Larp-informed art movie


French artist Pierre Huyghe his film The Host and the Cloud at the Marian Goodman Gallery in New York this spring. The artist has been unavailable for comment, but the gallery confirms that “he definitely used these methods for directing the actors in The Host and the Cloud, LARP (Live action role playing) but also ARG (Alternate Reality Game)”.

Web: Pirre Huyghe mariangoodman.com/exhibitions/2011-01-28_pierre-huyghe/
Photo: Marian Goodman Gallery, Still image from “The Host and the Cloud” video installation

Article by Ole Peder Giæver

What’s new in transmedia? A Swedish Bardo

Martin Ericsson has left The Company P to establish Bardo AB.



- We will be writing, designing, mentoring and producing hard-to-define, live, pervasive or transmedial games. Preferably stuff that makes people want to cry, fuck or blow shit up, says Ericsson. 



Bardo is Martin Ericsson (a.k.a. Elricsson) and Adriana Skarped (a.k.a Daggenfelt), the creative couple behind International Emmy Award winning participation drama “The Truth About Marika” (produced by SVT). Martin has worked as a creative director and designer with Christopher Sandberg’s The Company P for almost five years, writing, designing and running game-like projects.

 Bardo has been contracted to produce and run “quality participation” (including a documented larp, some live events and an online mystery) for The Artists (see Playground #2).

Also check out this interview with Martin about The Conspiracy for Good which ran during the summer of 2010 in London.



Web: Bardo

Article by Ole Peder Giæver

Masked and immersed at the theatre

In the article Sleep No More = LARP + Shakespeare + Absinthe + Orgy Masks on io9 the writer Cyriaque Lamar reviews the theatre company Punchdrunk‘s Sleep No More. The audience all wear masks and are able to explore the 1930s hotel, as well as following an altered version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth in a seemingly linear form.

Oh right, Sleep No More. It’s mind-blowing. Should you go, don’t bother trying to figure out the plot by trailing a single actor (there’s a $20 script bible for sale at the end if you’re hell-bent on deciphering the actors’ handsome flailings). Instead, wander around the hotel’s floors and investigate its many nooks and crannies. I’m not sure what the security camera situation is in Sleep No More, but I wouldn’t be surprised if amorous exhibitionists have conducted their own Lambada-like danse macabre in the hotel’s more cloistered recesses.

But yes, the audience can touch almost everything and are free to rifle through the building’s many desks and shelves. Do be forewarned that vigilant, skull-masked guardians will corral any rowdies to the curb.
Sleep No More = LARP + Shakespeare + Absinthe + Orgy Masks

Video report by Brodway.com

I you have the possibilty to attend… you might want to take the advice from Alexis Bittar who hosted the opening earlier this year.

I recommend it, but you will have more fun if you pretend you are one of the actors.

Web: Sleep No More
Photo: Sleep No More

Have you seen it? Would you like to? Please share your thoughts in commentaries.

Can I Be With You?




Sweden-based artist Oak Wattanai Chanakot is performing a «participatory process work where individuals are invited to experience a close relationship of their choice with me for a short period of time». 



- The participants, who answer an advertisement posted in public forums, describe the plot and the character that I play. The setting of the performance can be in personal private or public places, the artist says.



- I have done several roles since June 2011. For 2 hours to a weekend, I had been a brother, a friend, a boyfriend and something in-between!

- The goal of the performance is to be together as in a close relationship. After each performance, my participant and I would discuss and reflect on our experience.

The picture is from one of his performances.

Web: Can I be with You?
Photo: Oak Wattanai Chanakot

Article by Ole Peder Giæver

Standing in line

The Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) produces board games for historical education purposes. One of their games, The Queue (Kolejka), tells a story of everyday life in Poland at the tail-end of the communist era.



- At first glance, the task of the 2 to 5 players appears quite simple: they have to send out their family, which consists of 5 pawns, to various stores on the game board to buy all the items on their randomly drawn shopping list, says Katarzyna Hołopiak.



- The problem is, however, that the shelves in the five neighborhood shops are empty…



The IPN is the biggest archive in Poland. The basic tasks of the Institute include: gathering, assessing and disclosing of documentation created by state security agencies in the years 1939-1989.

Web: Institute of National Remembrance
Downloadable game: The Queue
Illustration: The Queue board game

The Game that can last a Thousand Years

You can win 1000 USD in “The Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge”; The game can be of any theme or genre you desire, but there is one restriction: You’re creating a “new classic,” like Chess, Tag or card games. Entries must be submitted before midnight July 31st, 2011, and the winner will be announced and awarded January 1, 2012.

Web: Daniel Solis: The Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge

Article by Ole Peder Giæver