The Order of Byzantium

Journey to The End of the Night is an urban street game played annually in cities all over the world. Runners playing Journey race to be the first player to reach 6 checkpoints spread throughout the city before heading to the finish line, all while being pursued by Chasers, whose goal is to tag the Runners in order to turn them into Chasers as well. Private transportation is prohibited, and special rules surround the use of public transit.

The inspiration for San Francisco's Journey 2014 was the movie Brazil, which governed the theme of all 6 checkpoints. Operating out of the chapel of a former convent, I created The Order of Byzantium, an obscure religious sect devoted to the worship of bureaucracy. Runners arriving there were asked to confess their sins via form and receive absolution by reciting a variety of prayers that had been modified to reflect the Order's commitment to organizational and administrative efficiency.

I wrote and designed the liturgy. Form 23.34IV, the Confessional Form for General Absolution, asks the penitent to tally their sins (“Attempted to cut a line?” “Falsely testified that thou hast read a Terms of Service Agreement?”), subtract their Pious Acts, and look up the resulting Absolvable Guilt in a penance chart. The prayers were rewritten to match: “The Form is my shepherd; I shall read it carefully,” and a Lord's Prayer asking that “your will be filed appropriately, on earth as it is in heaven.”