I used a bigfoot hoax as a vehicle for an open-ended "collective fiction" at a summer camp. The collective production of false evidence and documentation reinforced collective belief in the overall fiction. This illustrates the potential effect of fiction in communities where the desire to live and tell a story supersedes the desire for fact.
No one involved in the making of Hidden in Plain Sight would admit that it was fiction publicly and experienced critical fictional moments collectively and as a kind of reality, yet their very involvement in the creation of the illusion ensured that they knew on some level that it was fiction. This double mind is interesting to me.
Narrative is a design element of the shared environment. The kind of story that unfolds in the space we share is alterable and should not be taken for granted.
