Live, interactive online queer sci-fi series Intrapology is launching this autumn, with performances in September, October, and November. Episode One launches as part of Now Play This Presents, which champions new exciting game projects in the UK and beyond.
Intrapology is all about how people make worlds together, and the cataclysmic social fragmentation that threatens to unmake them. It focuses on the perspectives of neurodivergent queer folk, as alien anthropologists doing fieldwork on earth. They interact via video call with their supervisors at the fictional Transdimensional Research Institute, an alien university that has been decimated by cuts to the fabric of reality. Together they expose the comedy and terror of living in a world that was not built with people like you in mind.
The audience collectively shapes the story, experiencing the show on a web page that looks like the protagonist’s computer desktop. Through this online format, Intrapology aims to reach disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent audiences that have been left behind by the return to in-person events. It aims to move beyond the limitations of online theatre as we know it, with an approach to design that draws on alternative indie games culture.
“This is like a narrative-driven indie videogame, but it’s performed live by real actors”, says creator Zoyander Street, who has been working at the weird fringes of games since the early 2010s. This project began life as a 2021 collaboration between Zoyander and Canadian queer games artist Dietrich “Squinky” Squinkifer. “As a chronically-ill queer person living in Rotherham in the 2020s, it can sometimes feel like the rest of the world has vanished. I rely on online events and communities to feel alive and connected to others.”
Tickets for Episode One: Assigned Earth at Birth are available now
Season One will have a total of five episodes, plus a special scratch performance event in October for commissioned artists making their own short interactive performances with Intrapology’s software. The first two episodes will be performed this autumn, with the support of alternative games festivals Now Play This and Queerness and Games Conference
Episode one: Assigned Earth at Birth – Thursday 26th September 7pm UK time
Tea (Xander Graves) has discovered that they are not an ordinary human – they are a transdimensional being, assigned to earth to carry out anthropological fieldwork. We influence their behaviour in their first meetings via video call with their otherworldly drag king supervisor, Iris (Caitlin Magnall-Kearns). Understandably, Tea is furious about being assigned to such a horrible project, and demands to be reassigned; but relocation has unanticipated consequences for both characters. In partnership with Now Play This
Episode Two: Is ‘Society’ In The Room With Us Now? 21st November 7pm UK time
Hedi (Fadumo Hassan) is a rising star of the tech world, and nobody knows they are secretly an alien anthropologist. Hedi is optimistic about the future – we’re going to solve all our problems with increasingly powerful technology, just like Star Trek. But when the tech world rejects them, it’s up to the audience to decide how they will respond. In partnership with Queerness and Games Conference
Intrapology game jam scratch night 24th October 2024 6pm UK time
Intrapology aims to support other artists to create their own original works in its innovative format of online interactive theatre. An open-source release of Intrapology’s software is under development, with a grant from Innovate UK’s New Innovators in Communication Networks. 7 artists will be awarded £1000 each to create short test pieces, which will be showcased in a “scratch night”.
Tickets for Episode One: Assigned Earth at Birth are available now
For press and media enquiries, please contact
020 3287 9692
Instagram and Tiktok: @intrapology
Press kit: https://intrapology.notion.
About Intrapology
Intrapology is created by Dr Zoyander Street (they/them). Zoyander is a neuroqueer and disabled writer, researcher, and digital artist, creating interactive media based on social and historical research. Their work has been shown around the world, including Tokyo, Berlin, Chicago, Vancouver, and London. They are a supported artist at Sheffield Theatres, and a fellow of the Imaginary College at Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination.
Intrapology’s queer sci-fi storyworld is inspired by the lived experience of queer disabled people, as well as research in feminist technoscience studies. It developed out of a collaboration with Dietrich “Squinky” Squinkifer, and its format is based on their MFA project Coffee: A Misunderstanding, which was a finalist at renowned indie games festival IndieCade 2014 and toured internationally.
Mx. Dietrich Squinkifer (they/he) creates games and playable experiences about gender identity, social awkwardness, and miscellaneous silliness. They are responsible for such critically acclaimed works as Dominique Pamplemousse in “It’s All Over Once The Fat Lady Sings!” and Coffee: A Misunderstanding. In 2015, they were recognized as part of Forbes’s “30 under 30 in Games”.
Caitlin Magnall-Kearns (she/they) plays the role of Iris. They are a writer from East Belfast, and currently part of the BBC Comedy Collective 2024.
In addition to a handful of supporters on Patreon, Intrapology has been made possible by a Project Grant from Arts Council England, and its software is developed with the support of Innovate UK’s New Innovators in Communication Networks. Early development was supported by the Sheffield Theatres Bank Cohort, Barrel Organ Theatre’s Barnsley LIVE, and the New Conversations Canada-UK Exchange (British Council, Canada Council for the Arts, Farnham Maltings, High Commission of Canada in the UK).
