January 2012
8 posts
Documenting the Nordic Larp Scene
Jaakko Stenros (M.Soc.Sc.) is a game researcher at the Game Research Lab at the University of Tampere, Finland. Currently he is working on a dissertation on the limits of games. Together with Markus Montola, Jaakko has edited three books on larp, Playground Worlds (2008), Beyond Role and Play (2004) Nordic Larp (2010). They are also authors of Pervasive Games: Theory and Design (2009).
Site:...
Can Playing Games Teach Us About War?
Eirik Fatland is a larpwright and interaction designer from Norway and has has since 1994 been involved in the design of around 10-15 larps. He has written several articles for the Knutepunkt books, larp magazines and the Amor Fati website.
Site: The Larpwright
Photo: Jakob la Cour www.jakoblacour.dk
Not Another Story About Boy Meets Girl
Tor Kjetil Edland was one of the organizers of the (almost) all female larp Mad about the Boy the summer of 2010. He is an active member of Laivfabrikken Oslo, a network organizing monthly larps in Oslo, and has been part of producing two Knutepunkts, the annual Nordic larp conference. Other larps on his resume include Just a little lovin’, 1942, New Voices in Art, Limbo and Kristianiabohemen....
Horror and Tragedy in Nordic Role-Playing
Markus Montola (M.Soc.Sc.) has worked as a researcher both at University of Tampere and at Nokia Research Center, with role-playing and pervasive games as main research interests. Together with Jaakko Stenros, Montola has edited three books on larp, Playground Worlds (2008), Beyond Role and Play (2004) Nordic Larp (2010). They are also authors of Pervasive Games: Theory and Design (2009).
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Role-Playing as a Teaching Method
Sanne Harder is a Danish scenario writer, who has more than 15 productions behind her, both LARP and tabletop, among which the most prominent are Agerlund (2009) and Felicia’s Story (2008). Her work has been published several times, both as part of antologies and as stand alone scenarios. Sanne has many year’s experience as a judge at the Danish scenario convention Fastaval. Here she...
Fabricating Madness
Peter Schønnemann Andreasen was one of the organizers of the larp Delirum in 2010.
Photo: Jakob la Cour www.jakoblacour.dk
6 tags
Playing With Personal Development
Bjarke Pedersen runs the Copenhagen based company Odyssé which focuses on interactive storytelling, larping and participatory events. He also works together International artist Brody Condon on interactive performances in Europe and the States. He has played, designed and organised larps since the late nineties. He has made everything from children-larps for the Royal Danish Theatre to an...
6 tags
On Games: Painting Life With Rules
Johanna Koljonen is a writer, Radio and TV host, critic, and a popular lecturer on larp and related topics. Her groundbreaking larp criticism, in essays like “Eye-Witness to the Illusion: The Impossibility of 360° Role-Playing” and “The Dragon Was the Least of it: Larp As Ephemera and Ruin” are widely quoted in the field. She is a co-founder of the TV, radio and web production company Rundfunk...
February 2011
2 posts
8 tags
Thank you for Nordic Larp Talks Copenhagen 2011
Last night a packed room at Huset in Copenhagen and vibrant a crowd on the live-stream watched Nordic Larp Talks 2011.
Photo: Larson Kasper
We would like to give a final big hand of applause to our fantastic speakers. Your speeches were awesome and we salute you.
Also we are so grateful for the production team from Knudepunkt 2011; Nynne Søs Rasmussen, Anders Berner, Jens Niros, Juliane...
5 tags
Nordic Larp Talks Copenhagen, 16 Feb 19.00 at...
Welcome to Nordic Larp Talks Copenhagen 2011 - an evening of entertaining, thought-provoking and mind-boggling lectures about projects and ideas from the Nordic tradition of live action roleplaying games.
The evening is hosted by writer and radio & television host Johanna Koljonen.
Free admission.
19.00-20.30 at Huset i Magstræde, Rådhusstræde 13, Copenhagen The bar is open after the...
December 2010
3 posts
11 tags
Nordic Larp Book Talkshow
The Nordic Larp book presents 30 outstanding larps with stories told by designers, players and researchers. It is presented with over 250 photographs and also contains two essays about the history and rhetorics of Nordic larp, and it’s current relation to theatre, art and games. We held a talkshow about the book with critic Johanna Koljonen and book producer Anna Westerling during the...
3 tags
Nordic Larp Book Release LIVE!
The Nordic Larp book is finally out and release parties will be held in Helsiniki, Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen. If you are not able to get to the parties - we invite you to a 30 minute livestreamed show, as a Nordic Larp Talks Special Event, that will give you a good intro to the book and a nifty party-feeling. Visit the live-page: http://nordiclarp.knudepunkt.org/ The liveshow will air for...
Get ready for Nordic Larp Talks #2, February 16th...
We are preparing another round of Nordic Larp Talks, in conjunction with Nordic larp conference Knudepunkt.
Nordic Larp Talks #2 takes place on Wednesday February 18th February 16th in Copenhagen, and Johanna Koljonen will be hosting the event.
Mark your calendar, it will be an evening of exciting and approachable talks about Nordic larp, perfect for taking your interested non-larper friends...
May 2010
7 posts
Critical Strategies of Larp
Live action roleplaying games are the art of experience. Renowned game researchers Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros go through a wide range of live action roleplaying games, explaining how the games can be understood as escaping, exposing, exploring or imposing a certain world view.
Markus Montola (M.Soc.Sc.) has worked as a researcher both at University of Tampere and at Nokia Research...
High Resolution Larping
Bringing both love and violence into a game can take players to a high resolution game experience. Andie Nordgren talks about ways to give players power to express conflicts and intimacy inside the game fiction rather than simulating them through abstract rules, and shares some of the mechanics used in the tribal larp Totem.
Andie Nordgren produced the Interactive Emmy Award winning game The...
Larp as Borderland Festivals
If you don’t party day and night, you get arrested! Massive art project Futuredrome built a Mad Max style city in an old quarry, and invited 1000 people to join the neverending party, live action roleplaying game, festival and movie-in-the-making. Mathias Gullbrandsson talks about lessons from the project and introduces Borderland - a new project in the same vein.
Mathias Gullbrandson...
Portraying Love and Trying New Genders
The story of a small village marriage on a desert planet was the canvas for an exploration of how to portray gender, relationships and sexuality in roleplaying games. While fighting uses large and bold gestures, love is a glance across the room. Emma Wieslander explains how the game Mellan Himmel och Hav (Between Heaven and Sea) had the ambition to let people out of stereotypes they might not...
The Quest for the Perfect Manifestation of a Dream
Martin Ericsson explains why live action roleplaying totally beats computer games when it comes to immersion. He goes on to talk about his use of 360° immersive aesthetics in the games Hamlet, a decadent 1930’s version of the Shakespeare play, and Carolus Rex, a Swedish space drama staged in a submarine.
Martin Ericsson is senior designer at games producer The Company P. Over the past...
Transmitting a political vision through larp
Peter Munth-Kaas tells the story of how the game System Danmarc used a cyberpunk setting full of excitements like drugs, violence, gangs, hyperslum and cool parties to make a point about how welfare societies today treat people who have fallen off the ladder of success. Hear how the game makers built a small city from freight containers on a square in central Copenhagen, and how players reacted...
9 tags
Introduction to Nordic Larp
Johanna Koljonen introduces Nordic larp by talking about her bodily experience of a fallout shelter outside Tulsa during an alternate past Cuban Missile Crisis. She explains how you can understand what goes in to creating ambitious larps by comparing the process with a birthday party, and goes on to answer the question of wether these games are games at all. Watch this Nordic Larp Talk for a...
April 2010
2 posts
Live broadcast of Nordic Larp Talks, Stockholm
The event starts about 06.30 into the live broadcast.
Notes and links from Nordic Larp Talks
The first Nordic Larp Talks event is over. Thank you to everyone who made it possible, despite volcanic disruptions, and thank you for joining at Café Klara or through the live broadcast!
Here are some notes and links that were mentioned during the event:
Books
Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola have edited two anthologies on Nordic larp. Both are available online as pdf downloads:
Beyond Role...
March 2010
1 post
Nordic Larp Talks - April 17th, c/o Stockholms...
Two hours of entertaining, thought-provoking and mind-boggling lectures about the culture of the future, participatory storytelling and interactive theatre. Hosted by geek, journalist and games critic Johanna Koljonen.
Volcano update! Nordic Larp Talks has several speakers and production people stuck in various places in Europe, but we’re still on! We have a great programme still, so come...