This research post is partly a conversation between 2018 iii guest resident Nina Runa Essendrop, Marije Baalman, and Matteo Marangoni on larp, and partly a report on the work that Nina developed during her residency in collaboration with iii members Marije Baalman, Matteo Marangoni, Wen Chin Fu, and Erfan Abdi. This work was presented at No Patent Pending #34 on October 13, 2018

Starting points

What is larp?

 

Larp (originally an acronym for Live Action Roleplay, but now its own noun or verb) is a participatory media where people take on characters and enters a fictional situation together.

Their behavior, possibilities and interactions within the space of the larp is sometimes mediated by rules or directions, letting participants know how to engage with the larp and allowing them to collaboratively bring the fictional space to live in an improvised manner.

Larp is a relatively new media dating back from the second half of the 1900 and it has evolved a lot in style and content within the last 20 years. It has become a media testing a wide variety of fictions and ways of being and experiencing.

Larp is being explored in different contexts such as art and education, but it has its origin in play and games.

Larp with an audience

 

Larps are usually fully participatory with all the players taking an active part in how the larp unfolds by playing their characters and interacting with the larp and each other.

They usually play within a fiction and with a set of rules and possibilities decided upon by the larp design, but the real unfolding of the larp is what takes place within and among the larpers.

If the larpers are not actively participating and buying in to the fictional circumstances, the larp does not work.

The contract for how to engage as an audience with an art-piece (even a piece of art offering interaction or participation) is often different. As an audience member you don’t expect to have  responsibility for getting the piece to function.

Finding ways of creating larps with an audience is something I am exploring in different ways and within different contexts. I find that adding an audience has the potential to bring something to the experience of the players as well as creating meaningful situations and interactions for the audience.

Nordic larp

 

I come from Nordic Larp, a specific branch of larp originating in the nordic countries, but now spreading out to the rest of the world. Nordic Larp represent a wide range of different styles and genres of larp, which has generated a nuanced skill-set and academic praxis allowing larp designers to learn from one another by reading about or participating in each others larps.

 

My larp designs

 

I have studied Theatre, dance and performance theory which has been a big inspiration for my larp designs. I work with abstract, sensory or movement based experiences.

My larps often focus on non-verbal ways of communicating or with ways of experiencing that works on other premises than rational logic.

I feel that embodying characters who thinks or acts differently than our everyday selves is an effective way to understand different modes of experience. It allows us the broaden our possibilities for how we interpret ourselves and others and how we perform ourselves in everyday life.

Collaborating with iii

 

One of the things I want to explore through my larp designs, is different aspects of how we as humans are able to experience and understand our moment to moment life. I am especially interested in the more abstract and intuitive levels of understanding and I find that some of this has to do with sound and the kind of logics or influences that functions in sound/music.

My main goal for this residency was to learn more about how to work with and understand sound in a performative context and to get to work with the direct and tactile relation to sound that comes from playing and constructing different kinds of instruments. Collaborating with four of the iii artists was a wonderful way to learn.

Music and sound always played a big part in my design and the focus on materials, the different instruments and the thoughts behind them as well as how to make compositions with them was extremely inspiring and relevant.

Translating a music way of thinking into a fictional frame and participatory experience was a lot of fun!

Preparation – playing larps

In preparation of the residency in the Fall, we invited Nina to come over to iii in May, so that iii-members could play and experience some of Nina’s works and have time to reflect on that before the collaboration started.

Three larps were played:

• – Human Experience
• – Strangers
• – No Island is an Island

 

Human Experience was designed as a ‘larp with an audience’, so we integrated it with the No Patent Pending evening on May 4th, during which other artists-in-residence were presenting their works. In the few days before the evening, Nina met with the other artists and Matteo, who curated the evening, and engaged in discussions on how to do the integration.

On a practical level, for iii, this meant a different way of organizing and scheduling – where usually the full afternoon until dinner is used to prepare the space, setup and sound check, we now had to schedule in time for the preparation workshop for the participants in the larp before the dinner, as we had no other space available to do the workshop – and for the participants it was useful to already be in the space with the art works they would interact with during the larp itself. The participants were in a way really in between performers and ‘regular’ audience.

 

Integrating Human Experience into No Patent pending

 

Human Experience is a larp about experiencing senses and movement as for the first time. The larp has been played in different iterations and playing it at “No Patent Pending” gave the opportunity to adjust the design of the larp to make the larpers specifically focus on experiencing the instruments and performances taking place that evening, as well as interacting with the audience and becoming part of the overall experience.

Meeting the iii members and the artists in residence was exciting and inspiring. The mood was relaxed and pleasant even though it was a couple of days before “No Patent Pending” and everyone was focused and busy finishing up their instruments and presentations.

Finding out how to incorporate “Human Experience” into “No Patent Pending” was a challenge though, because I did not know the format of the evening or the works of the other artists presenting, and neither the other artists nor Matteo, who was curating the evening had an in-depth knowledge of larp or any experience with my work.

The difference in approach and terminology became apparent, but it was the same differences that also made the residency so interesting and giving. And getting Marije there to translate made things a lot easier. And with good will on all sides, we made it work.

One reaction from a participant (familiar with the art of iii, but no previous larp experience) was:

“The intensity of perception (sound, movement, space, etc) was amplified a lot as a larp, very different from the experience as a visitor.”

The other two larps were scheduled as separate events lasting a full afternoon.

In Strangers the emphasis was on creating a movement and sign language in two groups and then during the larp finding out how integration and interaction between these two groups would work.

In ‘No Island is an Island’ the participants were blindfolded most of the time and the interaction was through sound. For the iii members participating, this way of interacting was perhaps most familiar – since it was close to improvising musically.

I came into the collaboration very much intrigued by the long form format and the possibility to establish ad hoc rules of engagement, as well as the elimination of distinctions between audience and performer.

In Nina’s larp “No Island is an Island” I liked the experience of being blindfolded for a long period of time and improvising with vocal sounds with the other participants. That was a memorable experience. The framing of the experience in terms of language and narrative I found difficult to engage with.

In Strangers I liked very much the concept underpinning the experience, how it searched for a synthesis of what constitutes group identity and inter-group interactions. In the experience itself I found it difficult to develop a meaningful connection with the actions that I was instructed to perform.

In the period between May and September, the group was formed: Matteo, Erfan, Wen Chin, and Marije would collaborate with Nina.

They had a couple of joint online meetings and gathered ideas and concepts via email and a shared document.

In this process a main concept was developed for the setting: a kind of cultural exchange with a tribe where sound is the predominant medium, and the concept of initiation rituals. Later on this concept was refined in how it was presented.

Method

During the residency period, we scheduled three three-day periods to bring together the ideas we had developed during the online meetings.

In the first of these periods, each of the iii members introduced an instrument they wanted to work with and we jointly explored these instruments and developed ideas on how to use them and we transformed them into ‘trials’ the participating audience had to go through.

In between the periods, the iii members built the instruments that we needed for the presentation, while Nina further elaborated on the fiction that would frame the experience.

During the second week, we worked further on integrating these trials into a coherent whole. On the last day of this period we had the opportunity to test the work with 50 visiting students, so we could see what worked and what did not, and could adapt these before the official presentation.

In the last week, we worked out characters for Wen Chin, Erfan and Marije in a workshop led by Nina. Also, short character descriptions were made for the audience by Nina and Matteo, which were then designed as small cards for the audience to choose from.

During the presentation at NPP, Matteo would not join as a character (since he was also busy curating the rest of the event), but he would read the introduction text to the audience. Nina would be the guide for the audience.

I very much enjoyed playing, exploring and brainstorming together. It was challenging to create a finished piece in the time we had, the final stage of the process was driven by the pressure to deliver a finished result. Here is the never ending question of how to facilitate open ended experiments while also giving something back of sufficient value to justify the resources that are made available to us.

The Sonic Embassy

The larp/performance we designed was called Sonic Embassy.

Three sound ambassadors (played by iii members) were visiting iii and No Patent Pending to show how they perceive the world through sound, by guiding the audience through three games/exercises and showing them a short sound ritual.

 

The trials

 

Each trial was connected to collaboratively playing an instrument. All trials allowed (some of) the audience members to explore the use of the instruments and the sounds they made based on different parameters and with game-like goals for how several audience members could play (with) them at the same time.

For the first trial we used Drone crosses, which was an instrument Matteo brought. Drone crosses are wooden crosses with elastic bands attached which vibrates and creates sound when the cross is swung around.

The idea of the trial was to create a soundscape with a coherent volume, following the consensus of the group making the shared sound louder or more quiet. Audience members got small versions of the instruments and while playing them they tried to hit the same speed creating a similar sound from the instruments. When hitting a certain level of sound with all the instruments, a bigger Drone Cross would activate (played by one of the sonic embassy performers).

The goal of the audience members playing the drone crosses was to listen to one another and without talking, shifting up and down in speed (making the sound louder or more silent).

For the second trial we used a version of Erfan’s Marble Machine. For the trial we used marbles balancing on wooden surfaces lined with reflective materials, which changed the sound of the marbles rolling across the wood.

Audience members took turns holding the wooden surfaces and had the shared responsibility to not let the marble hit the ground while they balanced and passed the marble between them. While balancing the marble participants could explore the different sounds it made.

Other audience members got flashlights and as we turned off the light, they had to make sure that the marble would always be visible to the people with the wooden surfaces and that they had enough light to make it possible to balance the marble.

The third trial was based on Wen Chin’s bodycello, but for Sonic Embassy the instrument was changed so it required at least three people, and eventually seven people, to play. The instrument consisted of two boxes with a string in between them. Two players each held a box, making sure to keep the string between them tight, while the third player would play the string.

In the trial the instrument worked as a kind of vehicle where the players holding the boxes were the wheels and the player playing the string was the driver. The wheels were blindfolded and the driver would give them directions by making the sounds on the string slide either up or down.

Three bodycellos were played at the same time and the goal for the drivers where to get across the space without colliding with the other bodycellos. We increased the amount of people acting as wheels, in order to have more people from the audience involved in playing the instrument.

After our test run with the students, we changed the aim of the trial to arriving to the other side of the room at the same time as the other cars rather than arriving first. So we made it a collaborative, rather than a competitive goal. We also added front lights to the cars and dimmed the overall light in the space.

Goodbye ritual

 

We ended the larp/performance with a short performance by the three sound ambassadors which was a sequence of bowing, which triggered various notes at different levels of bowing. This was an instrument created by Marije; though during the preparation time we brainstormed and tried if we could make it into an instrument that audience members could play, but we ran into problems of time to make it easy enough to play. So in the end, we decided to include it as a goodbye ritual to end the performance.

Presentation at No Patent Pending

Sonic Embassy followed an outdoor performance by Jaime del Val; in the absence of the audience the elaborate setup in the space for Geert-Jan Hobijn’s work was removed and the space was prepared for the larp. So when the audience came back inside, the space was transformed – and the audience sat down quietly waiting for the next performance.

Nina: Making larp accessible for an audience at “No Patent Pending” was for me the biggest challenge of the residency for several reasons.

The first challenge was to get the audience to buy into the premise of the larp, accepting the fictional frame and the level of participation required. The larp we created (Sonic Embassy) was not the only piece being shown at “No Patent Pending” so audience members did not come specifically to take part of a larp, but to experience the whole program.

Another challenge was to teach the audience members how to participate in a larp as well as teaching them the frame and mindset of this specific larp. And this had to be done in a very short time, as to fit The Sonic Embassy into the rest of the program for “No Patent Pending”.

Evaluation & reflection

The presentation with the students from the art academy in Bern worked very well. The students were on a study trip during which they visited many cultural institutions in the Netherlands, including major museums, and they reportedly described the visit to iii as a high point of their whole trip.

The presentation during No Patent Pending was more problematic as the audience was not prepared to engage in such a format to such an extent and for so long, and perhaps the sonic and instrumental elements of the experience were too simple for our audience members who are sound art experts.

Having had the opportunity to evaluate the presentation with several participants, I think that this format would be excellent to offer as a standalone activity, perhaps during the day, for a less specialized audience.

It could work very well to connect to children, adolescents or adults who are not familiar with sound art. It could also work really well as a team building activity for companies, as it gives participants the possibility to become children again for one hour while also working together to achieve the proposed tasks.

It was quite a challenge to bridge the different experiences and expectations. Both as makers and for the audience. One of the interesting aspects of larp is the collaborative component, rather than that it is a competitive game, and that the players and roles they take can vary.

Within the performative context however, this is very hard to transfer in the short time span, while also having to overcome the expectations of the audience. For this, the method with the small character descriptions helped, but there could perhaps have been another exercise to let the participating audience enter the space.

In the larps we played beforehand, a lot of time was dedicated to learning how to play – and in this project we squashed it down to a very short amount of time.

Looking back at it, there were three levels that we had during the presentation at NPP:

• – The performers
• – The audience that wished to participate
• – The audience that preferred to watch rather than participate

I guess in the design, we had not taken care enough to separate the last two groups. Even though, we had a character description that allowed for non-participation, there were audience members who did not even want to choose that character description.

It might have helped if we had made the separation more easy, so the non-participating audience would not disturb those that did want to participate. But this is a tricky one – being watched by your non-participating friends can be hurdle to drop out from the social role you usually take with them.

In the process we worked from the instruments we had and developed an experience around these – I wonder how it would have been if we had worked the other way around – start from the fiction and develop instruments from the fiction.

During the presentation at NPP, the amount of people not interested in participating was large enough to change the group dynamic. This made it harder for those who wanted to participate to find their alibi.

Perhaps it is important to be more strict: if you don’t participate, you don’t get in. Or define an alibi for the non-participating.

The instruments were fun to play with and there is a potential in the structure of the larp/performance where single parts can be used or replaced depending on the context of presentation and possibilities.

It could be interesting to present the work in a more game-like context, where participation is more experienced, instead of a performance context.

We tried to pass on complex thoughts and experiences in a short time and through a medium that was unknown for most audience members. Maybe it would have been better to focus on something simpler?

During the collaboration we had to do a lot of translating between different ways of creating experiences. This was new to all of us and the techniques take time to master. Still, it was a valuable learning experience and I have a lot to build on for later projects.