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.
Site: Odyssé
Twitter: bjarcore
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.
Site: johannakoljonen.com
Twitter: jocxy
Photo by: Jacob la Cour
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 event will be streamed live as it happens, on this page:
http://nordiclarp.knudepunkt.org/
Facebook event: Nordic Larp Talks Copenhagen 2011
Press contact: Kristoffer Thurøe k@doodlers.dk +45 2980 8128
Program
Nordic Larp culture
Johanna Koljonen
Fabricating madness
Peter Schønnemann Andreasen
Learning through playing
Sanne Harder Flamant
Playing with personal development
Bjarke Pedersen
Why some games use our real life fears and emotions to create stories
Markus Montola
Not another story of boy meets girl
Tor Kjetil Edland
Can playing games teach us about war?
Eirik Fatland
Documenting the Nordic Larp Scene – the making of the Nordic Larp Book
Panel: Jaakko Stenros & Johanna Koljonen
Watch this space for updated information about the speakers.
Nordic Larp Talks 2011 is organized in cooperation with Rollespilsfabrikken and Bifrost, and supported by DUF and Københavns Kommune. It is a part of the programme the week before larp conference Knudepunkt.
About Nordic Larp Talks:
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:
Transmitting a political vision through larp
The Quest for the Perfect Manifestation of a Dream
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
And don’t miss out on the Nordic Larp blog & Knudepunkt 2011
The show was produced by Petter Karlsson and SocialVideo Production
What some people have said about the book:
“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
We are doing a new round of Nordic Larp Talks in conjunction with the Knudepunkt 2011 conference. Read more about that here.
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 about 30 minutes and your host for the evening is writer and critic Johanna ‘Joc’ Koljonen.
Wednesday December 22nd
6:30pm – 7:00pm (UTC/GMT London)
7:30pm – 8:00pm (CET Copenhagen/Oslo/Stockholm)
8:30pm – 9:00pm (EET Helsinki)