THE ARGATHERiNG 2026
- For over three decades, alternate reality games (ARGs) have blurred the line between reality and fiction, bringing together a thriving audience of players and enthusiasts. The ARgathering is the world's only in-person ARG convention; a celebration of the vast, reality-bending, cutting-edge world of ARGs. Founded and directed by ARG developer & documentarian Alex Hera, and presented by the Unnamed Footage Festival, The ARGathering 2026 featured a screening block of selected videos from popular ARGs, a panel Q&A, and an original immersive experience produced by Unfictional Productions: Rasterflesh.
- The screening block included an exclusive video intro from Nick Nocturne of Night Mind, and selected videos from Anatomy (1963), Daisy Brown, Don’t Feed the Muse, hiimmarymary, Marble Hornets: Rosswood, Rasterflesh, and redredhat. The panel Q&A was hosted by Alex Hera, in conversation with -k. of hiimmarymary and Dragonfly of Anatomy (1963).
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RASTERFLESH
Rasterflesh was an in-person ARG/immersive experience produced by Unfictional Productions and developed by Alex Hera, Vincent Caffarello, and Rain Dalton as part of The ARGat hering 2026.
This was the prologue to Rasterflesh, a story which initially mascqueraded as another fictional ARG in the ARgathering Showcase, before revealing that it was anything but. The Rasterflesh Experience allowed audiences to experience an ARG coming to life around them as an entity living inside screens - The Rasterflesh - escaped from the videos playing at the ARGathering and infected the historic Balboa Theater in San Francisco. As Rasterflesh threatened to get loose, players participated in occult rituals, engaging puzzles, and digital character interactions to confront the Rasterflesh and complete a binding ritual to trap him on customizable CD disk.
The experience was comprised of an introductory short film, an immersive theater show with audience interaction, an environment with puzzles and narrative elements in the theater lobby, an in-universe website, a phone number that could be contacted in real time during the experience, and a playable video game.
