The Tarble Arts Center will be having Alternate Universe Storyteller Eames Demetrios to talk with students, faculty and community members on Wednesday.

Demetrios will speak about Kcymaerxthaere, his alternate universe. Demetrios’s world is the same global layout, but contains different laws and people than in the real world.

Michael Watts, the director of Tarble Arts Center, said Demetrios will be turning Eastern’s campus into one of his stories.

Watts said in addition to telling a story, Demetrios will be showing the setting of where the story takes place.

There will be brass plaques with codes placed around the campus and participants will use their phones, iPods or other digital devices to enter codes to a website that will give them clues that refer to Kcymaerxthaere’s Museum of the Bench.

The first person to correctly find and identify the clues will win a hand-embroidered bag from Namibia, a country in Kcymaerxthaere, and other Kcymaerxthaere items. The nine runners-up will receive Kcymaerxthaere T-shirts.

In the end, the audience should be able to answer questions that tell a story.

Watts said what Demetrios does is similar to what other authors and artists do.

“Other people have created fictional worlds, but he has tied it to real places as a part of the whole experience,” Watt said.

“Instead of turning the page or scrolling a screen, you have to get up and use your phones to go on,” Watts said.

Watts said this helps people look at events and ideas differently.

“You hook into what he created and it makes you take a new look at the world around us,” Watts said.

People can travel the world to participate at the 45 different sites that are placed in more than eight countries. The different sites are placed in our world and the world of Kcymaerxthaere.

One of the places that Demetrios has used as a connection to his story is located in Paris, Ill. Embassy Row: Heart of the Parisian Diaspora museum.

The event is a complement to Demetrios’ exhibit “Détournement: Subversive Visual Communication” that is on display until Feb. 26.

The competition will start at 5 p.m. Wednesday and will end with a presentation at 7 p.m. in the Atrium of the Tarble Arts Center.

It is sponsored by the Excellence in Fine Arts Visiting Artist program of the EIU College of Arts & Humanities.

Watts said the exhibit and event is interactive and an interesting way to tell a story.

“It’s like a video game, except in real life,” Watts said.

Samantha McDaniel can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].