Inanimate objectives

Marcus Brown has developed, and played, many fictional characters over the years – and has set many of them free in digital space. His most famous piece, The Kaiser's Toilet, features Marcus, an Englishman now based in Munich, waxing lyrical while sitting on the loo at home.

His new project is The Inanimates, which takes his work in individual characters and applies it to a new idea for him – a pop group. The Inanimates will lead online lives like many of Brown's other characters, but The Inanimates will also develop a product – a concept album, in the style of the great 80s groups whose worlds were contexualised by the east-west nuclear arms race.

We caught up with Marcus to ask him about his new project.

Please introduce The Inanimates and how the group was created.

MB: I've been toying with the idea of a group for a while now, but had never really found a way to make it work. I was asked to speak at a music conference, which takes place next year in Hamburg, about digital storytelling and decided that instead of talking about the old characters, to buckle down and finally create a band.

The idea for the framing of The Inanimates came while washing up the dishes; my iTunes came up with some shuffle magic - a mix of Massive Attack, Pink Floyd and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. It occurred to me that, in terms of the kind of work I do, these bands, particularly Floyd and Frankie, had done similar stuff; big stories, plausibly complex concepts and lots of assets around their themes. In terms of creating a digital narrative around the theme of a band, it was necessary to have the band make a concept album.

When The Wind Blows, 1986

Stylistically, The Inanimates is a homage to the fin de siecle style of the 80s – with big, serious, concepts. How much of this style and era has played a part on your own life?

MB: I think most of my ideas and my view of the world are rooted in the 1980's. I am, after all, a child of Thatcher. That woman stole my milk. In retrospect, it was a very interesting decade. At the time, it was hell.

There always seemed to be something dark and big looming on the horizon; nuclear war or something. It felt chaotic, plastic and menacing; the miner's strikes, the Falklands war, the cold war, Reagan, Thatcher, Brezhnev, hooliganism, Greenham Common. Writing that list gives me the shivers and When The Wind Blows still deeply upsets me.

How and why is Weavrs used in the development of The Inanimates?

MB: I been involved with, and have been using various incarnations, of Philter Phactory's Weavrs for a couple of years now and using them has become a natural part of my process. Normally, I use them to help me define a character that I have created on paper, and test their storyworld.

Weavrs also take you in different directions. Traditionally, authors know where their characters are going to go; they know how long they will live, who they will meet and if they will succeed or fail. It's different when you use a Weavr to create a character. Weavrs are like disobedient dogs which can be both fun and frustrating and the same time.

The approach I'm using for The Inanimates is, however, slightly different. Instead of using Weavrs to outline the digital fabric of the five band members, I'm using them to define five themes that the band will be using in their concept album; Distances, Homage, Monster, Wasted, and Sorrows, which means I have five fictional characters that are being informed/inspired by five artificial themes that appear, to all intents and purposes, to live.

The themes produce content that the band use to create new content. Working like this is like folding reality into fiction and then folding back into reality again. One of the key elements of the themes is the Weavr prostethic called "whistling", which creates little sound files or whistles.

The band have started playing around with whistles to create their own music:

What should we expect in terms of The Inanimates' music?

MB: I've joking called their style Progstep: a mixture of progressive rock, trip hop, 80's pop and dubstep. When I was sketching out the project I pitched The Inanimates to myself as ZTT-meets Pink Floyd-meets Massive Attack. Weavrs tend to take the author in all sorts of different directions, so the style could change.

Your previous work is with physical characters. As The Inanimates (currently) live in digital space, are you moving your characterisation from the physical to the virtual, and how different is that for you? Is this fundamentally an expressionist idea?

MB: My characters always start off in the digital space. Although I started playing around with putting them in real-life situations, that's really where they live. The Inanimates as a project is slightly different as we never actually encounter them as individuals, which is a new approach for me and one that feels exciting and odd at the same time.

The Inanimates also, to an extent, references Brecht and the Verfremdungseffekt – stripping an event of "the familiar" to build a sense of curiosity to the audience. It strikes me that digital marketing is absolutely guilty of not using the theory of performance to build something unique and special with the audience – perhaps because it lazily assumes that because it's virtual and not physical, a theatrical relationship doesn't apply. Does that tally with your view?

I suppose it does, yes. I've always found it disappointing that the marketing industry thinks of people as "consumers" and not as an "audience". Digital characters live in a place where they are constantly breaking through the fourth wall, and smashing the illusion of the fiction.

CM Punk, WWF

If as an author you, understand that, understand that you are working with an audience, understand the fourth wall, and build that into the narrative, then the results are surprisingly effective.

The Inanimates have their own about.me website, where you can explore who they are and listen to more of their music.

Further information on Marcus Brown available at his blog The Kaiser Rises, and he is @marcusjhbrown on Twitter.