Task: Create a sensory based 20 minute ritual in the alien world for the class to experience digitally.
🤝🏻Team
Tatiana, Ines, Cat, Manali
We jumped on a zoom-call together to discuss our ideas, and went through what we caught from our learning through the Skinship Larp.
We looked through the video Mechanics - Fader talk by Bjarke Pedersen, mentioned to us in the session with Susan. Mechanics means the instructions or object that regulates how the players interact with the fiction and each other. It’s like a tool box which is specifically made for the L-A-R-P seeing what connectivity we are trying to achieve.
We all were clear about creating a ritual, and preparing a script together with keeping in mind of choosing a sense beside sight. Immediately I started thinking about the platform zoom where we will be performing together and that made me think of creating a sense of aura of having a set of background. We together started to create ideas in direction of experimenting with objects, food, smell, sound. Immediately my team mate Ines talked about her experience with greetings+ sound. She talked about how we can communicate through clapping and making a language to understand.
After a quick Mindstorm we came up with different scenarios, which were living under water and another one was living with a virus.
After tutorial session with Professor Dr. John Fass we mutually decided to go forward with the idea of
“A Spaceborne Virus”
Ritual
SPACE VIRUS 👾
It’s the year 2367. The human race has vanished. Or has it? A space-borne virus called the CIMT has caused the invisibility of the infected individuals. Their only hope is to get help from a recovered alien, through a healing process conducted by the Venti Cirri, a human-alien hybrid who already went to space during the past five years, and is immune to the Virus.
The main aim of this LARP is experiencing the process of Aliens healing the human race from a space-borne virus: CIMT Virus. Each participant will have to take part in this Somatic experience.
Run-through
On Thursday, we were able to test our initial idea with another group. We guided them through the experience of healing/ purifying from the CIMT Virus; the recovery consisted of removing layers of warm cloth from your own body and feel recovered from the CIMT virus. They were able to give us feedback.
They enjoyed the process of Larp, but they were confused by knowing what has to be done next. There were moments when they opened their eyes to see what we have to the next. They suggested that there could be a visual script sent to them before to get a clear picture.
As moving forward, we again questioned ourselves for better understanding like
Are the rules clear enough?
Have we explained all the things clearly?
How do you feel about doing this Larp online?
Anything you like about the Larp? Anything didn’t work well?
Final
We made few changes to the ritual in sense of instructions, and making it more collaborative. I drew up the character to give an outlook of the characters.
The ritual consists of guiding participants through an “uploading” process, where they are being transformed into their virtual spaces using zoom backgrounds.
Screenshot of Live-Action-Role-Play with Class Online.
We included a meditation technique to engage participants and build their focus for the healing process to start. We made guidelines to heal for Venti Cirri to instruct the players and gave time breaks and easy voice instructions to make them aware of their progress. We also shared a thought on incorporating sounds by having them in the repetition of different languages. These sounds will activate other parts of the body. Continuous repetition of the sound of words and building focuses on body parts with a sense of warmth. The ritual guides players through several steps involving making invisible, visible by removing layers of warm cloth and touching vegetables to be synced to the healing process through the instructions provided.
Symptoms of CIMT: Very high temperature, feeling cold, and being invisible.
HIDDEN UNDER A PILE OF WARM CLOTHING
INVISIBLE (OFF SCREEN) DURING THE EXPERIENCE
Online LARP Recorded Video
Feedback Time! 👍
Our classmate Sanjana said that it was great that we asked the participants to focus on the area where they felt like the temperature was the highest during the meditation. This was an exciting element to add to our LARP because we often never pay attention to these high temperature ‘red zones’ whenever we fall ill.
Also, Sue mentioned that she liked our LARP and enjoyed being the ‘Venti Cirri’; however, she said that she found it confusing to know who was meant to repeat a word at the given/specific sequence. I agree to incorporate a more direct sentence to mention how to teach the audience in term of voices.
Our lecturer, Dr John Fass, said, ‘‘It was a good experience because of all the incorporations that we made (Xeno + Somatics)’’.
Alaister was also happy with our LARP execution. He enjoyed the concept of being invisible and healing through exploring our bodily temperatures.
Final Thoughts! 💭
Creating a ritual and storyline, building that in reality, getting into character at last acting it out, was quite a learning experience for me. From my childhood, I stayed away from getting into such a collaborative experience. Still, this time with the visiting faculty and cheerful batch-mates, I succeeded in learning a new way to bring a collective indulgence. I feel this is a valuable process that could make you step into the world as a designer and express yourself and build an experience for others, too, at the same time.
Many thanks to Susan for introducing us that how a process that is not a design process can also be incorporated to make us understand and help us possibly achieve our goals. Xeno-Somatics made me think more about investing in learning about non-design skill more. No input, no output (John Fass).
References
Nordic Larp Talks Stockholm 2010, 2011. Introduction to Nordic Larp — Johanna Koljonen. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH_RLgR4DI4&feature=emb_logo> [Accessed 25 January 2021].
Future of StoryTelling, 2016. Bjarke Pedersen — Becoming The Story (FoST 2016). [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuT88CnQ4xY> [Accessed 25 January 2021].
Sanders, L. and Stappers, P.J., 2014. From designing to co-designing to collective dreaming: three slices in time. interactions, 21(6), pp.24–33.