branch

You’re invited to explore the forest and to nurture it with your storytelling. In the forest, all stories are sparked by a ‘what if?’, which is your invitation to imagine a different world. Write your own story or ‘what if,’ and play with the creations of others. You can:

Explore to play stories:  Everyone who visits the forest is invited to add to it. If you choose to explore, you’ll find stories and ‘what ifs?’ written by others. Explore to find stories that are speculative futures, others that are possible pasts or alternative presents. Some stories you encounter will talk of worlds very close to the reality we know, others will describe possibilities much further away.

Nurture to create stories: If you choose to nurture, we invite you to write a story or ask ‘what if?’. Your story might be an insight into a possible reality, or a vast sprawling narrative. Write a story to experiment with futures, alternatives and what could be: for us, for others, for the planet.

Enter the forest to begin.

branch is a playful, collaborative and co-authored artwork that grows through participatory storytelling. The project invites everyone to get lost in speculative futures, possible pasts, alternative presents; to join together to explore and nurture what could be.

branch was created by digital storyteller, game designer and creative mathematician Mel Frances in collaboration with a group of nine Creative Consultants: Laura Aris, Taniya Batra, Divjot Kaur, Phantom Lovewell (they/them), Matthew Elliot Pitfield, J Ponte, Vaishnavi Singh, Luke St Clair, Vaishna Surjid.

branch developed through ‘Playtesting Futures,’ a series of online workshops led by Mel Frances that involved an iterative process of play-testing, group discussion and learning how to use a free, open source game-making software called twine, shaping the resulting artwork over the course of three months. Over the course of these workshops the artwork grew, adapted and changed as new ideas, stories and possibilities were created. Much like branch itself, where each time you return there will be a different forest, and you can choose a different route through it.

branch is specifically interested in exploring something called interactive storytelling. Unlike normal stories, this method of storytelling offers the player alternative pathways and endings depending on their choices. branch explores how interactive stories might open up ways for us to explore and imagine test out multiple futures, ‘what ifs’ and alternatives with many different people. Because interactive stories give individuals a choice in how they interact or play with a narrative, the medium can be useful for testing out scenarios, making decisions or seeing things from different perspectives. If you play a story as someone else, you’re invited to step inside their narrative, and consider their choices from their point of view. As we play an interactive narrative we craft the narrative together with the story’s creator, nothing is fixed, what you choose and how you act determines what happens next.  

Digital storyteller, game designer and creative mathematician Mel Frances makes interactive experiences including books, performances and games which travel to unknown places, speculative futures and alternative realities. Her practice sits at the intersections of play, art, tech and maths.

Frances is Joint Artistic Director of Produced Moon: a digital, interactive arts organisation based in Scotland, with whom she makes live performance and multi reality work. She is also part of Coney’s guild of interactive theatre and games makers.

Current projects include seer, an interactive digital novella exploring perception & perspective; work as Game Play Artist at the Place Theatre, Bedford, developing a piece of game theatre exploring alternative economies and a series of Sherlock Holmes Escape Books for Ammonite Press, of which Frances is the Co-Author.

branch was created in collaboration with nine creative individuals between the ages of 18-25. Meet our Creative Consultants in the gallery below.