Nordic Larp Talks is a series of short, entertaining, thought-provoking and mind-boggling lectures about projects, ideas and design practice from the Nordic and collaborative traditions of live action roleplaying.
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. Most of his professional career has involved working on international development projects, and he is currently managing women’s rights projects in Africa and South Asia in the YWCA/YMCA movement.
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).
Delirium is a larp about couples in a mental institution, a story about revolution and desire in a deconstructed universe. The larp uses ensemble play and workshops to develop a 50 hour experience for 38 players; played in a huge black box with theatrical set lights to break time flow and switch between scenes. It is designed as a high resolution larp involving many diegetic game devices to bring forth the feeling of insanity in the players.
Peter Schønnemann Andreasen is a Danish organizer, game designer, proponent of the pre-larp workshop and co-creator of the Ars Ordo mechanic. He helped organize the “A Week” activities for Knudepunkt 2007, served as the Ropecon guest of honor in 2008, and was nominated for an honorary Otto at Fastaval 2011. Peter was one of the organizers of the larp Delirum in 2010.
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 elaborate simulation of life aboard a Soviet submarine.
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 Media AB and has a BA in literature. She has hosted several popular radio shows such as “P3 Kultur – Nördorama med Johanna Koljonen” and “Jättestora frågor med Johanna Koljonen” on Swedish national radio and writes columns for Dagens Nyheter and Fokus. She is the scriptwriter of the Oblivion High series of graphic novels and the co-author of the book-length larp autopsy Dragonbane – The Legacy.
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 Mikkelsen, Kristoffer Thurøe, the people at Huset i Magstræde, SocialVideo Production for the live-streaming and all others who made this event possible!
You can watch the stream in full in the player below for now, but in the following weeks will will post the individual speaks here at the Nordic Larp Talks site complete with links and references.
On Games: Painting Life With Rules (starts at 02:15) Johanna Koljonen
Playing With Personal Development(starts at 12:00) Bjarke Pedersen
Fabricating Madness(starts at 22:00) Peter Schønnemann Andreasen
Role-Playing as a Teaching Method(starts at 34:55) Sanne Harder
Horror and Tragedy in Nordic Role-Playing (starts at 45:55) Markus Montola
Not Another Story About Boy Meets Girl(starts at 54:15) Tor Ketil Edland
Can Playing Games Teach Us About War?(starts at 1:05:25) Eirik Fatland
Documenting the Nordic Larp Scene(starts at 1:20:42) Panel: Johanna Koljonen & Jaakko Stenros
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 event.
The first Nordic Larp Talks event took place in Stockholm in 2010, in connection with Nordic larp conference Knutpunkt. All the talks can be seen on this website:
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 release parties held simultaneously in Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki.
The live talkshow was broadcasted on the 22nd December 2010 during the release parties of the Nordic Larp book. Host was writer and critic Johanna ‘Joc’ Koljonen.
Guests: Jaakko Stenros – Book editor, Finland Markus Montola – Book editor, Finland Erlend Eidsem Hansen – Chapter author, Norway Bjarke Pedersen – Chapter author, Denmark Anna Westerling – Book producer, Sweden
Buy your copy of the book at the webshop Fealivia.se
“Nordic Larp is a rare and vivid glimpse into a fascinating gaming tradition. If anyone knows how to imagine better worlds and build a more engaging reality, it’s larpers.” – Jane McGonigal, author of Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
“Now evolved far from its roots in genre consumption and modification, the progressive Nordic live roleplaying scene is building the tools for participatory performance that artists internationally will be using for generations to come. Nordic Larp is the first book to put the community’s key pieces in one easily digestible and visually seductive format.” – Brody Condon, Artist
“The rise of the ars ludorum is not confined to the bombastic power fantasies of the videogame but is manifest all over the globe in diverse ways, from the doujin games of Japan to the passionate intensity of the indie games movement to the rise of the Euro-style board game. Not least among these movements is larp, brought to its apotheosis in the Nordic countries, where vast, imaginative works of enormous artistic ambition receive attention not only from game geeks but from their national cultures as well. This vital phenomenon is now accessible to English speakers through this landmark work, an anthology of articles describing some of the most impressive and compelling works of the form. Anyone seriously interested in role-play, interactive narrative, and the collision between games and theater will find it of enormous interest.” – Greg Costikyan, Game Designer
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.
