Building Words in Minecraft: Bursary 2015, Diary 2

Victoria Bennett and Adam Clarke form one of two teams we are supporting through the 2015 Writing Platform Bursary Programme, in association with Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. 

Victoria’s and Adam’s project uses Minecraft to immerse the player in the experience of a poem and expand the idea of what literature and video games can be. They are documenting the evolution of their project and their collaboration through a series of video diaries recorded in Minecraft.

In this first diary Adam and Victoria share their early ideas for the project – how they might go about building worlds from words, how players might experience and play with story in Minecraft, and draw interesting parallels between writing and building. As Victoria says:

“we started talking about how does that blank world relate to the blank page? As a writer, when I approach a blank page, I’m thinking, ‘what am I creating here?’ Each word that I place down is like a block, and this relates to how we create a world block by block within Minecraft”

We are also supporting Kelly Jones and Linda Sandvik through the bursary programme. Their project is inspired by Kelly’s parents meeting on illegal CB Radio and uses physical computing to explore the ideas of connection and intimacy, ephemerality and permanence. You can read their first diary post here.