The Jejune Institute

The Jejune Institute was an alternate reality game, public art installation and immersive experience that ran in San Francisco, California from 2008 to 10 April 2011. It was created by Jeff Hull, Sara Thacher, and Uriah Findley as Nonchalance, a design consultancy group.^[1]

Background and Game Experience

The Jejune Institute was funded by Jeff Hull with some of the proceeds from the sale of his father Blair Hull's financial company and had operating costs "in the low six figures" during its run, including salaries and office space.^[2] There was little to no revenue from the Jejune Institute itself, which was a free experience for its visitors.^[3] Staff members traveled through the player routes twice a week to make sure pieces of the game remained intact.^[1]

People discovered the experience through fliers for dolphin therapy and the "Aquatic Thought Foundation" placed around San Francisco, or via word of mouth.^[4][3]

There were four chapters total. 4,000 people had visited the first chapter by 2010,^[1] and more than 7,000 people visited the game's first chapter by the game's conclusion.^[5][2] Hull reported that attendance dropped by about 50%^[1]-75%^[5] after each chapter, with about 120 people who made it through the first three chapters.

The first chapter took place at an office building at 580 California Street. Visitors went to the 16th floor of the building and watched a video in an automated "induction room", before embarking on a two- or three-hour walk around San Francisco's Financial District and Chinatown. Players looked for hidden information embedded in sidewalks, murals on the sides of buildings, and attached to statues. Clues were hidden inside mailboxes and on "missing person" flyers with in-game phone numbers.^[2]

The second chapter began in San Francisco's Mission District and took 6 hours to complete. At the top of Upper Dolores Park, visitors could tune into a 1-watt radio transmitter playing a 45-minute piece of audio.^[1]

There was a "mini episode" between the second and third chapter, a public rally held in San Francisco's Union Square. The event was attended by 200 people.^[1]

The third chapter was set in the Coit Tower park area of San Francisco, where visitors could view videos showing events from the past.

Between chapter three and four, eight players received postcards, emails, and phone calls from in-game characters. They were instructed to bring their clues together to solve them as a group, and met in a mausoleum.^[1]

Fictional story

 

A metal sign made for the fictitious "Elsewhere Public Works" as part of alternate reality game "The Jejune Institute"^[6]

In the story, the Jejune Institute is an organization founded by a man named Octavio Coleman Esq. in the 1960s^[4] as the "Center for Socio-Reengineering".^[1]

The fictional Elsewhere Public Works Agency (EPWA) is an underground rebel group trying to dismantle the Jejune Institute. The EPWA pre-dated the Jejune Institute, with art and fake public service announcements appearing around Oakland.^[7] The "mini episode" rally held between chapters two and three was framed as an in-world EPWA event.^[1]

The story also features a fictional woman named Eva Lucien who went missing in 1988 near Coit Tower.^[1]

Live Finale Event

Players received emails from the EPWA instructing them to attend a seminar on 10 April 2011^[1] to overthrow the Jejune Institute. 150 people gathered in the Garden Room at the Grand Hyatt in San Francisco, California for the “Socio-Reengineering Seminar 2011: An Afternoon of Rhythmic Synchronicity".^[5] The seminar lasted more than four hours.^[8]

Players later stated that they were expecting an exciting event that concluded the narrative,^[9] and stated that they were surprised and disappointed by the anticlimactic ending.^[10][8]

The Institute

In 2013, director Spencer McCall, who had edited videos for the game,^[11] released The Institute, reconstructing the story of the Jejune Institute through interviews with the participants and the creators. The film screened at Oakland's Underground Film Festival in September 2013.^[10]

The film contained both documentary elements and reenactment,^[10][12] leading people to call into question the veracity of the film.^[13][14]

Dispatches from Elsewhere

The TV series Dispatches from Elsewhere was based on The Institute documentary film.^[15]

References

1. Paulas, Rick (11 March 2011). "Last Chance: The Mysteries of San Francisco's Creepy Jejune Institute". The Awl. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
2. Woo, Stu (24 March 2011). "Urban Scavenger Hunt Finds Followers". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
3. Paulas, Rick (September 2015). "'We Value Experience': Can a Secret Society Become a Business?". Longreads. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
4. Newitz, Annalee (9 December 2008). "What is the Jejune Institute and Why Are They Recording Your Thoughts?". Gizmodo. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
5. Harmanci, Reyhan (21 April 2011). "Interested in the Jejune Institute? It's Too Late". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
6. Watson, Jeff (March 10, 2010). "Trap doors and hatches all around: Jeff Hull on infusing variability and play into the workaday world". remotedevice. from the original on 2018-01-01. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
7. Shirley, Perry (4 August 2011). "Games of Nonchalance". FunCheapSF. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
8. Paulas, Rick (19 April 2011). "The Perplexing Final Chapter Of San Francisco's Jejune Institute". The Awl. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
9. Hinman, Tyler (29 March 2011). "Games of Nonchalance: An Artistic ARG Experience". Wired. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
10. "'The Institute' Invades Oakland's Underground". KQED. 24 September 2013. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
11. Rothe, E. Nina (1 October 2013). "Down the Rabbit Hole with Spencer McCall's The Institute". Huffington Post. from the original on 29 May 2014. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
12. Keogh, Tom (17 October 2013). "'The Institute': caught between fact and fiction". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
13. Nijholt, Anton (14 October 2016). Playable Cities: The City as a Digital Playground. Springer Singapore. p. 128. ISBN 9789811019623. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
14. Rapold, Nicholas (10 October 2013). . The New York Times. Archived from the original on 22 April 2017. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
15. Phipps, Keith (February 10, 2020). "Dispatches from Elsewhere Review: Jason Segel Returns to TV With a Bold, Unpredictable Series". TV Guide. from the original on February 17, 2020. Retrieved February 22, 2020.