Nordic Larp Talks

Category: 2010s

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

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    JP Kaljonen is a Helsinki based visual artist. He works in the fields of social- and participatory art dealing with themes related to cultural interaction. His works are based on societal grounds and vary from video or photography to projects in public space. Kaljonen has realized his projects in different parts of Asia and Europe, and his works have been presented in group- and solo exhibitions in Finland and abroad. Recent shows include Backlight International Photo Festival, Finland 2011, Finnish Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma URB11-Festival, Finland 2011 and Porapara Art Space Public Art Exhibition at Patenga Sea Beach, Bangladesh 2012. He organized and developed the larp Dublin2 (Helsinki, 2011) together with artists Johanna Raekallio and Haidi Motola. The second production of the larp is organized together with Johanna Raekallio and Nordic cooperatives in Stockholm 2012.

    Site: kaljonen.com

    Photo: Jakob la Cour www.jakoblacour.dk

  • Larpification – Claus Raasted

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    The term gamification has been a buzzword the latest years in the sense that games are slowly making their way into new parts of society. That is now happening with larp and Claus calls it larpification.

    Claus Raasted has been a professional larper for a decade, is the author of 8 books on larp and splits his time between being editor-in-chief of the national Danish roleplaying magazine ROLLE|SPIL and doing larp stuff for a variety of different institutions and people. He also has his own weapons factory, but who hasn’t, these days?

    Site: clausraasted.dk

    Photo: Jakob la Cour www.jakoblacour.dk

    Claus Raasted

  • From preforming arts to larp – Jamie MacDonald

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    Jamie MacDonald is a transnational Finnish-Canadian artist in theatre, performance art, stand-up comedy, drag performance, punk music, writing, video, and larp. He started out in Toronto with a fairly traditional education in drama-based theatre as an actor and director, but then moved to Finland, where he couldn’t make heads or tails of the language. This move catalyzed an interest in physical theatre and dance, which is where Jamie focused intensively for the next half-decade, training in about half a dozen well-known theatrical methodologies from butoh to biomechanics. Together with Aarni Korpela, Jamie is the creator of Walkabout, a long-term crossover project between larp, theatre, and performance art. Their latest project, The Lovers’ Matchmaking Agency, ran in Oslo, Copenhagen, and Helsinki in the summer of 2012.

    Site: walkabout.happeningfish.com
    Twitter: @happeningfish

    Photo: Jakob la Cour www.jakoblacour.dk

  • How to become a god – Mike Pohjola

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    Mike Pohjola is a writer, a game designer, an entrepeneur and an activist. He has written two novels, three table-top roleplaying games, a manifesto, several theatre plays, larps at art festivals and for fun, some short films, digital games, interactive projects, and lots of other stuff. He has founded two award-winning companies, that together have won an International Emmy Award for Best Interactive TV Service (The Truth About Marika), two Interactive Rockies (Conspiracy For Good) and a Prix Europa (The Forest of Babel). He’s currently working on his third novel 1827 – Inferno about the Great Fire of Turku.

    Site: mikepohjola.com
    Blog: mikepohjola.wordpress.com
    Twitter: @mikepohjola

    My presentation, How To Become A God, deals with the history of drama from Dionysian rituals to reality television, and beyond, and how all of this relates to roleplaying. While doing that, I’ll also answer a puzzling point in Aristotle’s Poetics that’s been bugging theatre scholars for three thousand years.
    Nordic Larp Talks and State of Play 

    Photo: Jakob la Cour www.jakoblacour.dk

  • States of Play – Solmukohta 2012 book presentation – Juhana Petterson

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    Prior to the Nordic Larp Talks Helsinki 2012, Juhana Petterson the editor of States of Play, the Solmukohta book of the year held a very convincing argument this years book are completely different compared to its predecessors. You can download the book as pdf at the site nordicrpg.fi.

    Juhana Pettersson is the producer of the videogame tv-show Tilt and the director of publishing at Pohjoismaisen roolipelaamisen seura, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting Nordic roleplaying culture.

    He has studied at the University of Helsinki and at Studio national des arts contemporains le Fresnoy. He was the editor in chief of the roleplaying magazineRoolipelaaja from 2007 until 2009. He has worked as the assistant editor-in-chief at the left wing arts magazine Kulttuurivihkot, and as a contributing editor at the pan-Nordic roleplaying magazine Playground.

    He has written for publications such as Helsingin Sanomat, Image, Veli, City, Voima,Kumppani, Libero and Ylioppilaslehti, and also did some work for the now defunct indie tv station ATV.

    He has written a book called Roolipelimanifesti (Like, 2005) and a roleplaying game called Ikuisuuden laakso (Pohjoismaisen roolipelaamisen seura, 2009). He edited a collection of roleplaying games called Unelma Keltaisesta kuninkaasta ja muita tanskalaisia roolipelejä with Kristoffer Apollo and Tobias Wrigstad (Pohjoismaisen roolipelaamisen seura, 2011). He lives in Helsinki, Finland.

    Site: juhanapettersson.com

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    Photo by Tuomas Puikkonen (CC BY 2.0)

  • Documenting the Nordic Larp Scene

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    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: Nordic Larp Book
    Watch the our special talkshow about the Nordic Larp Book

    Photo: Jakob la Cour www.jakoblacour.dk

  • Can Playing Games Teach Us About War?

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    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

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    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.

    Photo: Jakob la Cour www.jakoblacour.dk

  • Horror and Tragedy in Nordic Role-Playing

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    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).

    Photo: Jakob la Cour www.jakoblacour.dk

  • Role-Playing as a Teaching Method

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    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 has also been awarded prizes for her work. She has been a contributing writer and editor of several Danish (and international) magazines about roleplaying. In her professional life, Sanne is a teacher. She has studied theory of teaching at the Danish University of Education, where her work has focussed on competencies as an alternative approach to modern teaching. She has worked professionally with roleplaying in education for several years.

    Site: The Role-Playing Teacher

    Photo: Jakob la Cour www.jakoblacour.dk