In the near future, big cities are immensely populated, forcing more and more strangers to live together in shared households. “DreamHouse” is an experimental project of a housing agency: you pay less to live in a “smart house” where AI helps you build a better community and avoid conflicts. Despite all doubts and rumors about this experiment, you agree to move in as you don’t have any other choices.

Will your idea of a home match with your future roommates?

“Welcome to the DreamHouse — the perfect home built by all of us with a help of modern technology”

Duration: approximately 6 hours, including a preparation workshop and a discussion after the play
Mood: poetic and a bit of ironic drama with drops of magic realism
Food: lunch is included and will be part of the play

For whom: anyone interested in new ways of storytelling, exploring the boundaries of participation and play in contemporary art, and anyone willing to think and talk about the challenges of living together with strangers

DreamHouse is a live-action role-playing game about the desire of creating an ideal or at least “okay” home while living together with strangers in conditions that are far from being a dream.

All the events of this game take place in a speculative future. However, the content and topic are inspired by research on housing problems in the Netherlands conducted by artist Jana Romanova.

During this time you’ll be able to get to know other participants better and create your characters, discuss connections between them that may have happened in the past, and rehearse collaboratively created scenes to get a bit more comfortable with role-playing. You’ll also get familiar with the rules and the structure of the play in this part.

During this time, you’ll be portraying your character with your actions, co-creating a story together with other participants.

After the end of the larp we’ll get together to discuss how we feel and what this experience made us think of, share the stories of our characters, wrap up and get back to being ourselves.

About Jana

Jana Romanova is a multidisciplinary artist inspired by misunderstandings. She works with performance and game practices, using photography and video as tools to discover gaps between what we say and what we do. She takes these breaches in communication as possibilities for being together, whatever that could mean.

Before starting an artistic practice,Jana has been active as a game designer for live-action role-playing games (LARP) for about nine years, developing both intimate (up to 5 players) and large-scale (around 200 players) experiences. She is researching how different game mechanics and ways of working with games and playfulness can become methods for creating art projects.

Currently, along with her artistic practice, Jana is teaching a course in analog game design at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (KABK), in MA Photography and Society” a practical course on creating public impact; and organizes The Movement Lab, a series of workshops on performance methods. She is a graduate of MA “Photography and Society” at KABK.