Interrobang?!: The Curious Departure of Dustin Spektor

This Wednesday 20th October sees the launch of Interrobang?!, a genre-busting theatre-meets-online gaming experience that draws you into a real-time thriller, where you become the investigator in a shadowy murder case.

It’s a unique experience full of intriguing characters, interviews, challenges, moral quandaries and puzzles. It’s theatre away from the theatre, and gaming away from the console.

Players use QR code technology and a custom-made website to take a journey through multiple digital spaces. You’ll delve into a database of documents and video interviews, with original music and the odd surreal musical number.

And that’s just what you can play from home. Take your sleuthing outside in Interrobang?! Local, an immersive location-based audio experience that expands the Interrobang?! universe.

Set in the town of Brentford, decipher the locations of hidden messages to uncover the mystery of powerful forces shaping the very places we live. Look out for copies of The Echo newspaper at Watermans and other places around Brentford to begin your journey.        

Interrobang?! Has been created by trailblazing immersive theatre company Gideon Reeling in collaboration with StoryFutures and supported by Watermans, West London’s leading arts centre.

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Hopefully what is written above has whetted your appetite!

You may be wondering what connection I have to this thrilling project.

Throughout my PhD at Royal Holloway, I’ve been a consultant for StoryFutures, an initiative that helps to create and fund R&D projects focused on immersive storytelling. Part of their remit is to connect academics with companies and organisations that can benefit from their expertise.

Back in March, StoryFutures approached me to say they’d had an enquiry from a company called Gideon Reeling, who had just reached their crowdfunding target to develop an interactive murder mystery game. The game would be partly location-based, and they were looking to work with an academic who could help to finesse the user experience and game mechanics to achieve their vision for the project.

I’ve always been a massive fan of murder mysteries as a genre of fiction. And after looking at their Crowdfunder and learning more about Gideon Reeling’s vision, history and ventures as a company (they were once sister company to the immersive theatre pioneers Punchdrunk and have worked with huge names across different industries), I was sold.

Since then, my actual contribution to the development of Interrobang?! has morphed into something much more hybrid and more deeply invested. And I’ve loved every minute of it.

One of my main roles has been helping to shape the game’s narrative design.

In the initial pilot version of Interrobang?! that I tested, there was no website hosting the database of evidence you explore as a player. The whole mystery was divulged via documents, emails and QR codes contained within them, which led to videos.

I was blown away by the detail and intricacy of the story, as well as the acting and humour throughout. I was engrossed with the challenge of identifying the important details in the case and very satisfied when I’d correctly solved puzzles or noticed crucial bits of information.

But there was so much content that I had to play it over two days, taking over 10 hours in total! Part of that was down to me being the kind of player that wanted to note down every detail that might be important. But many of the videos were also very long.

It also wasn’t the smoothest experience moving between all the different pieces of evidence, via the individual documents and emails.

So together with the artistic directors and web developer at Gideon Reeling, we worked to make navigating the game content more intuitive, identify any plot holes and decide what could be cut down (e.g. times when evidence was corroborated by more than one character) to make the experience more streamlined.

One of the most impactful suggestions that I and other testers had was to host the game on an integrated website framed as a police database, which would allow players to view and move between the different pieces of information more smoothly.

I also thought it would be effective to incorporate the player’s note-taking and information-gathering process into this website, through something like an interactive evidence board.                                    

Both of these ambitions have come to fruition. The evidence documents and videos (now much shorter edits) are all accessed via the police database website, which has an interactive evidence board that updates depending on which information you’ve uncovered. It’s a much tighter, more user-friendly experience that envelops you in the Interrobang?! universe.

My other main role in working with Gideon Reeling has been to lead the development of the location-based element of Interrobang?!.

In the pilot version of the game, the only way the player’s physical location mattered was in the suggestion that players go to (or imagine they were in) certain kinds of places to watch the videos that loaded when the QR codes were scanned. The characters would say things like ‘go to the local church’ or ‘find somewhere quiet’, with the idea that the game could be played anywhere.

But we found that players unanimously preferred to be accessing evidence sitting at a desk, preferably in front of a computer, where they could easily take notes, watch/read things multiple times and not use lots of mobile data loading content on their devices. The story also stood so well by itself that being in certain kinds of places made little difference to how it was received.

Through my prior experience in location-based game design, I knew that this component of the game would need to be something much more bespoke; making the most of the specific affordances of engaging with material outside and in physical places.

This led to the creation of brand-new, tailored content that expands the Interrobang?! universe through the use of location-based audio. QR codes positioned around Brentford (home of Gideon Reeling and local arts centre partner Watermans) play a series of voice notes when scanned. These follow the story of one very important character and how they became entangled in the wider mystery and peril of Interrobang?!.

I would love to say more, but I can’t give too much away!

I’m proud to say that I came up with the concept behind this new design of Interrobang?! Local and also wrote the scripts for all of the voice notes, which I then edited together with Gideon Reeling.

Thankfully, Gideon were on-hand in Brentford to do the location scouting, place the QR codes and make the necessary local contacts to turn our vision into a reality.

So, again, when can you take part in these dual online and location-based experiences?

They launch officially this Wednesday, 20^th October!

This current version of Interrobang?! is live until 27^th January 2022. I say current version because Interrobang?! is an ongoing project. Not only will we be addressing any feedback from this run, but there are plans to add more exciting features to the game website in future versions.

Furthermore, we’re planning to bring the location-based experience to places other than Brentford, partnering with local theatres and arts companies across the country to bring a slice of Gideon Reeling’s immersive magic to different audiences. The script is deliberately designed to be adapted to other places and it’ll be fascinating to see how to story connects to a completely different set of sites.

I’m really excited to hear what people make of both the online and location-based aspects of the game. Do get in touch with me if you want to know more about the project or have any feedback that you want to share.          

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How to take part

Visit the Interrobang?! booking page on the Watermans website to book your ticket to play the game online. Tickets cost £15 and the game takes approximately 2-4 hours to complete. It is suitable for anyone aged 12 or over (contains moderate bad language).

You’ll be asked to provide an email address for each player.

Register to play by following the email link. Log in and begin.        

You’ll need a laptop or desktop for the best viewing experience and a trackpad, mouse or direction keys to make choices through the game.

To take part in the Interrobang?! location-based audio experience, look out for copies of The Echo newspaper at Watermans and other locations in the Brentford area. You’ll find everything you need in The Echo.

Making The Timekeeper's Return: Research and Writing

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One year ago this autumn, I reached the culmination of an overwhelming three months of creative work and collaboration when I designed, wrote and directed The Timekeeper’s Return, a story-based immersive treasure hunt set in Canterbury’s Cathedral Quarter.

In this series of blog posts, I want to delve into the detail of how The Timekeeper’s Return was made, including an overview of how the event turned out on the day and the project’s legacy – for the participants, the Cathedral Quarter, and my own future as I continue to work in the area of location-based treasure-hunting games for my practice-based PhD.

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Research and Writing

In my September 2018 blog post, I described how I arrived at the overarching concept for The Timekeeper’s Return – a time-travelling historical researcher called Dr. Mia Augustina, whose time machine, the astrolabe, malfunctions and traps her in the past. I briefly talked about how this concept then informed the graphic design and organisation of the treasure hunt.

However, I’ve yet to describe my experiences of creating the story upon which the event was based, which involved undertaking research to uncover the most evocative details from the Cathedral Quarter’s history, and then writing about them in an engaging way.

I can split up the sources for my research roughly into three categories: online sources, the local history section of the public library, and individuals/businesses.

For my online research, aside from looking up odds and ends relating to the histories I’d already been working on, there were certain individual websites that I regularly turned to for historic information upon which I could base my writing.

One of the most useful websites was Machadoink, which is essentially an index of historic Canterbury.

One particular section of this site, called ‘Canterbury Streets’, allowed me to delve into the records of each building on every street contained within the Cathedral Quarter, including those that are no longer there. The pages for each street are populated with old news items, photographs, public records, and other curiosities that provided a wealth of information I could use to build a picture of interesting historic events or characters.

Another source of online inspiration was the excellent public Facebook page ‘Canterbury: Remembering it as it was’, where old photographs, stories and other historical records are regularly shared and discussed by local residents.

I was keen to ensure that my representations of the histories I’d studied were as accurate as possible, and this is typically where I turned to my old friend, the National Library of Scotland website, for its extensive collection of historic Ordnance Survey maps. These helped me to pinpoint the locations of particular buildings, landmarks and roads over 100 years ago, whose layout has changed considerably in the time since.

Ordnance Survey map published in 1907 showing part of central Canterbury, including the Cathedral Quarter

As for how I found resources at the local library, this involved simply browsing every book on the shelves in the Local History section and picking out those I thought would have the most information relevant to the Cathedral Quarter.

These mostly turned out to be accounts of the WW2 Baedeker raids, which devastated one half of the area, as well as reports from archaeological excavations in the areas around Burgate.

Map showing bomb sites in Canterbury from the 1942 Baedecker raids

Some of the most tantalising leads came from the individuals and businesses I consulted during the research stage, which I could follow up on and develop in my writing.

The Cathedral Quarter team and I sent around emails asking the local businesses to send me any information they knew or could find about the history of their premises, or anywhere else in the Cathedral Quarter area.

The responses ranged from quite detailed records to anecdotal rumours that had passed down between owners, which I could then explore further using other sources.

For example, one of the businesses had heard that their building featured as the home of one of the characters in Charles Dickens’ novel David Copperfield.

Given the significance of Charles Dickens in the literary history of Kent and the UK, I decided to investigate the rumour further online, and discovered even more connections between the author and sites in the Cathedral Quarter. As a result, this slice of Canterbury history became a recurring theme in the treasure hunt’s story.

From my research into Charles Dickens' connections with the Cathedral Quarter

Additionally, for the first time, I went on one of the official guided tours of Canterbury’s historic centre. This started at the Buttermarket and weaved its way through the Cathedral precincts, and then onto other parts of the city centre.

As well as containing some useful tidbits of information I could draw on in my own stories, I was struck by how effective the demonstrative qualities of the tour were. The guides are very adept at directing visitors’ attention to parts of their surroundings that illustrate the very history they’re describing, and I soon realised that my treasure hunt needed to do the same – to curate people’s journey through, and perspectives of, the built environment in such a way that brings the history of the area to life.

The clearest way this manifested in The Timekeeper’s Return was a QR code text in Butchery Lane that directed people’s gaze from one side of the street to the other, to demonstrate the impact that World War 2 had on this part of Canterbury. Despite looking very similar, one half of the street is lined with buildings that are centuries old, while the other half was all rebuilt after devastating bombing.

Once I’d gathered enough historic detail from my research to use in the treasure hunt, the next task was to incorporate this material within a series of short QR code texts that would be compelling to read and encourage the reader to explore further.

While it was not long before I had some initial rough drafts and outlines for some of the QR codes, the first text that I wrote in full – and the one that shaped my approach to the rest of the writing – was one that took an interesting piece of local history and made it relatable and moving on a personal level.

The information in question concerned the construction of the cathedral’s Bell Harry Tower – not only a key symbol of the Cathedral Quarter, but the iconic sight that has greeted pilgrims to Canterbury since 1498.

I’d managed to uncover some fantastic trivia about the intricate pulley system by which the building materials were raised, and how the structure is surprisingly mostly composed of bricks.

But in considering what emotional resonance the construction of the tower might have for my participants, I started to wonder what kind of toll this labour took on those involved at the time.          

I managed to find some academic texts that considered the life and livelihood of medieval masons, learning how they led a largely nomadic existence, spending very long spans of time away from their families, only to return for a short time before taking on their next round of employment.

Indeed, the master mason in charge of Bell Harry, John Westall, was not from Canterbury at all. Being renowned in his profession, demand for his services took him to Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex before Canterbury.

I found it quite moving to think of someone dedicating years of their life to a building that would define the future of Canterbury, and enduring all the hardships this work involved, despite not even being from the city.                                                             

Of course, there’s a limit to the amount of ‘life story’ you can convey in a few hundred words. But what I could do in the QR code text was light a little spark of awareness, from which participants might sympathise with the kinds of sacrifices that made the Cathedral Quarter what it is today.

From this first complete story onwards, the main objective of my writing was finding ways to transmit the emotional currents of the historic events I was recounting, within the narrative frame of a time-travelling researcher. The story wasn’t supposed to be a history lesson, but an invitation to connect with the timelines of the Cathedral Quarter on a personal level.

Now, let’s talk about the actual act of writing.

My relationship with writing is very much love-hate.

The times when I can look back on my work and be happy with how it reads are wonderfully satisfying.

But equally I tend to find the process torturous. My pet hate is not being able to conjure up the right words to precisely express what I want to say.

Instead of doing what is always recommended to writers – just getting what you want to say on paper and then editing it later – I tend to leave huge gaps in the middle of sentences and paragraphs where I haven’t yet found the appropriate terms to use. This means that writing for me tends to be a gradual process of ‘filling in the gaps’.

If you have lots of rough but finished drafts of a piece, a least you have something ‘complete’, even if it needs adjustments.

The problem with my method is that nothing is ever complete until it’s basically as good as it’s going to get.

This undoubtedly lengthened the time it took for me to finish all of the QR code texts, and for them to be uploaded to the Cathedral Quarter website. I was very grateful for the patience of the Cathedral Quarter team and the website designers as I toiled tirelessly on getting the writing to the best standard I could before the event.               

Perfectionism isn’t my only writing foible. Anyone who knows me well will know that I really struggle to write concisely.

The problem isn’t that I ‘pad out’ my writing with pointless information. Anyone who proofreads my work finds it difficult to recommend which bits of my writing to cut.

Rather, the problem is that everything I include seems relevant and useful, which makes the process of culling even harder.                      

For a project like this, though, there was no room for leeway. The aim wasn’t to have people standing around for ages reading text on their phones, but instead to get them looking around and noticing things in their surroundings; discovering people and places that they didn’t know about before.

Ultimately, this meant that I had to limit my ambitions for the narrative. There simply wasn’t space to include several interweaving subplots and intricate details, which might work well in something like a novel, where the reader is expecting to take their time delving into the text, but not for this kind of outdoor, interactive narrative experience.

I suppose what I realised was that the depth of intrigue and immersion that I wanted to inspire during the event had to come predominantly from the player’s physical surroundings, rather than just my words.

One technique I did use to make my writing more digestible is to make sure that my paragraphs were always only one or two sentences long. This is something I’ve learnt from blogging, where I’ve found that readers are more willing to keep scrolling when the text is broken into smaller chunks. It also tends to mean that individual sentences can have more impact and convey dramatic tension more readily.

I also borrowed an interesting method from scriptwriting for TV series. That summer of 2018, I re-watched the entire first series of the modern Doctor Who (my absolute favourite), and started looking into the process through which Russell T Davies and his writing team managed to make each episode so affecting, while having a clear purpose in the wider arc of the series.

I learnt that for each episode they assigned a word that encompassed the ‘tone’ they wanted the episode to have, which was always reflected clearest in its denouement – the part of the story that determines the emotional residue the audience is left with.

By keeping a clear emotional signature in focus as I wrote each QR code text, and reinforcing this in its denouement when Mia expressed her thoughts as she departed to the next point in time, I was able to carefully direct the emotional undercurrents of the story, despite the shortage of words available for me to use.

In the end, though, I would say that I just about reached the upper limit on what was acceptable in terms of length. Even though this required some very difficult decisions in terms of sentences and paragraphs that needed to be culled, any longer and some participants might have found it all too much to get their heads around.

As it turned out, the length of the final texts turned out to be enough to include a significant amount of historic and narrative detail without compromising their engagement in the activity.                                         

The last thing I want to talk about here is the music that so effectively kept me inspired and focused throughout the writing process.

Nowadays I often find that my work flows best when I listen to orchestral or neo-classical music, from artists such as Olafur Arnalds, Zoe Keating and Message to Bears.

While writing the story for The Timekeeper’s Return, I’d been watching a wonderful anime called Violet Evergarden. It’s a stunning series that beautifully explores what it means to feel emotions and communicate them after traumatic pasts or during challenging circumstances, and part of what makes it so special is its orchestral score.

I found a YouTube video with the full soundtrack and listened to it pretty much on repeat for the duration of September and October 2018. By the end of September I was so infatuated with it that I actually ordered the CD of the soundtrack directly from Japan, so those involved in creating it would receive as much of my money as possible.

I think that the reason this music resonated so deeply with my practice was the result of my aim to capture the emotional half-life of the historic events I was describing. When I was listening to the soundtrack, there would be these uncanny moments of attunement between the nuances of the music and the feelings I was attempting to evoke in the QR code texts.

So as well as helping me to zone-in on the task (when I didn’t just sit there and appreciate it), I’m convinced that this music subconsciously shaped my writing style.                

You can listen to the full soundtrack here. All of it is genuinely wonderful and I would love to highlight so many of the tracks; but if you could only listen to one, I’d say it would have to be ‘Across the Violet Sky’. It’s simply awe-inspiring.

So, after several challenging weeks of writing and 7388 words later, the QR code texts were complete and ready to be uploaded.

But the real test of the story I had devised, and the treasure hunt as a whole, would be in the playing.

The next post in the Making the Timekeeper’s Return series reflects on the process of testing the treasure hunt.

Some thoughts on... Twin Peaks and the Detective Mystery Genre

 

 

After finishing university and the long, arduous slog of exam term back in June, I set my mind on spending time doing things I’d been itching to do in those daydreaming moments during revision, when freedom is the singular shining beacon on a mountain of books, papers and deadlines.

Specifically, ART: experiencing, enjoying and making.

Where does Twin Peaks come into this? Well, the series had been on my mind for a long time because so much art that I already loved was littered with references to it. To name but a few:

• Bastille’s Dan Smith is a self-confessed lover of the programme, whose song ‘Laura Palmer’ directly addresses the character of the same name from Twin Peaks.

• Musician Amanda Palmer is another fan, whose album ‘Who Killed Amanda Palmer’ is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the mystery around which the series revolves.

• The makers of the ongoing episodic game, Life is Strange, are huge fans. Not only is their game set in an idyllic Washington state, small town environment comparable to the fictional town of Twin Peaks, but the game’s mystery-centred storyline draws on many of the themes from the TV series.

• Other mystery adventure games such as Alan Wake contain numerous resemblances to Twin Peaks in their storylines, setting and aesthetic.

On this evidence, I simply couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing out on a sort of cultural lynchpin by not watching Twin Peaks. I had to watch it, and for once I actually had the time to do so.

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About Twin Peaks

Twin Peaks is an American TV mystery drama programme produced by Mark Frost and David Lynch, spanning two series which aired in 1990 and 1991. In total, the two series consisted of 30 episodes. Following the TV series, a feature film called Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which acts both as a prologue and epilogue to the TV series, was released in 1992, also directed by David Lynch.

In 2014, it was confirmed by Lynch that a third series would be produced, set 25 years after the events in the original two series. It is expected to air in 2016 or 2017, and announcements continue to be made of members of the former 1990s cast and production team that are returning for the new series.

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Mysteries and me 

I started watching Twin Peaks around the middle of June, and finished at the end of August. This timing was fitting, because it happened to coincide with me enjoying numerous other examples of detective mystery fiction. After all, Twin Peaks wasn’t the only thing I was going to spend my newly-found freedom on!

During this period I also:

-       Continued to play ‘Life is Strange’.

-       Played ‘The Vanishing of Ethan Carter’.

-       Played ‘Her Story’.

-       Played ‘Homesick’.

-       Watched playthroughs of two Sherlock Holmes games.

-       Watched a number of detective mystery programmes on TV, including New Tricks, Midsomer Murders, Sherlock and Jonathan Creek.

-       Watched the film Shutter Island.

-       Read ‘Digital Fortress’ by Dan Brown.

I think it’s fair to say that I’ve had quite a decent exposure to detective mystery fiction over this period.

And given my desire to start thinking more artistically again after the mind-numbing experience of intense revision and exams, the combination of Twin Peaks and these examples began to make me think about what the figure of the ‘detective’ and the detective genre in general represent, and what they mean to me personally.

Detective, crime and mystery fiction have been ever-present in my life for almost as long as I can remember. It’s probably quite unusual for parents to let their kids stay up and watch adult murder mystery TV shows when they’re still only halfway through primary school, but that’s what my Mum did. Programmes like Midsomer Murders, Jonathan Creek, Poirot, Miss Marple and A Touch of Frost became staples in our family, and I loved it. Mysteries intrigued me.

I think that to me mysteries were (and still are) almost more than stories, because in addition to describing a sequence of events mysteries give you the opportunity to question the reasons or motives behind, and the consequences of, these events. Through the medium of the detective, they allow you to piece together each flicker of thought, feeling and action and use them to shine light on a bigger picture. You can delve into the details and the nitty-gritty, knowing that even something small and seemingly insignificant could tip the balance of understanding.

The distinguishing factor is curiosity. Mysteries provide us with questions, and our engagement with the story is typically built upon our curiosity to know the answers to these questions.

While curiosity in everyday life may be construed as nosiness and lack of respect for privacy, I think that the great thing about mystery stories is how they encourage us to experience the thrill of searching for hidden meaning, deciphering clues and solving problems, without the same social and physical boundaries we would experience in real life. With our newly-found access to people’s lives – their secrets, their relationships with others, what they do, where and when – we become glued to the edge of our seats by the anticipation that each snippet of information brings us a step closer to answering the questions posed at the beginning.

As a result I find that mystery stories also tend to be very satisfying as well as thrilling, because when the pieces of the jigsaw finally fall into place and a story arc is revealed, you get a sense of fulfilment from having your questions answered. I think about the classic scenes used by Agatha Christie, where the detective gathers all of the characters in one room and systematically re-tells the sequence of events, this time filling in the gaps with facts established during the investigation. It is a catharsis, where tensions are abruptly and dramatically released, like a ‘drop’ in music. You can see why this technique was so effective. You have the satisfaction of resolution and the drama of revelation clutching each other at the climax.

However, at the end of the story it isn’t always as clear cut as the ‘bad guy goes to jail’, ‘crime doesn’t pay’ refrain. As well as providing a further sense of resolution or satisfaction to the story, justice in mystery dramas is a theme that allows you to consider the boundaries between right and wrong, in a genre where it is nearly always a crime that is the source of mystery. It is interesting to consider how morality should operate, for example, when mental illness is involved, or a long time has passed since the crime was committed. It adds another layer of meaning that goes beyond the confines of the story’s events, and is thought-provoking in that it allows you to consider your own moral inclinations.

Overall, then, I would say that my long-standing affinity for detective mysteries is largely built on three pillars:

·         Curiosity: the exciting process of learning and interpreting information about people and events.

·         Resolution: the satisfaction of having your questions answered, and sometimes justice.

·         Morality: questions of what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and their wider significance.

 

What Twin Peaks changed

Before I began watching Twin Peaks, the main thing I’d heard about it was that the whole show (30 episodes and a film) hinged on the murder of one person - Laura Palmer.

This interested me. In a genre where the mystery tends to be solved in the episode in which it is introduced – or at least within two or three – I wondered how the programme managed to sustain people’s curiosity for so long. Without the satisfaction of having your questions answered, where was the sense of resolution?

Simply put: how did the producers managed to drag the whole thing out so long?!

But this fact turns out to be the genius of Twin Peaks, and why it completely altered my perception of what detective/mystery stories are.

In Twin Peaks, like in real life, drama doesn’t unfold neatly and resolve itself quickly and unproblematically, or confine itself to those directly involved in extraordinary events. From the very first episode, Laura Palmer’s murder is the gateway through which the viewer is sucked into the messy lives of ordinary people, in a small town where everybody knows everybody else. Because even in an idyllic, semi-rural, middle-class environment that appears pristine on the outside, people have secrets. People have dark and ambiguous histories. People tell lies. Equally, those who may appear bad or heartless on the surface harbour a lighter, sensitive side. And although serious crime is undoubtedly an extraordinary event, Twin Peaks departs from the archetypal mystery story by focusing on the drama, intrigue and downright strangeness that exists in the everyday, not just the extraordinary.

Curiosity, resolution and morality take on a meaning of their own in Twin Peaks, beyond the characteristic ‘criminal investigation’ storylines.

David Lynch’s brilliance as a director and producer shines through in two important techniques he uses to achieve this.

The first thing to note is a particular method of character development that Lynch uses, involving stereotypes. On first impressions, you begin to get a sense of what some of the main characters might be like. You have Sheriff Harry Truman, the law-abiding, no-nonsense cop. There’s Bobby Briggs, the typical macho high-school jock who loves to cause trouble. Leo Johnson, violent partner to Shelly Johnson, who is too afraid to confront Leo’s domestic abuse. Ben Horne, the rich local businessman who wants to own as much of Twin Peaks as possible. These are just a few examples of Twin Peaks characters that appear to fit quite neatly into the stereotypical roles of American small-town suburbia.

In traditional detective mysteries the characters largely stay within the boundaries of their given roles, apart from the murderer who is suddenly seen to be hiding a dark secret, and perhaps one or two red herrings to arouse your suspicions.

This is not the case in Twin Peaks.

Because as soon as you start to think you understand each character, Lynch abruptly uncovers a different side to their personality, pushing them beyond the limits of their stereotypes. All of a sudden you begin to question their actions and motives, realising that behind every curtain and batted eyelid are mysterious forces at work.

It soon becomes clear that Laura Palmer’s murder is certainly not the only mystery in Twin Peaks. Rather, every single person is a mystery.

No one is completely ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘normal’ or ‘strange’. In fact, no one is ‘completely’ anything.

And so we can see that in Twin Peaks, unlike your average detective mystery story, you don’t need extraordinary or shocking events to pique your curiosity, or question human morality. There is no simple resolution to people’s problems, where everything goes back to normal.

People’s everyday lives provide enough intrigue by themselves.

Which brings me onto the second of Lynch’s techniques that I wanted to talk about, involving the use of surrealism.

In another point of departure from your typical TV detective mystery, many of the goings-on in Twin Peaks do not appear to be ‘of this world’. At times, the series could justifiably be described as a ‘psychological horror’ or ‘supernatural drama’. Meaningful dreams and visions, multiple personalities, alternate dimensions and a variety of unusual mental disorders are just a few examples of this.

What interests me most about this element of the series, though, is how the surreal blurs into the mundane. The unusual and supernatural are a part of everyday life - slotting seamlessly into day-to-day occurrences – rather than just being the outcome of extraordinary events.

This is quite deftly symbolised by the cooperation of the two main ‘detective’ characters in the series. One is the spiritual, instinctive Special Agent Dale Cooper, an FBI agent sent to Twin Peaks to investigate the Laura Palmer case. The other is the practical, rational Sheriff Truman. In many ways they couldn’t be more different in their way of thinking or methods, and yet when combined they manage to strike a strong partnership as they attempt to get to the bottom of the mysteries that unfold.

The end result of this intertwining of the mundane and the surreal is that there is always an atmosphere or presence of mystery in Twin Peaks, rather than simply a sequence of mysterious occurrences. Every day is extraordinary, dramatic and worthy of our curiosity. And even when some of our questions are answered, there’s no ‘happy ever after’ where everything returns to normal – just like the ongoing drama that is real life.

That to me is the real beauty of Twin Peaks. Unlike any other detective mystery I’ve come across, it actively encourages us to appreciate the extraordinary in the everyday; the mystery and strangeness that is day-to-day life.

 

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My 5 favourite things about Twin Peaks

The soundtrack: Angelo Badalamenti’s music is hauntingly beautiful; the perfect accompaniment to the series. Was thrilled to hear that he is composing the score for the forthcoming series.

The quirkiness: I love the quirky habits and traits that each character has, which make for some very funny and strange scenes throughout the series.

The setting: I like the sense of place that you develop as you watch the series. You really begin to feel as if you ‘know’ Twin Peaks almost as well as the fictional characters who live there, each location with its own meanings and memories.

My favourite characters: the melodramatic Donna, the slow-minded but lovable Andy, the insightful ‘Log Lady’ and the tantalising Audrey.

Agent Cooper’s recorded monologues: a brilliant plot device that gives you access to the detective’s thoughts and observations, but also add to the mystery of the series. Who is the ‘Diane’ to which he always addresses his messages?

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Final thoughts

I’m really, really glad I decided to watch Twin Peaks this summer.

Since watching the series, I’ve realised that the qualities that I typically like in detective mysteries are all there. There is plenty to be curious about in the lives of each character. You do get some sense of resolution when truths are uncovered, even if they are almost immediately replaced by new questions. And there is more than enough to take from the series on the nature of human morality.

The feature that makes Twin Peaks stand out, however, is the way that these qualities materialise.

In its attention to the intrigue of everyday life, the simple pleasure of the traditional detective mystery story is somehow imbued with a whole new level of meaning. Twin Peaks becomes so much more than just a TV mystery drama because it provides significant insight into real life too: into the inescapable mystery and strangeness of people living seemingly ‘ordinary’ lives.

I think the idea in many ways is simple, but it was executed in Twin Peaks so well that it became revolutionary in the detective mystery genre.

I have actually just finished watching series 1 of ITV’s Broadchurch, which I didn’t have time to watch when it was originally shown because – you guessed it – I had a ton of university work. The series has won several BAFTAs, and can you guess which TV show its writer, Chris Chibnall, cites as a major influence?

Yep, it’s Twin Peaks.

And there are quite a few blatant similarities, not least the fact that the series focuses on the everyday lives of people in an ordinary small town, which has been shocked by one sudden murder.

And Twin Peaks will continue to be an inspiration for detective mysteries of all types for years to come, because its approach and its ideas resonate with people.

This is what has motivated me to start planning some conceptual art based on the figure of the ‘detective’ and the notion of ‘mystery’ which, as you can gather, I’ve been thinking about a lot recently.

There are also plenty of connections to my academic interest in psychogeography. As a practice, pscyhogeography is always looking to find intrigue and excitement in the mundane environments of everyday life. The theme of the 'extraordinary in the everyday', as well as the novel technique of surrealism as a way of depicting this in film, have given me lots to think about in terms of how we might visualise the little stories and dramas that take place and produce meaning in the ordinary environments we inhabit.                                                                                                                 

I’m now eagerly looking forward to seeing what new insights the third series brings, and enjoying the fantastic art that Twin Peaks will continue to inspire.

 

(Note: The image in this post was obtained from http://assets.rollingstone.com/assets/2014/article/twin-peaks-to-return-to-tv-in-2016-20141006/170592/large_rect/1412612141/1401x788-Screen%20Shot%202014-10-06%20at%2012.14.53%20PM.png)