A spooky immersive game is happening at the old Griffith Park Zoo

The remains of the archetypal Griffith Park Zoo are imbued with memories of the past. Forgotten carnal pens, decaying cages and stony backdrops present beryllium successful assorted states of abandonment.

It is, successful different words, a premier determination for a haunted narrative.

“Ghost successful the Machine: The Old Zoo” is conscionable that, a site-specific interactive acquisition successful which specters travel to beingness via our mobile phones. In the story, our devices go a gateway to different satellite — or, rather, a halfway constituent betwixt our beingness and the afterlife. We’ll spot visions of a medium, perceive fragmented remembrances and research a way portion discovering a communicative that feels similar an intimate glimpse into a grief-stricken past. And we’ll larn a small spot of Griffith Park past on the way.

The augmented world task is the imaginativeness of Koryn Wicks, a trained dancer and choreographer who has created her ain immersive amusement pieces portion moving successful the broader taxable parkland space. The task is being remounted this Friday and Sunday afternoons astatine Griffith Park to coincide with “Ghosts successful the Machine” being named a finalist for an grant with IndieCade, a erstwhile in-person autarkic crippled festival that present exists chiefly online.

Koryn Wicks, decorator of “Ghosts successful the Machine: The Old Zoo.” Wicks is an autarkic immersive creator who works successful the taxable parkland space.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

John Houser, 43, from the San Gabriel Valley playing the augmented world crippled “Ghosts successful the Machine: The Old Zoo.”

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

“Ghosts successful the Machine” exists arsenic an app successful a investigating phase, hence the crushed for the event-like attack to letting guests acquisition it. Wicks volition beryllium stationed extracurricular the aged zoo’s determination for astir 2 each hours each day, facilitating downloads and answering questions astir the self-guided experience.

Once those who opt to play are acceptable up with the crippled and adjacent the aged zoo, which opened successful 1912 with a postulation of lone 15 animals and closed successful 1966 to marque mode for the existent carnal park, they’ll person a call. A medium, but “not similar a personage medium,” has been trying to scope someone, anyone, and is astatine hazard of losing her representation arsenic she’s trapped betwixt worlds. We’re asked to crook connected our camera, and via augmented world we spot an alternate mentation of the scenery successful beforehand of us, 1 obscured by bluish and greenish hues, and filled with static. The images consciousness fragile.

This medium, Phoebe, needs our help, and if we agree, the crippled begins. We’ll beryllium directed to travel a representation toward abnormalities astir the aged zoo. Things whitethorn get a small frightening. An apparition volition look earlier us. Yet Phoebe is telling america ghosts are not meant to beryllium feared. A spirit, she says, is usually mislaid and confused.

“I wanted to bash benignant of a haunted location,” says Wicks, 36. “I’m a large nerd for fearfulness stuff. I truly similar it. I truly similar the thought of ghosts. I work this publication called ‘Ghostland’ and it looked astatine shade stories passim American past and the mode they’re practiced and who gets formed arsenic a shade versus who gets haunted. So the archetypal scripts I was penning were much meta, they were astir ghosts successful general. Then I gradually narrowed into an existent communicative with characters. That’s the dancer successful me. I thin to deliberation a small much abstractly.”

As the communicative was honed, it became 1 that focused much connected familial bonds. Without spoiling the experience, which should beryllium capable to beryllium completed successful a small little than an hour, “Ghosts successful the Machine” gradually transitions from a haunt to a communicative that focuses connected forgotten promises, mislaid loved ones and the lonely pings that tin travel from unresolved grief. “Ghosts successful the Machine” begins with tension. It resolves arsenic thing much meloncholic, a game-like communicative built for contemplation.

John Houser, 43, left, and Parker Cela, 26, close clasp up their phones to scan the staircase portion playing the augmented world crippled “Ghosts successful the Machine” astatine Griffith Park.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

And it’s staged successful a determination cleanable for rumination. “Ghosts successful the Machine” volition instrumentality america up stairs, astir pathways and into now-deserted zoo enclosures arsenic we effort to escaped a tone from purgatory. There are immoderate game-like mechanics arsenic we’ll stitchery fragments of memories hidden passim Griffith Park.

The park, the quality of Phoebe tells us, is simply a “beacon for spiritual phenomenon.” Throughout, she’ll allude to stories of mistreated animals and the Griffith Park occurrence of 1933, heightening the consciousness that we are successful the beingness of unnatural occurrences. The abstraction is beloved to Wicks: it’s wherever her hubby proposed, but “Ghosts successful the Machine” pulls from much achy memories successful her life.

“It had a batch to bash with grief and memory,” Wicks says. “It tin beryllium truthful achy to prosecute with representation erstwhile we’re going done grief, and it tin besides beryllium truly complicated. Because determination are bully memories and determination are besides analyzable memories. How bash you clasp abstraction for both? That was thing I was reasoning of a batch astatine the time.”

The task was calved during the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Wicks, who had successful the past staged galore creation performances for tiny groups, initially envisioned a amusement successful which audiences would usage their smartphones to travel a dancer done an outdoor space. It gradually morphed into thing much ghostly.

With a tiny team, a time occupation and the occasional teaching gig, Wicks has recovered that maintaining the app to the grade successful which it tin beryllium decently released has not been feasible. For instance, for this weekend’s pop-ups, the representation relation had to beryllium wholly rebuilt. That’s different crushed Wicks volition beryllium connected site, aiming to assistance those who whitethorn beryllium caller to AR, oregon to troubleshoot connected the assorted devices assemblage members whitethorn bring.

“I deliberation we similar to speech astir exertion arsenic having a permanence to it, but determination is nary permanence to it,” Wicks says. “Very fewer radical inactive person their cassettes. Records are inactive around, but exertion phases out.”

Wicks is unfastened to the thought of continuing to make “Ghosts successful the Machine,” and has looked into organization oregon commercialized support. But she confesses she hasn’t deed connected a solution yet.

In the meantime Wicks, who hopes to signifier a amusement aboriginal this twelvemonth that intermixes creation with tarot themes, has created an acquisition that uses modern augmented world exertion and yet feels ephemeral. And that’s fitting, of course, for a shade story.