“Welcome. I am sorry to inform you that you have reached the Sad Portland hotline. If you are currently in the depressing cemetery, please press 1. If you are in the gloomy schoolyard, please press 2.”
First you’ll need to get ahold of one of the Sad Portland maps, distributed to Portland galleries and theatres. On the photocopied hand-drawn map, the top half of the page is occupied by a depiction of an area of Southeast Portland of about a mile in size. On the map are indicated various points of interest–a sad abandoned lot, a disused former school building, a macabre cemetery. The bottom half of the page features a drawing of two tombstones, with some of the numerals in the birth and death dates obscured by symbols. At the bottom of the page is a ten-digit phone number with some of its numerals obscured by these same signals.
To play, one must go to the cemetery indicated on the map, find the tombstones, and plug in the appropriate numbers to reach the Sad Portland hotline, at which point the experience begins in earnest.
Featuring hours of non-linear content reachable through the interactive hotline, Sad Portland is a afternoon-sized rabbit-hole to go get gloomy in.
Created in collaboration with MYNDWYRM, Sad Portland was commissioned by RECESS Gallery in Portland, Oregon, in August 2012.