Introduction:
The Eureka Room is a fascinating and absurdist mixed reality experience that brings together the audience in a unique way. There is an abstract absurdist theme to the experience which gives you a sense that you and the other participants in the room are centerstage while the narrative of the experience leaves you with a feeling of strangeness, absurdity, and connection. The Eureka Room can be experienced with friends, work colleagues, or strangers in groups of various sizes (although 5-10 is ideal).1
User Walkthrough:
This experience is located in a small old house in east Austin on Cesar Chavez. You can park in the small parking lot in the back and then walk into the front door which leads to the orientation room. The orientation room has seating, a TV, and there were plant curtains used as temporary wallpaper. There was some backlighting and a fan. Once we all entered the room, the host introduced himself and started the orientation video which was somewhat vague, had an absurdist, satirical tone, and gave the guidelines for the experience. The video was pretty short (5-10 minutes) and when it was done we entered the Eureka Room experience. This orientation video encouraged interaction and set the tone for the overall experience.
Experience:
There are several different experiences that rotate in and out. Our group ended up participating in three of them. The room we walked into was made of screens on three sides as well as the ceiling, which was where the content was shown during the experience. The experiences themselves involved different live action videos or cartoon character animation videos like the bird below. There were also visuals which were shown on all of the walls that immerse you in the environment similar to a planetarium (although on a smaller scale). Throughout the experience you are instructed to do actions such as high five other people in the room and say a word together in sync. There seems to be a theme and narrative to each experience but it is abstract, convoluted and difficult to decipher. The experiences really center around bringing people together through absurdity.
Who is the Intended Audience?
The Audience is broad, but likely people who have open personalities2(Big 5 personality), enjoy escape rooms, want to have new exciting experiences, and want to connect with others. People who enjoy escape rooms generally like problem solving, connecting, and value discovery. This profile transfers well to the Eureka Room participants. One aspect about the eureka room that is different from escape rooms though is that there is less problem solving and more discovery through experience. While it seems like the opposite experience of an escape room in this aspect, I think that it actually applies to the problem solving audience fairly well, since the underlying value of discovery is still met.
How is Space used in the Experience?
The space is similar to a theater where the participants are part of the narrative, are encouraged to interact, and feel immersed in the experience. The experiences also encourage a participatory culture where everyone involved is encouraged to interact to engage with the story. The audience involvement is explicitly described in the videos on the screen throughout the experience giving the UI high discoverability and high affordance. The effect of these actions aren’t described though which at first caused some confusion; this seems to be part of the experience though since the experience is meant to feel a sense of absurdity—a sense that there isn’t logic to what happens.
Conclusion:
This experience is great in that each experience is uniquely centered around the participants. Each experience creates a new sense of absurdity and connection between those in the experience that stands alone as a memorable experience that is well worth your time.
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