<BGSOUND src="http://www.paranoidlimited.com/storyhunters/4. this time i like best.mp3">

<BGSOUND src="http://www.paranoidlimited.com/storyhunters/6. chemical cohen.mp3">

<BGSOUND src="http://www.paranoidlimited.com/storyhunters/5. interlude.mp3">

A roaring success

2008-11-04T13:28:00.000-08:00

So, the first Storyhunters "LIVE" outing proved to be a roaring success. We packed SEVEN arts to the rafters and performed to a bewildered, but entertained audience who were very nice to us and clapped and laughed alot. This fuels our egos enough to do it again and we're currently working on a 'storyhunters lite' show that we can chuck around the pubs - and a rewrite of Anarchy which we're hoping to go perform to a bigger crowd at the Carriageworks in Leeds.

Here's the classic 'Fairy Dance' from the show at SEVEN

Nearly Wednesday!

2008-10-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

Almost there for the Storyhunters' 1st major public outing where stories will be mercilessly laid bare and the face of storytelling will be changed forever by the new art of 'practical storytelling'. In order to secure maximum effectiveness of story release adverts have been posted around North Leeds and across Facebook. If you are in the area of Chapel Allerton you are urged to attend 'Anarchy in the Ultraverse' at 7.30 on Weds 15th October at SEVEN arts, Chapel Allerton, Leeds.

This is a matter of dimensional stability.
Join us on FACEBOOK

Yet more posters (in Meanwood Valley, Leeds)

2008-10-08T08:50:00.000-07:00

More thinks from the magic notebook.

2008-09-29T01:38:00.001-07:00

Thinks from the magic notebook.

2008-09-29T01:36:00.000-07:00

Gledhow posters

2008-09-28T04:27:00.001-07:00

I love these. I love the way the story unfolds as you encounter each page. They've stayed up as well, which has been a nice surprise, although I haven't been today to check if they survived the weekend. Again, you can see how pretty Gledhow Valley is too.

Anarchy Flyers

2008-09-27T04:50:00.000-07:00

Ultraverse flyers - all photos are Storyhunters originals:

Pretty Gledhow - 26th September 2008

2008-09-27T03:59:00.000-07:00

So for those of you who don't know Gledhow Valley this is just one shot to show you how beautiful it is. It's kinda in two halves, with this half consisting of one path, making it perfect for storyplanting.
The other half is way bigger and has an indigenous unicorn that is only visible to the human eye on full moons.

Posters are popping up everywhere!

2008-09-27T02:45:00.000-07:00

But how do you get to number 57?

2008-09-27T02:33:00.001-07:00

I don't remember writing this. Was I drunk?

2008-09-26T03:54:00.000-07:00

Andrew's Alternative Sainsburys Shopping List

2008-09-26T00:50:00.001-07:00

Story posters on the street where the bike shop is.

2008-09-25T07:25:00.000-07:00

The story below was put onto five posters and posted in the streets and woods round about (woodland shots to follow - the camera ran out of battery before the first photo so I had to put them on my phone and it's a much more complicated procedure to get them from the phone to the computer - it should be easier as I used to just bluetooth them but technology being what it is the computer has fallen out with my phone; and the geeks think that technology isn't sentient. Tut! The camera only ran out of power becasue it doesn't recharge itself whilst it's putting the photos onto the computer. How stupid is that?). These ones are still there two days later. The idea was to create a perfect square of text - each one will hopefully stand alone but together make a story. Whilst putting these ones up I was asked about them by a local resident. He seemed pretty non-plused but didn't rip them down or beat me to death for being sunversive. They're meant to be funny yet dark; as I was putting them up I was wondering if they were the wrong approach as a form of advertising and that they work better just as things - they have the date and venue of the first ' Anarchy in the Ultraverse' performance on them. I think in future we should just have the story as a thing unto itself. Also, if anyone did want to come and tell us off they'll know where and when to find us. Gulp. I put these ones in order but had the last two and the advert poster on the other side of the road. I wonder if anyone will be integued enough to cross the street to read them. They seemed more out of place in an urban setting for some reason, but I suspect they will have more longevity as people tend to ignore signs and notices in the street but see the ones in the woods as litter.

Full story posters advertising the gig at Seven

2008-09-18T06:30:00.000-07:00

So this story appears on the posters advertising the gig at seven - they will be posted on trees, lamposts, etc, in order so that passers by will (hopefully) be lead through the story by reading each bit.

One
It all began when the car wouldn’t start. No wait, that’s not exactly right. It actually started the night before, when I was in the pub with my brother. We were talking about CERN and the LHC (Large Hubris Collider?) and why scientists are so blinkered and stupid (aren’t they all forced to read Mary Shelly when they start at university?). I’d got onto 10D physics and M Theory and my brother was leading a conversational foray into Hugh Everett and Many Worlds Theory. The drunker we got the more we seemed to understand so the more we kept on drinking. It didn’t end very prettily. The next morning the alarm didn’t touch the sides of my consciousness and by the time I was able to let light into my eyes I was already an hour late for work. I wish I could say that I rushed around getting ready but that would be a big, fat lie. It’s hard for the non-lobotomised to rush when getting ready to go to work at a call centre and besides, every muscle was still filled with the foul toxins that the brewery’s accountants said we wouldn’t notice and that save them 0.2p per pint produced. So nearly two hours late for work and I’m punching the steering wheel, a string of expletives spewing from my foul mouth as I curse everything from the car to the gods of the roads and a million things in between. Then a thought clawed its way up from the Id to the Ego and sat there still dripping with the primordial gloop of my subconscious. Why don’t I just change this situation? Shift from here, where my car won’t start, to just over there (metaphorically speaking) where it does. The thought and I looked at each other, shrugged and said ‘what the hell’, ‘why not’ and ‘what have we got to lose’. Looking back it’s funny that we ask that question isn’t it? ‘What have I got to lose?’ Well just ask Joni and yes, there are fates worse than death.

Two
There’s never any point asking where addiction starts and the only ones who do are those who’ve never been there. I can tell you exactly where, when and why I started smoking but that doesn’t make me able to tell you why I still smoke now. Why every morning I give up and why every morning by ten o’clock I’ve started again. It’s the same with flitting. That’s what I call it, this ability to hop from one life-track to one next door. On that first day my little reality hiccup didn’t make me not late for work, I’m not a bloody time traveller! That would be just way too sci-fi (so, if I go back in time and kill my own grandfather before my father is born…). It just made the car start. Sorry, I should phrase that a little differently; on that first day a whole new life of endless possibility exploded itself into my reality – I used the power of my will to shift from one ‘happen track’ to the next. I started a dead car’s engine with my mind! How cool is that? Needless to say I didn’t bother going to the call centre, didn’t even bother phoning up, pinching my nose and talking all feeble with a little voice so that my claims of having a cold sounded founded in reality (does anyone really ever fall for that?). For a long time I just sat there looking suspiciously at the car. We are conformists us humans, that’s why we get on with dogs so well, so I didn’t really believe what my senses were telling me. You see we do that, all of us, all the time. We ignore the magical, fantastical and unbelievable things that happen to us and around us all the bloody time. My mind was already rewriting the memory so that it was formatted to the same bland reality as all the others, so that it didn’t stand out. I had to act now if I was going to keep this newfound power and explore where it could take me. Tentatively I set out on the adventure of my infinite lifetimes.

Three
I didn’t know what to do to test the power; not through a lack of ideas but because I could think of a million things to do. What would happen if I got caught though? Say I managed to slip into a reality where my bank account had two grand in it (I know, how ambitious! But working in a call centre meant I lived in a state of constant poverty; a state that was exasperated by the need to numb my soul to the mind crushing tedium of my life through the copious use of drugs and alcohol). What would the bank say? Would they even notice anything different? I decided I had to start off small. Peter Parker didn’t start swinging through the streets of New York until he’d spent ages testing the limits of his newfound arachnoidal abilities. I turned the engine off and got out of the car. I walked slowly back into the house, my mind running through different scenarios. I locked the door behind me and stopped at the bottom of the stairs. I caught myself staring at the drifts of dust and hair lurking at the edges of the dirty grey hall carpet (why do all landlords think that sticking carpets in shared houses is a good idea?). This was the house’s ‘no mans land’; we all had our separate bedsits and I’d never cleaned any of the communal areas and was pretty sure no-one else had in my time there. Consequently it was a filthy, neglected space filled with piles of post for long gone tenants (as I ascended to my attic, I imagined future archaeologists sifting through the hundreds of years of muck and finding stray strands of my hair). I had now formulated a test. I paused at my door, key hovering over the lock, eyes screwed shut. This is the reality where my fridge is full of beer and not just the empty jar of peanut butter that had kept its solitary vigil for months. Start small. Four hours later I was drinking Krug with a super model.

Four
They say that power corrupts but I don’t think that they understand the full implications of what they’re saying when they say it. It’s one thing for a politician to give business to his mates but what happens when your power is complete mastery of reality? Just take a minute out of your day now and try to imagine what that sort of power feels like to wield. Now think of how such power would change you. Look at young footballers when they suddenly find themselves earning fifty grand a week. It sends them mental and then we’re all shocked and surprised when they get into vicious fights or are caught on film doing bad things to girls. Now imagine walking down the street and anybody that you walk past who you take a fancy to, you can make take a fancy to you too. A very strong fancy. It’s like being Jimmy Page in nineteen seventy but without having to have sex with guitars on stage and worshiping Satan. You can walk past any cash machine and find a hundred squid. Hell, you can find pretty much as much money as you like. I became a total arse, flashing the cash and shagging around. I careered through the city like a car crash on speed leaving chaos and heartache in my wake. After all that grew dull I started changing me. I grew faster, fitter, stronger. I started getting into fights, nasty fights where I would annihilate my adversaries, preferably in public to humiliate them. I was turning into a monster. Then things got really strange. I started seeing things in my peripheral vision; not in the way that you do, these were things that lurked there permanently that I couldn’t dispel by turning my head. They would come up close and I was able to almost see them just standing there staring. The first time that one of them spoke, all thin and scratchy, I was sick with fear. It said just two words. ‘Join us.’

Five
So that’s how I shuffled off your mortal coil, slipped silently sidelong into the shadows. Now I am an umbratious thing of nightmare. A haunting horror. When I crawl through your bedroom at night my touch leaves you sweating and gasping for air like a stranded fish. I tie you up in your bedclothes and fill your mind with stolen memories of being buried alive. When you’re home alone I’m lying under your bed and in the open wardrobe and when you wash your hair I almost touch you just to make sure you know that I’m there. You glimpse me out of the corner of your eye when you walk the streets at night but you can never truly see me in your waking life. I come to you in sleep and use you as I wish; I degrade you and humiliate you, abuse and misuse you. When you wake with cramp it is my ghost that has been riding you hard to make your muscles scream in protest. I seed your soul with poison so that you find it impossible to sleep and when your heart fills with dread and shame at four in the morning it is me whispering doubt in your ear. I am truly damned, a thing of dread. If I had a mind to care about such things, I would ponder what brought me here. Was it always in me? This darkness? Or did your world break the optimistic youth who thought that there was a little bit of good in everyone and that love could conquer all? Did it crush all joy and hope from that body? Shred away all that was good in tiny strips, one quivering, bloody slither at a time? It would be all too easy for me to point a finger at your world where you eat the flesh of animals that never see the light of day and poison all around you and let your young die in their millions. But I think it would be unfair. You see, I like it here. I belong here. I simply wanted you to know, that I live in the dark. You live in the light. I see you at all times.

Then each one has the Storyhunters logo and this blurb...

Anarchy in the Ultraverse
Seven Arts Centre
Harrogate Road, Chapel Allerton
19:30 on Weds 15th October
This show contains flashing lights, strong language and mind bending ideas.
Adults only. £ 4 / £ 3

10D storystuff

2008-09-08T01:30:00.000-07:00

Word doc (in zip file) of 1st draft of mockumentary from me. Goes through 10 dimensions of storystuff. Can also begin to double as M-Theory lecture.

http://www.storyhunters.co.uk/storystuff10d.zip

The Jenny Greenteeth posters aer still there two weeks later.

2008-09-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

All these were stuck up in Gledhow Valley Woods and pretty much taken down straight away by The Friends of Gledhow Valley Woods. Grrrrr!

This is what brave, devilishly handsome storyhunters look like.

2008-09-07T07:57:00.000-07:00

When they go out and about story planting.

The most uncomfortable bench in the world...

2008-09-07T07:56:00.000-07:00

yeah, more o' t' same

2008-09-07T07:53:00.000-07:00

Goblinz innit!

2008-09-07T07:44:00.000-07:00

Jenny Greenteeth

2008-09-07T07:37:00.000-07:00

ha ha

This looks like lurky Jenny Greenteeth water if ever I saw some.

I'n't Leeds pretty!

2008-09-07T07:34:00.000-07:00

This is the view across Gledhow Valley in North Leeds

This one had a couple of typos, doh!

2008-09-07T07:28:00.000-07:00

Mark II it's behind you poster...

2008-09-07T07:12:00.000-07:00

...the point with a few of these 'next generation' of posters was to leave them away from the path so that the passerby would only see the 'important notice' part of the poster then stray from the path in order to read the stupid message I've put on them...

Free Fax

2008-09-06T01:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.burnham-on-sea.co.uk/fax.html

Talks in 7 on Tuesday 2nd September

2008-09-05T07:41:00.000-07:00

CERN...

2008-09-05T07:31:00.000-07:00

...get's turned on at 08:30 on Wednesday 10th September.

Storyfaxing

2008-09-05T06:29:00.001-07:00

Here's an idea
Fax stories or clues to people or places
see if they take the bait

Mocumentary

2008-09-02T06:22:00.000-07:00

More reality the better

Tie in local news
And as much science as possible
And local myths, legends, history – make this deliberately convoluted (and hard to follow?) so it sounds like conspiracy theory
Real history
Real conspiracy theories

Interviews with people – local psychic, storyplanters, veteran hunter

Footage of story stuff

Footage of stories – ala yeti in Gledhow

Discovery of artifacts in library, museum, attic, cellar
Find an alternative map of Leeds – Trollbeck, etc.

Could be a plot about someone who has gone missing and the discoveries that are made along the way of trying to find out what’s happened to them – or could be trying to find out if the story of monkey girl is true – create monkey girl legend, post it up on websites (loads of urban myths sites), then try and find her?

Should be some cannibalism in there too

Website update

2008-08-23T00:56:00.000-07:00

Website's been updated in case photo trail leads anyone to search for Storyhunters and find us - maybe one of the photo finders will get in touch. Should keep creating and leaving 'monkey girl' photos around.

Also addded link to download signage from website. This page can grow.

Storyplanting in Paris

2008-08-22T14:43:00.000-07:00

The four photographs were burnt down one side.

They each had "Is this her? Storyhunters." scribbled on the back in pencil.

They were then left to be found around the Paris train and Metro network, mostly on platforms though one was on a train.

The doctored old photograph was printed on photographic paper, scrunched up and ripped, covered in tea to make it brown, one of them had food colouring dripped on it.

It's BEHIND you!

2008-08-20T23:42:00.001-07:00

Petrified dog head from Gledhow Valley, Leeds

2008-08-20T23:36:00.000-07:00

Evidence of Cockatrice, Basilisk or Gorgon activity in the city. The stories are getting bolder...

Posters in Meanwood Valley, Leeds

2008-08-20T23:28:00.000-07:00

Internet hoaxes

2008-08-20T03:41:00.000-07:00

Did you see this month's Fortean Times with the story about the time traveling guy? www.johntitor.com/

Faraway Tree

2008-08-17T10:51:00.001-07:00

I have a dream.
Of an installation in Meanwood Vally where we create a tree that has a trunk which, at its base, is 10 foot in diameter and climbs up into the sky so high you can't see the top. The actual construction could be made so it is an illusion, getting thinner as it goes up to give the impression, through warped perspective, that it's much higher than it is.

Minipins

2008-08-17T10:44:00.000-07:00

Loving this:
http://little-people.blogspot.com/

It's mostly all inner city stuff, but minipins in Meanwood Valley would be a great StoryHunters project.

StoryPlanting in Meanwood Valley

2008-08-16T05:43:00.000-07:00

Storyplanting

2008-08-16T01:44:00.000-07:00

Just off StoryPlanting in Meanwood Vally as part of the StoryHunters project. Here's the signs we made:

Poster Signoff

2008-08-11T05:51:00.000-07:00

Here's the sign off for the bottom of posters. You should be able to make the posters in WORD and just paste this onto the bottom.

Poster ideas

2008-08-11T05:23:00.005-07:00

Poster ideas

2008-08-11T05:23:00.003-07:00

Poster ideas

2008-08-11T05:23:00.001-07:00

Poster ideas

2008-08-11T05:22:00.003-07:00

Poster ideas

2008-08-11T05:22:00.001-07:00

Poster ideas

2008-08-11T05:21:00.003-07:00

Poster ideas

2008-08-11T05:21:00.001-07:00

Poster ideas

2008-08-11T05:19:00.000-07:00

Poster for Meanwood

2008-08-11T04:59:00.000-07:00

Some ideas what I had walking the dog this morning - I don't have the powers to make these into proper posters and some of them we'll need to have a look at where the originals are so we can replicate 'em as much as pos - if it'll help I could even take the camera and a ruler into the aprk tonight when I walk Danny the Dingo...

Steampunk Compootah Too...

2008-08-11T02:13:00.000-07:00

Steam Punk Tree House

2008-08-09T15:37:00.000-07:00

Just cool
http://www.steamtreehouse.com/

Weird photo

2008-08-05T15:55:00.000-07:00

Print this out, crumple it up, stain it with tea, tear it a little and scribble 'storyhunters' on the back.

Then leave it lying around in the next hotel room you're at. Or on a table in a cafe.

(sorry Auntie Jan, it's just such a good photo!)

It should be the right res for a 6x4 photo:
http://www.paranoidlimited.com/storyhunters/hotelphoto.jpg

Warning Faeries

2008-08-05T13:03:00.000-07:00

A4 Faerie warning poster

http://www.storyhunters.co.uk/warning faeries.jpg

Ticket Maker

2008-08-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

PSD file & Font to make all the tickets you require

http://www.storyhunters.co.uk/faketicket.psd

http://www.storyhunters.co.uk/Challenge.zip

Story Activists

2008-08-02T22:57:00.000-07:00

Ok. So Stoyhunters entered a new phase this week. Rather than persue many things at once we're developing the idea of being story activists which should go on to feed and enable all other SH activity.

The idea is to take the graffiti aspect of StoryHunters and go on an active campaign which begins to layer the story world over the real world. In this way we overlay the fantastic onto the mundane.

This post is intended to be a repository for all SH activism ideas. Those ideas do not have to, but should where possible, guide people back online so they can continue to be involved with the Storyhunters - one of the goals being to actually recruit Story Planters who will go on to fuel the movement.

An example of this activity goes from installations, such as the creation of faerie graveyards to swapping labels on apples in supermarkets to turn them into 'poison apples'.

So here goes - all comments to be lists of ideas for storyfying the world:

Narrative as Matrix

2008-07-20T10:51:00.000-07:00

Another idea I've been using for a few years now is the idea of narrative as an all encompassing, all pervading presence - akin to the Matrix in - if I'm telling a story about a chair, that story is ryzometically connected to every other story about chairs or that have chairs in them; I can jump from story to story using these links and everything is connected through the stories. This is why storyhunters are important because it is through narrative that we perceive (and explain those perceptions) the universe. Unchecked, stories can bend and alter reality - the Earth used to be flat with the sun going round it until the story changed and slowly the Earth become a sphere and people stopped falling off the edges.

2008-07-20T10:15:00.000-07:00

And the dinosaurs were around for yonks; as if they didn't develop sentience and have their own technology and civilisations. In fact they were around for so long that there were probably many different dinolisations each separated by millions of years. Everyone knows that the Sphynx was really built about 15,000 years ago and that archeology is mostly made up anyway.

Check out ancient x for some weird artifacts that could easily be relics of the ancient dinosaur civilisations...

www.ancientx.com/nm/anmviewer.asp?a=75&z=1

2008-07-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

I saw Ballerophon's tomb in Turkey - he's the dude who rode Pegasus (the last of the winged horses) to slay Chimaera. If he had a tomb, he must be real right? If he's real then what else is real - it's all real, surely?

Documentaries

2008-07-19T00:31:00.000-07:00

Would like to put mini mock-u / web-u-mentaries on the website.
Would like an audio version of show for radio.

Head spinning with possibilities - need to focus locally on attainable goals.

IDT

2008-07-19T00:30:00.000-07:00

posted an ad on internet classifieds. have received a reply but appears to be from some temptress spambot...

...also posted an IDT ad on a card in the supermarket locally. I wonder if anyone will call the number?

Stencil template for you graf fans

2008-07-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

I don't think graf needs to worry too much about getting the .co.uk out there as we're very visible when searching for 'storyhunters' on the google..

http://www.paranoidlimited.com/storyhunters/img/stencil.gif

Storyhunting is dangerous

2008-07-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

See Joe's broken hand for proof...

Joe thinks

2008-07-06T12:26:00.001-07:00

The Cult of the Storyhunters

2008-07-04T07:37:00.000-07:00

- thinks on the journey back to Leeds from London (after just having been to Hayward to see Hyperbolic Crochet Coral, which was very very cool -

People are often described (by marketeers) as being 'time poor'. People aren't 'time poor' - they're just watching crap on tv cos they're tired.

They're taking in the pulpy stories of:
- celebrities
- brands
- hollywood

Storyhunters creates touchpoints you stumble across and then dares you to investigate something unusual, something that is challenging to your world.

Then we ask you to get involved.
- Become a Storyhunter
- Become a Storyplanter
- Sew narrative,grafitti throughout your city
- Create, shape and build myths
- join the cult

(is this the begining of our manifesto?)

Specifically recruiting by role?
e.g.
- sales reps (hotel room plants)
- digirati (putting links in your signature)
- schoolkids (notice boards in schools)
- paperboys & girls (door dropping)
- anyone (doctor's waiting rooms / public spaces)

Meeting with Alison from Arts Council

2008-07-04T07:36:00.000-07:00

Last night we met with Alison Andrews (and her 2 kids) in Seven for a very enjoyable couple of drinks and some sound thinking / advice.

Potted summary that I took away from the meeting...

1. The Arts Council (and people like Alison) aren't just a funding organisation who have a bunch of criteria that need filling and then they just hand over the readies. They're a place / organisation / people with whom to have a conversation about the arts in relation to what you're (we're) doing..

2. Audiences. Your audience is anyone who interacts with your work - that includes academics who study it, commercial consumption of it, critical review of it - all audiences have the same value as audiences.

3. Allow others to participate – don’t be over protective of the idea. Allow it to develop a life of its own – give it wings.

4. Take it seriously. How serious are you about what you want to do? What does it mean to you? If you take it more seriously and make it work for you then others (including the Arts Council) will take it more seriously.

phrase of the night (from me)...
"I want to tell my own stories, not the stories of big corporations."

Alison's interpretation of this... (as interpreted by me)
"The modern world bombards us with meaningless stories (which are formulated to sell soap powder) - we are fighting for the meaningful ones - the ones which make us think about the world around us and understand / question who we are.

IDT stories on the train

2008-07-03T13:46:00.000-07:00

Been planning Inter Dimensional Travel stories on the train and think I've come up with an explanation for why everything's in terrible danger... we'll see..

Level 5
Time wars

The grandfather paradox is a red herring. It's small fry human problems. Kill your grandad - basically you both die and it has very little impact or significance on the universe. In fact there are only a few junctions in the histories of the universe where roads cross and the outcome of an action makes a significant difference.

It is around these junctions that the fiercest of unending time wars are fought and re-fought as council representatives from the five ancient eternities - the CABAL - fight doggedly to regain control from the Miso Dynasty. The power of the CABAL reigned for untold eternities. But the Miso Dictotorship, a small history of violence and corruption, stole a weapon far advanced of their understanding. Effectively a Hypernova cannon; a weapon so powerful it can shoot unstable hypergiant stars into other time paths, displacing mass across different time spaces and causing (if shot in the right places) devastating effects such as entire galaxies being nutralised.

The controlling shots from the Miso Dynasty created a situation where the ancient civilisations had their histories severely neutered and the Miso Dynasty became an Ultra History - lasting longer and being more stable (and controlled by a single species line) than anything anywhere else. This allowed the Misos to develop technology that was unparallelled and control the time junctions.

Can we trick the Miso Dynasty into revealing its weak spot? Can we help the CABAL reinstigate stability and peace in the paralell histories of the universe?

6. Alternative Realities

There are many worlds, entire alternative histories that arose from the big bang on paths so wild and awry that their winding realities do not touch our own. Difficult to cross, devils to access. There are treasures beyond imaginiation here. Faerie gifts, elvish princesses, dragons hordes - a man who can access these places and is brave enough to fdace an unknown foe can have power and wealth beyond dreams.

Dark lords rule their domains with ferocious beasts and fearsum weapons. Benevolent wizrds manage societies with powerful magik and all seeing eyese. Witches see the future - monsters must be slain...

a love story? a quest?

7.

The slums of heaven...

outside the pearlyu gates is a shanty town for eternity's ne'er-do-wells. punspares and reeferines, lithunids and protomals - pushers selling glimpses of eternal happiness. Some of these animals shit through their eyeballs - others hurt to look at.

insiode the gates angels live in decadence - whoring and gorging - there is no god, they are lightbeests fornicating with every consciousness they can find. surpsising each other with discoveries of a brand new kick. sex slaves, new foods, fine wines, exotic drugs and the most glorious art. their palaces stretch upwards for a hundred miles - their eternal appitites, insatiable.

ceasar / brutus - betrayal?
the gap? the doors open?
marie antoinette? revolution?
neil gaiman's hell short story?

8.

The gods are angry
two gods fight for all eternity
creation myths - their activities create new worlds - their actions create collosal events.

in fact - the high tech weapons of the 5th D wars are pheramones which attract vain 8th D gods (nectar / ambrosia) causing what - to 5th D eyes - is a huge chemical reaction - buit is actually an 8th D creatuyre tearing a mountain to pieces with a wave of his hand.

why are they fighting? to prove who is the most powerful... (puss in boots)

9.

Meet God / Allah.

He pities our tiny brains - for he makes us do what we do. He is destiny - filling his book. Cataloguing every possible outcome of every possible reality - creating and decvising with a noble exploratory mind.

"I imagine eternities - I bring universes into being. I am always there. I am lonely - there is only one of me"

He exists on a different plane to all others like him - He blinks tthroughou everything, eternally creating, expereinecing everything -he could possibly imagine. But he is a fool. He thinks that he is responsible for everything whereas he is simply on an eternal walk of discovery.

A vain god
a jelous god
(trinity - father9 son3 holy ghost7?)
the futility of god
the insignificance of his subjects to him

god's mysterious ways (does he even see us?)

10.

\the end of the story.

a garden
a man sat in the garden
not many transcend to this level of understanding
some spend a million years as a rock floating in space so they can better understand soluidude.
some will be a water molecule.
but there's trouble in nirvana
the flowers in the garden are dying
things are un-happening
realities are petrifulying
things that were are ceasing to have been.
this should not be possible
there's nowhere for an attack to come from. possibility cannot become impossible - and yet it is..

The 11 layers of reality are closing together like a circle
so 10 is being folded across 0
as a result 'nothing' is cancelling out 'everything' (as ultimatly nothing is more powerful?)

maybe we did this by venturing beyond our realm of understanding. when CERN folded the 4th dimension the rest of the dimensions had to re-balance and this started a chain reaction which is in danger of destroying the whole of everything. Do we have to put everything back where it was?

How do we tell the people in the white coats "enough is enough?"

Old Stuff from meeting in the Hulats

2008-07-02T08:50:00.000-07:00

Found these notes form t' Hulats and 'though we've most of this stuff I thought some of it was worth revisiting...

Atmosphere - Lady Purple (Angela Carter); Shadow of the Colossus
- urban myths playing up - characters who are the personification of urban myths ala Fiddlers Green in "Sandman"

Rivalries - fairy gold and how to distribute it - tech geek versus story teller
Dream adventures
Why halfie halfie story theatre - should it all be storytelling or all theatre or in between or neither...

THINGS ARE GETTING WORSE

The End
CERN - here/now/astronomy/astrology - fake prophecy; get past the government by pretending to be nothing but performing artists
- urban myths linked to the news (will have to start reading lots of local and world news)
- confirmation of facts using news reports; seeding internet/others - living stories (grow/change/develop/evolve - get better or more)
- ultraterrestrial/ultradimensional
-where does story stuff come from? human psyche? - why is there more now? - has there always been stoyhunters?
- zeitgeist - loops in stories; traps in stories / over used - creates pollution

Urban Myth Wish List
Al Quaidaa; End time/end of days - meek shall inherit the earth; vnations' fighting was over land (durrr!); CERN
- hooks; save the world/create an urban myth

myths of objects / places

- events; loads of little stories related to location - FILM EVERYTHING - "this is what you should be doing in your local area!" (pointy finger) - post your telling of local stories / corruption of local stories - hmmm, is that good or bad?...

Laters potaters.

last night's notes

2008-07-02T08:24:00.000-07:00

Must retell stories
- like a story (when storytold) - have stepping stones, not the script

Museum of story things
- the straw that broke the camel's back

Overall message
- this is real
- this is happening
- take up arms
join the fight
- be a hero!

Who's the Baddy?
Made up dude - like Fu Manchu / Ming / Baron Greeback...
- the cartell
- the corporation
- mad bob...

Named or recognised thing
- the devil
- capitalism
- pollution

God just bored - making stuff up

Person from our reality just dabbling - messin wiv stuff they don't comprehend - could be an organisation (government / religion / corporation)

7D / 8D ultraviolent and volatile - Asgard

- Ice age
- baddy
- cancer
- war
- all of the above
hence why here and now is barren

stroystuff
- every dimension relies on stories
- stories are the matrix of 10D space

Each dimension contains nice and nasty people and things

That cabbage could be a 10D creature

Each dimension is created by stories. when the first story became aware of everything it created 10D

Switchark! - imagine dimensions as ocean - bits are teeming with live whilst other are barren...

what i wrote waiting to have my pot off

2008-07-02T07:54:00.000-07:00

Tools
Treasure hunts
- real world clues leading participant across the city picking up bits of the story as they go

Download walks
- listen through headphones to stories of the city whilst being lead around the city (too old hat?)

Counter cartographies
- Walk-talk-walk; mix real history shamelessly and blatantly with myth and hocum - picnic in strange places; tour of Mordor through Leeds? tee hee!

Posters
- missing / wanted / end of the world / evangelical / call to arms, "your reality needs you!"
- multiple routes to story's start

QR
- download short stories to phone

Artifacts
- objects in situ; "...and they buried the tiny man right here in Leeds and if you know where to look you can still see her grave to this day!"

T-shirts
- just plain cool stuff

Shop Windows (Cold Bath)
- local stories / twisted and shocking / suck you into the daaark...

Newspapers
- how easy is it to start false stories ala Tadcaster tigers and Philidelphia Project? somehow seed stories through bogus reports; the storyhunters are real - like ghosthunters but cooler?

Blog
- story reporters across the country/map of story activity
- report performances
- false reports of stakeouts / clues / info about government cover ups / mix with real conspiracies and real news as much as pos - let's take ownership of silly conpiracies and weave them with our own story logic into our myth

Mythology
- starting myths / legends / writing our own history of the city - our version of what happened and why and how (Thames Bungler)

Books
- set of volumes / magic when brought together (ala 7 swords of Wayland)
- random stories in miscellaneous styles?
- one style / many stories?

Ubermyth
- need chart / pirate map to collate it all into a cohesive whole

Grafitti

Thoughts

2008-06-29T02:21:00.001-07:00

1.
Download system scan file which checks your computer for storyware. Protect your system. Download scans your computer's registry and when it finds stories (which it invariably does) you are asked if you want to 'read','isolate' or 'purge' the story - just like spyware scans.

2.
Storystuff's dreadful conclusion is the total destruction of eveything - not just human life, not just our universe, but every universe and every possibility that ever existed in all of them. It's like a 10th dimensional cancer and it's going to turn everything into cold, hard, stone.

3.
As storystuff gets stronger it takes over people, the actual stuff becomes the stuff you battle, imbued with the stories within it this is how those stories take form and become seriously dangerous.

New Storyhunters Websites - development

2008-06-28T16:37:00.001-07:00

The website is designed to be usable on a modern internet phone (e.g. iPhone). Background (and colours / fonts etc.. I guess) are easily updatable. Content's the important thing now.

http://www.storyhunters.co.uk/webtest

Storyhunting photos

2008-06-21T23:47:00.000-07:00

To inspire or illustrate stories. Here's a random collection of strange and evocative photos to inspire or illustrate stories.

http://picasaweb.google.com/andjambro/Storyhunting

Twitter

2008-06-21T23:42:00.000-07:00

Twitter is a social networking thing, but basically like the bit on Facebook where you just get to spout off about what you're doing. The idea being that everyone following you gets a general update all the time about where your head's at.

You get 140 characters for each post.

For the X dimension travelling tales I thought it would be good way to subscribe to quick stories. Wonder if 140 characters per day (or so) is enough to tell a good story).

Here's my Twitter page - think I'll probably set up a Storyhunters one:
http://twitter.com/andjambro

Imagining the 10th dimension

2008-06-16T15:39:00.000-07:00

These are really good.

Religion & Ultra-Terrestrails Link Possibilities

2008-06-15T01:10:00.000-07:00

Vatican's mathmatics arm founded in 1936:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontifical_Academy_of_Sciences

has among its memebers Edward Witten (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Witten)a key individual in string & M Theories - M theory is the theory which concludes that there are 10 or 11 dimensions.

The End?

2008-06-13T05:28:00.000-07:00

Ok. So - why do I think we need an 'end'.
Well - basically because it's a story and without and end we're a soap opera and I'm not sure I want that..

The CERN stuff seems the best place to start if you ask me. Here's the low down..

Basically one of the things the new particle accelerator will be able to do is test whether timespace is benadble. If it IS then it's possible to create wormholes which would be shortcuts to and from the future. However, the wormholes CERN will create will be tiny and only open for a fraction of a second (if they actually can do it). Which means no time travellers in 2008 - however, it could be a good tie in for 2010
http://www.gizmowatch.com/entry/are-scientists-at-cern-promising-time-travel-by-end-of-2008/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider

CERN are planning to produce micro-black holes and all sorts of shit..

So we should be able to start tying Tesla, Ultra-Terrestrials, CERN & The Opus Dei and the CIA together to make an explosive end where we get ourselves into all sorts of trouble. How about Tesla's not dead he's an inter-dimensional traveller with Ultri-Terrestrials who will use the LHC at CERN to come back and...

Illustrating stories

2008-06-09T23:26:00.001-07:00

How do we illustrate / enhance stories? Could be good to try and collect a series of photographs which are used alongside written word. Certainly good for covers of ‘mini-books’.

(the photo below is a collection of teeth and jaw bones found in the Thames)

I'll upload a bunch of other photos...

2008-06-09T23:05:00.000-07:00

QR Specific stories are cute as they are invisible until you scan them.

They can be specific to mobile phones (as with the example below - it's a story that's been smuggled out of prison on a mobile phone) - they can even be guerilla style - i.e. put them on famous things you might expect a QR code to exist on, but deliver a story instead.

They should always be very very short.

Question is - will anyone ever read them? Answer is - yes, if they become famous.

Here's the story - remember, it's supposed to be read on a mobile phone:

i am writing from my cell.
you don't want to know what i had to do to get hold of a mobile phone so i could upload my story.
but it's importatnt that it is told to the world at any cost.
u c i'm a cartoonist. i used to write sci fi stuff. shit really. not very successful.
then i met this girl at a party.
she was really hot. i talked with her all night. she was like lara croft or something.
she said she was an activist. wanted to blow up strip clubs. i don't think she ever did.
but the idea caught my imagination. and i started drawing this story.
the heroine was a really hot girl called Nemisis after the Greek godess of vengence.
anyway, i drew her really sexy, the best stuff i'd ever drawn.
in retrospect she was probably a bit too much of a wet dream to be a feminist hero,
but i'm not saying i'm clever or anything. i'm a dumb, fucking shit.
anyway there was only one issue. the story was how she got fucked off with strip clubs.
she had an eastern eurpoean friend who started working in this club.
and the owners were wankers and it ended up being the first steps for her
on a road to drugs, exploitation, rape and eventually death.
Nemesis swears vengence and starts blowing up strip clubs, starting with the one her friend worked at.
there was this really cool cell of nemesis walking away from the exploding club just saying the words 'boom'.
search for it on the net - you'll definitely find it.
basically the story went ballistic. the comic totally sold out.
it wasn't long before people had copied it and it was all over the net.
all that was pretty cool i thought. i was getting ready to do issue 2.
then all of a sudden these cut out speech bubbles start appearing on strip clubs around leeds.
they just say 'boom', just like in the comic.
and the owners start getting worried. like this is a warning.
more and more of these things startt to appear, all over the clubs they are.
then one day i turn on the radio and find that this new superclub is opening, down in city square.
except the day it opens it actually happens. someone blows the fucker up.
twelve people die.
and then the police get wind of my comic which i sold alot of in leeds cos that's where i'm from.
i didn't have anything to do with the bombing, i'm just trying to write a cool fucking comic.
except the cops take me in for incitement to riot.
i'm not even fucking political.
pass my story on to everyone you know. we're living in a police state.
all i did was draw a fucking cartoon and now i'm a terrorist.
they reckon they can hold me for like 90 days without even arresting me. it's likke fucking russia or something.

peace
rolacosta

Missing Poster

2008-06-02T15:43:00.000-07:00

Try phoning the phone number. :D
Go on...

Appropriated Reverberative Ultra Matter 401/57

2008-05-31T23:47:00.000-07:00

Matter appropriated from site in Wallasey, Merseyside

Matter preserved in high grade biosolution has become visible to the naked eye. Breaking down of matter appears to have halted. It is unknown what has become of the story elements it represents.

Story for Cold Bath?

2008-05-31T16:20:00.000-07:00

Waking the dead

Late in the summer of nineteen ninetyeight (ten years ago to the day) we’d got a taxi to the end of a lane out past Rawdon, but he wouldn’t take us no further.
The overgrown driveway was littered with crustys and space cadets and the air hung thick with smoke from fires and pipes.

A primal roar filtered through space and branches, polluted by yobbish caws and horn blasts. Six policemen fidgeted by a patrol car; a peace-force keener to direct and assist than to start busting chops.

The grounds were stalked by scattered packs of the teen underground, gleeful to be there, moodily lit by the iridescence of the visual noise thundering from the abandoned hospital.

It was unreal.

A twisted horror set. The abandoned infirmary infested by blind, stumbling half people moaning and drooling. A raging inferno bellowing out from within, spewing forth the cries of the damned. Adrenalin fuelled anticipation and all you wanted to do was get inside and explore. Everything the sober mind tells the kids in the movies not to do begged to be done.

Let’s split up.

People would get jobs in security companies they knew would get this kind of gig. Solitary security guards, lonely and venerable in impressive buildings scheduled for demolition out in the sticks. Turn away writers and kids throwing stones at the windows. They’d get the job and plan the occupation. You could feel the pulse jolt through the network. This was before technology was king, secrets whispered through pubs and places of work, nightclubs and colleges. Schoolkids would pin up handwritten posters on lined A4 paper, cheap flyers were passed like contraband fist to fist. Then one night, crumpled and flaking, a badly scaled map would be followed, tentatively at first, but soon you saw them. Uniformed and knowing; moshers and punks, ravers and crustys, squatters and poets and artists and thieves and now you don’t need the map, you can smell the party.

So I go inside.

So excited. First thing, it’s loud. And blinding and dark and blinding and dark. I find five rooms of madness on the ground floor, soundsystems strapped into precarious bundles crammed into boxes heaving with sweat and hair. Video projections like Francis Bacon did the sixties thrown onto crumbling walls flaky with paint. A physical force of noise daring you to surrender to an introspective sensory hyper-reality.

I walked on.

Room upon room was empty but for thrilled pioneers swimming wide-eyed through the dream. Then voices. Soon light. And uncontrollably drawn I follow the glow to drink in the narrative.

This room’s got about twelve people in it. There’s a slab in the very centre of it. Like a bed, or an altar. It has a plug hole. Attached around it a steel arm, machinery from a Japanese animation; people are pulling and twisting it. On the wall, further back, there’s a light box, a big one, and it’s working. It’s covered in x-rays, fractures and skulls. The air is electric, windows broken, debris piling in the corners and cold, so the smoke tastes good. I’d come alone, but these people were my brethren. I joined the players and took my part. We cooed and fawned over the terror of it, knowing that these were the moments magic could happen.

Hey Hey 16k

2008-05-28T15:24:00.000-07:00

See - I like all the Speccy stuff - I know that might be just me - but there's a whole generation out there who 'get' this...

By the way - here's the best ever Speccy emulator
ftp://ftp.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/emulators/pc/windows/zxspin0.622.zip

And here's almost every game ever made (except some of the best Ultimate ones, but if you search for .tzx files you tend to be able to find stuff like Jet Pac too)
http://tzxvault.retrogames.com/

And yes, Lords of Midnight is there.
(tell Anna I'm sorry)

Have fun :)

The Storyhunter Files

Some photos

The girl who loved to dance...

10D in Burley

Malmo Photos

Radio Silence

Midsummer Mustard Show

Notebook - April 28th 2009

The Storyhunters Take Malmo

Another Moorling story...

Ghost Stories

Story Posters for Burley in Wharfdale

Each story must...

Theoretic poster for a gig at John's pub in Burley

SPOILER ALERT - show 'scripts'

Blurb for Baht'at Posters

New Show

Music to tell stories to...

A roaring success

Nearly Wednesday!

More stories in Gledhow

Yet more posters (in Meanwood Valley, Leeds)

More thinks from the magic notebook.

Thinks from the magic notebook.

Gledhow posters

Anarchy Flyers

Pretty Gledhow - 26th September 2008

Posters are popping up everywhere!

But how do you get to number 57?

I don't remember writing this. Was I drunk?

Andrew's Alternative Sainsburys Shopping List

Story posters on the street where the bike shop is.

Full story posters advertising the gig at Seven

10D storystuff

The Jenny Greenteeth posters aer still there two weeks later.

This is what brave, devilishly handsome storyhunters look like.

The most uncomfortable bench in the world...

yeah, more o' t' same

Goblinz innit!

Jenny Greenteeth

I'n't Leeds pretty!

This one had a couple of typos, doh!

Mark II it's behind you poster...

Free Fax

Talks in 7 on Tuesday 2nd September

CERN...

Storyfaxing

Mocumentary

Website update

Storyplanting in Paris

It's BEHIND you!

Petrified dog head from Gledhow Valley, Leeds

Posters in Meanwood Valley, Leeds

Internet hoaxes

Faraway Tree

Minipins

StoryPlanting in Meanwood Valley

Storyplanting

Poster Signoff

Poster ideas

Poster ideas

Poster ideas

Poster ideas

Poster ideas

Poster ideas

Poster ideas

Poster ideas

Poster for Meanwood

Steampunk Compootah Too...

Steam Punk Tree House

Weird photo

Warning Faeries

Ticket Maker

Story Activists

Narrative as Matrix

Documentaries

IDT

Stencil template for you graf fans

Storyhunting is dangerous

Joe thinks