GLITCHED: Quest for the Lost MacGuffin is an innovative interactive art exhibition created by a team of international artists, curators and museums in QUAD Gallery – an exploration game where the real and digital worlds collide. All, however, is not as it seems…

A MacGuffin is a plot device in the form of some goal, or desired object that the protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation. The specific nature of a MacGuffin is typically unimportant to the overall plot.

GLITCHED: Quest for the Lost MacGuffin is an exciting game-like journey in which the gallery visitor/player explores an immersive set built within QUAD Gallery, consisting of ‘typical’ scenes from films: the detective office; the haunted hotel; the claustrophobic warehouse; and the train carriage travelling to an unknown destination. The player searches for eight fragments of a ‘lost’ MacGuffin, fragments that exist as ‘Augmented Reality’ (AR) – visible only through the screen of a handheld tablet computer. Once the eight fragments have been found the ‘lost’ MacGuffin is revealed.

Yet there are decoy MacGuffins to throw the player off the scent, and the gallery is full of ‘glitches’ – real-life or digital corruptions or fissures in the everyday world around us that will make the journey around the gallery very interesting indeed.

GLITCHED: Quest for the Lost MacGuffin positions the gallery visitor in the heart of a sculptural installation, in search of objects that were once real and are certainly imagined. The exhibition considers questions of coercion and suggestion, mirroring a modern society where material objects are pursued, often for little long-lasting satisfaction.

Artists – GLITCHED: Quest for the Lost MacGuffin 
Produced and curated at QUAD by Peter Bonnell and Michael Sargeant.

Digital and Augmented Reality artworks by Piers Bishop, Nguyen Thi, Julien Costard from Université Paris 8 and Darius Powell. Set design by Scene Everything artists Nicholas Mortimer & Joseph Popper. Soundtrack by Robin Newman and additional artworks by Nathan Hall and David Booth.

Special GiF artwork by Alec Mackenzie, commissioned by The Collection and Usher Gallery, Lincoln, with thanks to Ashley Gallant. 3D Scans courtesy of Leicestershire County Council Museum Services.

Images courtesy of Piers Bishop, object images courtesy of Darius Powell, photos by Charlotte Jopling.