Griffith

The remains of the original Griffith Park Zoo are imbued with memories of the past. Forgotten animal pens, decaying cages and stony backdrops now sit in various states of abandonment.

It is, in other words, a prime location for a haunted narrative.

“Ghost in the Machine: The Old Zoo” is just that, a site-specific interactive experience in which specters come to life via our mobile phones. In the story, our devices become a gateway to another world — or, rather, a halfway point between our universe and the afterlife. We’ll see visions of a medium, hear fragmented remembrances and explore a trail while discovering a tale that feels like an intimate glimpse into a grief-stricken past. And we’ll learn a little bit of Griffith Park history along the way.

The augmented reality project is the vision of Koryn Wicks, a trained dancer and choreographer who has created her own immersive entertainment pieces while working in the broader theme park space. The project is being remounted this Friday and Sunday afternoons at Griffith Park to coincide with “Ghosts in the Machine” being named a finalist for an award with IndieCade, a once in-person independent game festival that now exists primarily online.

Koryn Wicks, designer of “Ghosts in the Machine: The Old Zoo.” Wicks is an independent immersive creator who works in the theme park space.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

John Houser, 43, from the San Gabriel Valley playing the augmented reality game “Ghosts in the Machine: The Old Zoo.”

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

“Ghosts in the Machine” exists as an app in a testing phase, hence the reason for the event-like approach to letting guests experience it. Wicks will be stationed outside the old zoo’s location for about two each hours each day, facilitating downloads and answering questions about the self-guided experience.

Once those who opt to play are set up with the game and near the old zoo, which opened in 1912 with a collection of only 15 animals and closed in 1966 to make way for the current animal park, they’ll receive a call. A medium, but “not like a celebrity medium,” has been trying to reach someone, anyone, and is at risk of losing her memory as she’s trapped between worlds. We’re asked to turn on our camera, and via augmented reality we see an alternate version of the landscape in front of us, one obscured by blue and green hues, and filled with static. The images feel fragile.

This medium, Phoebe, needs our help, and if we agree, the game begins. We’ll be directed to follow a map toward abnormalities around the old zoo. Things may get a little frightening. An apparition will appear before us. Yet Phoebe is telling us ghosts are not meant to be feared. A spirit, she says, is usually lost and confused.

“I wanted to do sort of a haunted location,” says Wicks, 36. “I’m a big nerd for horror stuff. I really like it. I really like the idea of ghosts. I read this book called ‘Ghostland’ and it looked at ghost stories throughout American history and the way they’re practiced and who gets cast as a ghost versus who gets haunted. So the first scripts I was writing were more meta, they were about ghosts in general. Then I gradually narrowed into an actual story with characters. That’s the dancer in me. I tend to think a little more abstractly.”

As the story was honed, it became one that focused more on familial bonds. Without spoiling the experience, which should be able to be completed in a little less than an hour, “Ghosts in the Machine” gradually transitions from a haunt to a tale that focuses on forgotten promises, lost loved ones and the lonely pings that can come from unresolved grief. “Ghosts in the Machine” begins with tension. It resolves as something more meloncholic, a game-like story built for contemplation.

John Houser, 43, left, and Parker Cela, 26, right hold up their phones to scan the staircase while playing the augmented reality game “Ghosts in the Machine” at Griffith Park.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

And it’s staged in a location perfect for rumination. “Ghosts in the Machine” will take us up stairs, around pathways and into now-deserted zoo enclosures as we try to free a spirit from purgatory. There are some game-like mechanics as we’ll gather fragments of memories hidden throughout Griffith Park.

The park, the character of Phoebe tells us, is a “beacon for spiritual phenomenon.” Throughout, she’ll allude to stories of mistreated animals and the Griffith Park fire of 1933, heightening the sense that we are in the presence of unnatural occurrences. The space is dear to Wicks: it’s where her husband proposed, but “Ghosts in the Machine” pulls from more painful memories in her life.

“It had a lot to do with grief and memory,” Wicks says. “It can be so painful to engage with memory when we’re going through grief, and it can also be really complicated. Because there are good memories and there are also complicated memories. How do you hold space for both? That was something I was thinking of a lot at the time.”

The project was born during the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Wicks, who had in the past staged numerous dance performances for small groups, initially envisioned a show in which audiences would use their smartphones to follow a dancer through an outdoor space. It gradually morphed into something more ghostly.

With a tiny team, a day job and the occasional teaching gig, Wicks has found that maintaining the app to the degree in which it can be properly released has not been feasible. For instance, for this weekend’s pop-ups, the map function had to be completely rebuilt. That’s another reason Wicks will be on site, aiming to help those who may be new to AR, or to troubleshoot on the various devices audience members may bring.

“I think we like to talk about technology as having a permanence to it, but there is no permanence to it,” Wicks says. “Very few people still have their cassettes. Records are still around, but technology phases out.”

Wicks is open to the idea of continuing to develop “Ghosts in the Machine,” and has looked into institutional or commercial support. But she confesses she hasn’t hit on a solution yet.

In the meantime Wicks, who hopes to stage a show later this year that intermixes dance with tarot themes, has created an experience that uses modern augmented reality technology and yet feels ephemeral. And that’s fitting, of course, for a ghost story.