1 Zombies Run!: Outrunning The Living Dead Zombies: Walking, Eating and Performance University of Plymouth Saturday 13th April 2013 Our First Performance It is not certain as to whether running played an important part in our evolution or whether it was a by-product of our walking (Bramble and Lieberman, 2004: 351). Compared to other primates, humans are not very good sprinters. In fact, such running is counter-productive for the body’s needs (ibid: 345). However, what is interesting is that we are the only primates that are capable of endurance running, which, according to evolutionary biologists Dennis M. Bramble and Daniel E. Lieberman, is due to our exploiting of a “mass-spring mechanism” housed in our feet (ibid: 345). Unlike walking, when running there is a moment where both feet leave the ground, where the runner is detached from the earth. However such temporary detachment is countered by gravity, which brings the runner’s foot down to earth with great force – up to four times as much as when walking (Whelan, 2012:113). A rhythmic oscillation occurs between this sensation of being located and dislocated, which makes the act of running always precarious. For artist-researcher Greg Whelan, running is the body’s first performance (2012:113), but ironically within the zombie narrative it is often our last. 2 In this article I am going to discuss my experiences of an audio augmented reality mobile game that combines the zombie narrative with the act of running. Here I wish to illustrate how the physiological effects of running assist in dissolving tensions between the virtual landscape of the game and the real landscape traversed. Within this, I will highlight how running is the very act that defines us as living humans against the slow and shambling undead. However, lurking behind all of this is the presence of the running zombie or zombie 2.0 (Lanci, 2011). What does their running represent? Running and the Living Dead Running has increasingly become a contentious act within the zombie genre. Films such as Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2002) have prompted extensive discussion, due to the fact that most of its infected run. Although in 28 Days it can be debated as to whether these figures are zombies, the running zombie has permeated elsewhere through cinema (Zombieland, 2009), gaming (Left 4 Dead, 2008), and television (Dead Set, 2008), most recently with the film adaptation of Max Brook’s novel World War Z (2013). Simon Pegg, the co-writer of Shaun of the Dead (2004), argues that this inclusion of running has actually simplified the tragic figure of the zombie– “a quick thrill at the expense of a more profound sense of dread” (2008: n.p.). The walking zombie allows humanity to turn and look at them, objectifying them within the ‘zombie gaze’, whereas the running zombie makes this difficult to maintain. Pegg’s assertion that zombies should not run is further supported by psychiatrist Steven Schlozman and his examination of the physiology of the zombie. For 3 Schlozman, the running zombies possess “some sort of higher cortical function” that “allows them to hunt humans” (in Strauss, 2009: n.p.). This is in opposition to the shuffling of the walking variety, which according to neuroscientist Sarah Garfinkel, occurs due to a disruption of the cerebellum – the area of the brain “which is known to promote balance and fluidity of movement” (in Beal, 2013: n.p.). Running therefore is a distinctive human quality – it is what separates us from the zombie. This aspect is made or the more prominent in live action zombie-themed marathon events such as Run For Your Lives (2011-), where runners have to make their way through a gauntlet of people pretending to be the undead. Here the player is “bodily present in the game world” (Eising-Duun, 2011: 4), a landscape that emphasises an oscillation between topophilia and topophobia (Lorimer, 2012: 83). It is this intersection of zombie narratives and exercise that brings me to Zombies Run! a mobile phone game from developer sixtostart. Fitness vs. Flight Over recent years there has been a proliferation of mobile technologies that allow the runner to monitor their performance. However, Zombies Run! is one of a growing number of titles that seeks to gamify exercise by providing a narratological objective for the runner. The game relies primarily on audio, acting as part radio play, part fitness game. All the player has to do in order to propel the narrative onwards is to run. Although the game utilises GPS, this is done as a means for you to monitor your progress afterwards. In truth, you can use this game on a treadmill, the motion sensors of your smartphone detecting your running (Alderman, 2013: n.p.). 4 The premise of the game is that the player acts as a messenger and scout in a postapocalyptic landscape where zombies roam freely. Your job is to find supplies and outrun the zombie hoards whilst uncovering the reasons for how this global atrocity occurred. For Naomi Alderman, co-creator and writer of the game, Zombies Run! allows the player to face a life-or-death situation that reminds them of why they wanted to get fit in the first place (2013: n.p.). It returns them to one of the primal purposes of running – flight. In winter of last year I played the game and what follows is my experience of its first mission. My Run It’s December and I’m staying in the village of Grimley in Worcester. It’s incredibly cold, the landscape has slowly shifted, the floods having cut off certain paths, restricting the ability to walk in certain places. With my headphones plugged in, I start the mission on the phone, peering out through the glass of the front door. The narrative begins. It’s the zombie apocalypse. I’m in a helicopter being sent to Abel Township, one of the few surviving bases. All the information I glean, comes via radio, which is what my mobile phone and headphones now represent. 5 Suddenly our helicopter is shot down. I’m stranded on my own, five miles from the base. On my radio I come in contact with Sam Yao, radio operator at the base I need to get to. Unfortunately, due to the damage sustained to the communication equipment, he can’t hear me, but I can hear him. Sam gives me the zombie forecast: ‘You’ve come down in a nest of hostiles. They’ve heard the noise. They’re coming.’ The game allows me to feel complicit in its prerecorded narrative as if it is happening in the present. This is what Misha Myers refers to as “conversive wayfinding”, in which the individual seeks to convert two monologues into a dialogue (2010: 59). This sense of conversation is important, because according to research conducted by Florian Mueller, Shannon O’Brien and Alex Thorogood (2007), social interaction is a major incentive for why people run. Just having someone there, keeps you running. Five miles from the base, I open the front door and leave the house, which now in my head becomes the ruins of the crashed helicopter. I take a left, heading into the village. I have forty zombies on my tail. Sam tells me to head towards the tower. He must mean the church in the village. On my journey, the game informs me that I have picked up several objects: a pair of trousers and a mobile phone. As I begin to fictionalise the landscape, I remember a rural legend I once heard, which explains why this village is called Grimley. The village is on the River Severn, and in the middle of this river lies a small island. Apparently, during the great plague, sufferers of this disease were left on this island and food and water was ferried to 6 them. Over time, a settlement nearby grew to transport the supplies with ease, and due to the grim nature of its origins it became known as Grimley. With this story in my head, I reach the entrance to the churchyard and automatically shut the gate behind me. Zombies have a “malfunctioning frontal lobe, the part of the brain associated with problem solving” and therefore would struggle to open this simple gate (Jacobson, 2010: n.p.). The cold air starts to chill my lungs. I’m suddenly reminded of how unfit I am. I see someone in the distance, and instinctively I duck behind a grave. Did I do this as a runner fleeing a zombie or as a person caught in the act of roleplaying? According to Sam, the main hoard of zombies is behind me and will be coming out of that forest soon. I look around and find a small patch of trees. Is that the forest Sam means? He tells me to head towards the saw mill in order to avoid them. I spot the sand and gravel quarry in the distance, smile at the slight coincidence, and head straight for it, running down a small hill. In a game such as this, nothing outside of the gaming architecture is “created to serve the purpose of the game” (Ejsing-Dunn, 2011: 4). Zombies Run! can be likened more to that of a site-adaptable game (Montola et al., 2009), which is designed for a generic location. In this instance a framework is created that allows players to make connections to locations and events, through coincidence (Eising-Duun, 2011: 55). The decision to make the game “location-agnostic” (Hon, 2013: n.p.) as the developers refer to it, was made with the intention to not make the player too preoccupied with finding an exact location to match what is described by the characters. Alderman compares it to a kind of “cold reading”, which relies on the 7 willingness of the player to prolong the fiction through “imaginative projection” (2013: n.p.). Sam is joined on the radio by another person, who introduces herself as Doctor Meyers. They are arguing about sending me to the old hospital to find supplies. It appears that their last Runner, Runner 5, was ambushed there. As I run through the ‘abandoned hospital’, which I ‘project’ onto the forest, Sam informs me that Runner 5 did in fact go missing here and that her and him were romantically involved. I get swept up in the sincerity of his speech, my legs going into autopilot as I try to avoid the mud. 'The truth is, if you've got two legs and you can stay above a slow shamble then you can stay out the zom's way’ he says. I am now the new Runner 5. If I see anything official lying about, I’m told to grab it. Apparently there’s a swarm of zombies gathering in the car park. I picture them Eastwards at one of the quarry car parks. I won’t be turning down there then. I find some antibiotics, some crutches, three first aid kits and something called a CDC box. Sam and Doctor Myers have seen me on CCTV. The doctor spots the CDC file in my hands. Apparently it stands for the Centre for Disease Control and is very important. I’m then informed that the zombies from the car park are following me. I launch into a sprint. A computerised voice tells me how far they are behind me. 10 metres. 20 metres. I escape quite easily, running along the main road. I don’t look back. Bramble and Lieberman observe that when we run “the trunk and neck […] are more forwardly inclined” than when walking (2004: 349). John Bales echoes this in his research on running, by drawing upon the writings of Yi-Fu Tuan, which has resonances with the figure of the zombie. According to Tuan (1977), “front space is 8 primarily visual; it is perceived as the future. It is sacred space, towards the horizon yet to be reached. Backspace is in the past, the profane” (in Bales, 2004: 37-38). I’m on the last stretch now… The road into Grimley and the Abel Township base. Sam tells me that there are more zombies behind me and for some reason one of them is running. Then I realise the tragic truth. The zombie giving chase is none other than Alice … the old Runner 5. To make matters worse, she’s still got her radio on, so I can hear her groans as she pursues me. Up until now, my running has been primarily that of endurance, of going the distance, with as little wasting of energy as possible. The walking zombie I can stay ahead of just by jogging, but the running zombie forces me to pick up the pace. There is no respite, no stopping. Place becomes even more transient and unstable, the rhythm of my running more staccato. If I can sprint fast enough I can make it. But I’m starting to breathe anaerobically now. I’ve got stitch, but I need to outrun the living dead. I must have looked like an idiot, running like an absolute madman into the village. But I don’t care. The old Runner 5 is right behind me. I turn the corner into the village, run up the drive of the house, hearing the gunfire behind me. I ring the bell. The front door opens exactly as the gates of the base open. I collapse on the bottom of the stairs. I’ve made it. Our Encore In his account of Janet Cardiff’s audio walks David Pinder observes that in “the gap between the scenes as described and as experienced, questions arise about the 9 supposed stability of what is seen” (2001: 11). If I had chosen to walk Zombies Run!, it would have been harder to hold onto the immaterial landscape of the game world because the real world landscape of Grimley would have had a more robust presence. Instead, my running further destabilised my perception of place, allowing me to accommodate both worlds side-by-side. Consequently, the connections I made between the fictional landscape of the game, and the mythogeography and topography of Grimley occurred more freely. Furthermore, my desire to ignore the physical pain of exercise led me to embrace coincidence in order to keep the fiction going. After all, as Whelan observes, running hurts, and to engage in it is to face a biomechanical conflict between mind and body (2012: 111). Alderman likens it to a dialectical relationship between the primal side of the brain and the side that knows that it is all a lie (2003: n.p.). This I would argue is facilitated by the staccato rhythm of the feet and the earth. This makes for a more enjoyable experience, as the runner stumbles and catches themselves in the act of believing the fiction. This would suggest that there is a paucity for such titles as Zombies Run!, in order to soften such a ‘conflict’ by tapping into a more primal motivation for exercise. The inclusion of zombies within the gaming narrative, further highlights the role of running as an act that “produces humanness”, as we are pitted against something that seeks to extinguish it (Whelan, 2012: 114). In a prosaic sense, motion here represents life, with immobility representing death. Yet what complicates this binary is the walking zombie – a distortion of these two states. In Zombies Run! it is the zombie which is both the pacemaker and route-maker. They prompt the player to monitor 10 their own progress both as a runner and as a human being. This desire to get fit gives way to wanting to survive – to prove our humanness. However, the presence of the running zombie hinders this, by creating a double negative, its increased speed making it difficult to outrun. We can no longer successfully distance ourselves from it, spatially and psychologically, as it is no longer a figure that straddles life and death, but actually now becomes another form of life itself – a super-human that can run faster for a longer period of time. It cancels out humanity, by being able to do something that has traditionally defined us against the zombie. For Yari Lanci, the narratives that incorporate it depict “a situation of zombie epidemics from which it is impossible to escape” (2011: 6). By running from these figures, it becomes increasingly difficult to turn and objectify them, enacting the “zombie gaze”. For Gerry Canavan, in forsaking this gaze, we inevitably succumb to the “zombie embrace” (2010: 450). This creates a paradox, as the faster we run from these creatures, the more we accelerate towards them. If running was humanity’s first performance, then the running zombie is our encore. 11 References Alderman, N. (2013) ‘Zombies Run!’, Interviewed by Kris Darby [in person]. [online] http://www.inretrospectpodcast.com/2013/03/content/podcasts/the-bloginventing-a-wheel-my-interview-with-naomi-alderman/ [10 April 2013] Bale, J. (2004) ‘Running: Running as Working’, Geographies of Mobilities: Practices, Spaces, Subjects, T. Cresswell and P. Merriman (eds.), Farnham: Ashgate. Beal, T. (2013) ‘Museum explores the science of a zombie outbreak’, BBC News, [online] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21295567 [10 April 2013] Bramble, D.M. and Lieberman, D.E. (2004) ‘Endurance running and the evolution of Homo’, Nature, vol. 432, pp. 345-352. Canavan, G. (2010) ‘“We Are the Walking Dead”: Race, Time, and Survival in Zombie Narrative’, Extrapolation, vol. 51, no. 3, pp.431-453. Ejsing-Duun, S. (2011) Location-Based Games: From Screen to Street, PhD Dissertation, The Danish School of Education, Aarhus University. Hon, A. (2013) Zombies Run!. Interviewed by Kris Darby [e-mail sent to kjd211@exeter.ac.uk] [16 January 2013]. Jacobson, R. (2010) ‘What Zombies Can Teach Us About Braaain Science’, PBS, [online] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/10/what-zombies-canteach-us-about-brains.html [6 February 2013] 12 Lorimer, H. (2012) ‘Surfaces and Slopes’, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 83-86. Montola, M., Stenros, J., and Waern, A. (2009) Pervasive Games: Theory and Design, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers/Elsevier Mueller, F., O’Brien, S., and Thorogood, A. (2007) ‘Jogging over a Distance’, CHI 2007, pp. 1-6. Myers, M. (2010) ‘“Walk with me, talk with me’: the art of conversive wayfinding’, Visual Studies, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 59-68. Pegg, S. (2008) ‘The dead and the quick’, The Guardian, 4th November [online] http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/nov/04/television-simon-pegg-deadset [6 February 2013] Pinder, D. (2001) ‘Ghostly Footsteps: Voices, Memories and Walks in the City’, Ecumene, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 1-19. Strauss, M. (2009) ‘A Harvard Psychiatrist Explains Zombie Neurobiology’, io9, [online] http://io9.com/5286145/a-harvard-psychiatrist-explains-zombie- neurobiology [5 March 2013]. Whelan, G. (2012) ‘Running Through a Field’, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 110-120. 13