Category: News

From the esthethic view of being a god in the immigrant camps of Finland to being on top of the digital game era and doing the tango with vampires in the Winter Garden. 
We are larp.

Nordic Larp Talks Helsinki 2012 – was an evening of entertaining, thought-provoking and mind-boggling lectures about projects and ideas from the Nordic tradition of live action roleplaying games. 

SPEAKERS

Mike Pohjola – How to become a god

Johanna Macdonald – From preforming arts to larp

Claus Raasted – Larpification 

JP Kaljonen – The interplay between player and man in the street

Panel with Mikko Rautalahti & Andie Nordgren – Getting A Haircut And A Real Job

Jesper Bruun – Experimental Larp Design

Lizzie Stark – Playing in Graveyards: Terror collides with larp

The talks where presented by writer, radio & television host as well as winner of the innovator category of this years The Swedish Grand Journalism Prize award, Johanna Koljonen.

It was live streamed on nordiclarptalks.org and all talks are now available to watch with the player above. During the next days they will be published as separate clips.

NLT 2012 Helsinki was part of the A Week in Helsinki-program prior to the roleplaying conference Solmukohta. 

Photo by Tuomas Puikkonen (CC BY 2.0)

Prior to the talks we livestreamed the presentation of this years Solmukohta book, States of Play by the editor Juhana Petterson. You can download the book as pdf at the site nordicrpg.fi.

Nordic Larp Talks Helsinki 2012 took place on April 11th at the PRKL club in central Helsinki, Kaisaniemenkatu 4. Hosted by Johanna Koljonen and produced and livestreamed by Petter Karlsson & Björn Falkevik from Falkevik & Danehav. Big thanks to the whole A Week in Helsinki crew for making this happen.

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 to.

We are planning to live stream the event like last time, so if you can’t make it to Copenhagen we still recommend you mark your calendar and tune your web browser to this page for the live broadcast of the entire event.

More details on the venue, time and other practical matters will come soon ™.

We are currently preparing to reach out to people we think should give Nordic Larp Talks. You can help!

What we are looking for:

Nordic Larp Talks are inspired by the TED talks format, where experts or people with extraordinary experiences talk about them in such a way that any interested and educated person can enjoy the topic. A Nordic Larp Talk should highlight a project or theme on the Nordic Larp scene to an audience of non-larpers.

Do you think you should give a talk, or do you know of a person or project that should be in a Nordic Larp Talk? Please get in touch with Andie Nordgren and Petter Karlsson. 

/The NLT #2 team: Andie Nordgren (production, web), Petter Karlsson (production, documentation), Johanna Koljonen (hosting), Nynne Søs Rasmussen (location)

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 and Play

Playground Worlds

They are currently working on a coffee table anthology about Nordic larps, read more about it on the project blog: nordiclarp.wordpress.com

Nordic larp conference Knutpunkt

The annual conference on Nordic larp, Knutpunkt, is in Sweden this year. Nordic Larp Talks was part of the programme preceding the conference.

Knutpunkt 2010

Educational larping conference ELIN

Once day before the Knutpunkt conference, and still has space.

EDU-LARP – Live Role-Playing as a Teaching Method

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 along! 

April 17th, 16.00-18.00 at Café Klara, c/o Stockholms Stadsteater. The event is free, but you can reserve a seat here if you like! A number of seats will also be held for people without reservations, but if you want to make sure, fill out the form!

Speakers: Jaakko Stenros, Emma Wieslander, Andie Nordgren, Peter Munthe-Kaas, Markus Montola, Johanna Koljonen, Mathias Gullbrandson, Martin Ericsson. Speaker bios.

About

Space monsters on Russian submarines. A mechanical dragon the size of a house. Gender-deconstructed space bedouins at the National Theatre. A decadent Hamlet in a 1930s bunker. Six weeks of adventure and every-day life in a parallel Stockholm. Asylum centres, bomb shelters, medieval villages, hippie communes, mental landscapes – worlds for the participants to experience on their own bodies.

The Nordic countries are the best in the world when it comes to role-playing games as a story-telling medium, an art form and a pedagogical tool. In conjunction with the Knutpunkt conference, which gathers the movement’s top Nordic, European and US names to Stockholm, c/o Stadsteatern will be hosting two hours of entertaining, thought-provoking and mind-boggling lectures about the culture of the future, participatory storytelling and interactive theatre.

From extreme emotional experiences in abstract rooms to detailed simulations of virtual worlds, from gripping societal criticism to total escapism, this Nordic movement has achieved what the games industry, institutional theatres and political communicators have only dreamed of – participatory Gesamtkunstwerk of a high artistic quality. Nordic Larp Talks is a useful and entertaining two-hour presentation of some of the movement’s most fascinating experiences and the most exciting lessons learned.

The event is produced by games producer and social commentator Andie Nordgren and hosted by journalist and games critic Johanna Koljonen, who will also give the introductory talk. The talks are aimed at cultural producers and the general arts audience and do not require previous knowledge of game design or gamer culture. The event is in English.