The Nova Gorica city game will use smartphones to send people from two cities who never met before on a mission where they will have to work together to solve a mystery, save the world and get to know something new about their invisible neighbours.

Nova Gorica is a relatively new city – it is less than 75 years old – and it was constructed after this territory was attributed to Yugoslavia after World War II, and the borders between Italy and Slovenia were defined as they are today.

Nova Gorica was created on the outskirts of Gorizia and the two now form a twin-city conurbation with Slovenian and Italian-speaking communities. After the war the two communities were separated by a border between a Western country and a country that was an integral part of the Non-Aligned Movement, meaning that this border represented a threshold not only between the Slavic and Latin world but also a delineation between two major ideologies.

This divide is still felt today as the inhabitants of each city visit the other sparingly and mostly for economic purposes. However – before this divide the territory of Goriška region was mostly unified and historically multi-ethnical. The society consisted of Slovenes, Italians, Friulians, Germans, and a Jewish community that communicated very well and worked as a whole.

The aim of the project is to bring the communities of the two cities together in a theatrical gamified experience using smartphones as the vehicle for the adventure that helps people from the two parts of the city to meet and sends them on a fun adventure based on positive narratives from the territory’s history.

To make this project a success we are looking for an expert who has strategic knowledge and practical experience with large-scale location-based gaming in the public sphere and who additionally has technical knowledge of app-development.

The expert will work closely with theatre director Jure Novak and dramaturg Marko Bratuš from Slovene National Theatre Nova Gorica in advising them strategically and conceptually. Together with the artistic team the expert will develop the game mechanisms and will oversee in an artistic-technical leading role the development of the smartphone-app. Furthermore, it will be the task of the expert to invent and integrate digital tools in the game sphere.

The idea is to use smart objects / interconnected objects which are embedded in the technical structure of the game to increase the interaction of the players.

Also, the expert will collaborate with and guide a small group of students from the department of Creative Media & Game Technologies from Saxion University of Applied Sciences, who are also part of the project.

After the city game is over an interactive workshop will be created by the expert to share all the knowledge and expertise gained in this project with students and professionals alike.

The storyline and the gameplay will be developed between mid-September and November 2023. The ensuing programming and testing phase will go until spring 2024. The premiere of the project will take place at the end of June 2024.

The expert in residence will be working at the Academy for Theatre and Digitality in Dortmund for the research & development phase of the project, as well as in Nova Gorica for the implementation and practical phase of the city game. The general time frame is between mid-September 2023 and July 2024. More specific working periods will be defined with the expert.

If you want to be part of the Nova Gorica city game project as our expert in residence, please send us your CV and a letter of motivation via mail at: acute@theater.digital

• Deadline: Friday 15 September 2023

At the Academy we offer:

• a lively international research laboratory (research, development, production) in a versatile multi-discipline theatre company
• an open and diverse field of work (between numerous institutions from art, technology and science)
• dedicated teams in the various theatre departments

We aim to further increase our percentage of women involved in the project and strongly encourage women to apply. We see ourselves as family-friendly and promote the compatibility of work and family. The Academy for Theatre and Digitality can be reached barrier-free. There is free parking available, an elevator, and a bathroom for people with disabilities. An individual office can be provided.

The Academy for Theatre and Digitality in Dortmund is a globally unique pilot project for digital innovation, artistic research and technology-oriented training and further education for all areas of the performing arts - on, in front of and behind the stage. It was founded 2019 as the sixth department of the publicly funded Theater Dortmund. Central to the work of the Academy are artistic and technical research, prototypical development, application-related testing, practical advice, cultural-political structural formation and networking at regional, national and international level between actors from culture, science and business.