ZU-UK presents Radio Ghost

ZU-UK presents Radio Ghost, a walking game for three participants journeying through a haunted shopping mall.

Premiering at LIFT Festival 2022, leading digital performance innovators ZU-UK return with a site-specific spectre spotting escapade that takes place in shopping centres across London, Manchester and Glasgow. This audio-driven excursion is an app-based walking game that offers playful interactions between three individuals as they hunt ghosts through a haunted shopping mall, with sites including The Trafford Centre. The teams will have to blend in as perfect shoppers to unlock the stories of the mall, following prompts as they navigate a world that knows the price of everything, and the cost of nothing. Participants will be given phones with access to the Radio Ghost app and guided through headphones by the voice and sounds of DJ Iva Toguri (1916 – 2006), a Japanese-American disc jockey and radio personality who became prominent during World War II on the Zero Hour radio show. The game is based on Tsu-ku-mo-ga-mi, a Shinto belief that everything has a spirit, and ZU-UK are interested in players unlocking the ‘ghosts’ that represent the hidden stories of how a product came into existence.

Persis Jadé Maravala, ZU-UK’s Artistic Director said, “in some ways, making this app over the past five years, has been about trying to make the scale and tempo of global change more accessible on a human level. The game is thrilling, but it is also about inviting people to slow down and make palpable the ghosts that we have been manipulated and bullied into not seeing; not hearing. A hunt that leads to understanding how interconnected we are.”

Formerly known as Zecora Ura and Para Active, ZU-UK is an established multi award-winning theatre and digital arts company. ZU-UK is based in Newham and led by immigrant working-class artists Persis Jade Maravala, who was awarded the first ABTT Stephen Joseph award in 2021, and Jorge Lopes Ramos. Persis is ethnically Persian, originally from Yemen but raised in East London. Jorge was born by one of Rio de Janeiro’s largest favelas to a Polish-Romanian family. ZU-UK believes in the need for shared rituals, new narratives & experiences that empower those most vulnerable to experience and make excellent art. ZU-UK creates interactive experiences using games, performance and technology. They can happen anywhere including on your phone, in your house, on a stage, in a shopping mall or a field. Previous projects include VR experience Goodnight, Sleep Tight, the post-immersive dating experience Binaural Dinner Date, #RioFoneHack at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, interactive audio experience Pick Me Up (& hold me tight) and Project Perfect Stranger & Plague Round.

For more information see zu-uk.com/project/radio-ghost