so over the last years I’ve been a
soldier on a newly colonized planet
fighting an alien threat and learning
that sometimes in common the enemy can
bring together the most unlikely allies
I finished students studying studying
magic and a magical College which didn’t
only bring me to a world that the
12-year old me could’ve only dreamed
about it also showed me a world where my
heritage age or gender really doesn’t
matter for my possibilities in life and
[Music]
this would also be me
in 1961 America a 16 year old trying to
reconcile the world’s expectations of
being a good housewife with our own
wishes to become a scientist or maybe a
doctor
I’m Susan I believe that LARP can change
the world now life stands for LARP
stands for live action roleplay
it’s a form of improvisational theatre
where everybody is a part of the story
participants take on a role in a
pre-designed world which can be a
literary world history or fiction maybe
even fantasy now the way it deviates
from theatre is that there’s no audience
you’re either a part of the story as a
player with a character or you’re part
of the crew bringing that world to life
as an extra or a crew member now I know
we have kind of an image problem because
normal media likes to portray us as 40
year old men living in their mothers
ethics playing video games all day and
going in the forest in the weekend
screaming fireball at each other and
hitting each other with plastic swords
but yeah so we’ve been developing as a
community into something we like to call
blockbusters in 360 illusions it’s when
everything around you every part of the
space you’re in the scenography the
people are part of the fiction and
nothing will take you out of that for
example this one it’s the College of
wizardry based on some fiction we might
know and what
twelve-year-old didn’t bully believed
that they wanted to go to a school like
that to be taught magic to wear a school
robe or this one based on literary works
of trakula playing a crew member or a
visitor on the ship that took Dracula’s
body to England while actually sailing
the Baltic Sea
these are 360 illusions and besides
those really pretty pictures there’s
another movement going on in the LARP
right now there’s something we like to
call social loves large that bring
complex societal problems to light and
let people step into another one’s shoes
to explore what they really feel after
all are we allowed to talk about
somebody’s experience like we’re
actually there if we cannot know what
they are feeling and hopefully never
have to feel the way they are feeling an
example of this is halat’s our a
palestinian finnish lar projects where
palestinians created a pseudo finland
reminiscent of the actual finland but
modeled after what they were daily
experiencing in palestine where you have
to have your passport checked before to
go into class or you would wake up in
the morning and you weren’t sure if your
roommate was still going to be there or
if the military police would have taken
them from their beds it’s a chance to
step into another person’s shoes but
what makes LARP such a medium for that
well for one there’s a complex social
construct going on in LARP and in our
real world which is vastly different
once we start participating in a LARP we
all decide that that fiction of the
world will be our reality for a little
while and whatever we will do in there
will stay in that fiction so we can be
horrible people but once we step out of
it we’re back to our own selves and we
will not hold the actions of somebody in
that fiction against him then there’s
also alibi we take on a character we
take on something that will help us
explore the feelings of somebody else
and at the same time it allows us to
step away from those experience
afterwards and say but I wasn’t that
horrible person that was my character
and that’s okay
because in that fiction those actions
were acceptable or understandable
another example is the quota made
together with the actual refugee council
in England where participants will be
refugees waiting to be allowed access
into the country but there’s a quota and
how far will you go how far will you go
to be allowed on that list and it’s what
you do really going to make a difference
or has somebody a lot already decided as
for you and it will be played in an
actual prison something that will only
enhance the experience of those
participating and then there’s another
thing that helps us it helps us
significantly and that’s fun LARPing is
fun really I swear there’s something
amazing about going into a forest and
beating your friends with a sword
because it’s a lot for once but at the
same time not all worthwhile experiences
have to be fun feeling repressed
exploring what somebody else is feeling
can be a worthwhile experience even
though it hurts or it scrapes a little
bit it’s part of the experience for
example circ a LARP about freakshow in
the 1920s in America where a lot of the
participants were part of a show showing
skills that actually practiced at home
already and they had a lot of fun with
the audience who was cheering now on and
actually rooting for them to do good but
at the same time that was still the
outside world presence telling those
circus freaks that they weren’t part of
society and they felt that pressure they
felt that social exclusion as well and
for many of them the fact that the
experience was both fun and a bit
painful was what made it actually worth
it so I believe that carefully curated
experiences in larks that leave a lot of
room for
reflection and afterthoughts that allow
us to revisit the emotions we
experienced in our characters can
actually grow empathy after all if we
walk a mile in another one shoes maybe
it will help us a little bit to
understand better what they’re feeling
and were actually more informed and can
make better decisions about her opinion
about them thank you very much [Applause]
soldier on a newly colonized planet
fighting an alien threat and learning
that sometimes in common the enemy can
bring together the most unlikely allies
I finished students studying studying
magic and a magical College which didn’t
only bring me to a world that the
12-year old me could’ve only dreamed
about it also showed me a world where my
heritage age or gender really doesn’t
matter for my possibilities in life and
[Music]
this would also be me
in 1961 America a 16 year old trying to
reconcile the world’s expectations of
being a good housewife with our own
wishes to become a scientist or maybe a
doctor
I’m Susan I believe that LARP can change
the world now life stands for LARP
stands for live action roleplay
it’s a form of improvisational theatre
where everybody is a part of the story
participants take on a role in a
pre-designed world which can be a
literary world history or fiction maybe
even fantasy now the way it deviates
from theatre is that there’s no audience
you’re either a part of the story as a
player with a character or you’re part
of the crew bringing that world to life
as an extra or a crew member now I know
we have kind of an image problem because
normal media likes to portray us as 40
year old men living in their mothers
ethics playing video games all day and
going in the forest in the weekend
screaming fireball at each other and
hitting each other with plastic swords
but yeah so we’ve been developing as a
community into something we like to call
blockbusters in 360 illusions it’s when
everything around you every part of the
space you’re in the scenography the
people are part of the fiction and
nothing will take you out of that for
example this one it’s the College of
wizardry based on some fiction we might
know and what
twelve-year-old didn’t bully believed
that they wanted to go to a school like
that to be taught magic to wear a school
robe or this one based on literary works
of trakula playing a crew member or a
visitor on the ship that took Dracula’s
body to England while actually sailing
the Baltic Sea
these are 360 illusions and besides
those really pretty pictures there’s
another movement going on in the LARP
right now there’s something we like to
call social loves large that bring
complex societal problems to light and
let people step into another one’s shoes
to explore what they really feel after
all are we allowed to talk about
somebody’s experience like we’re
actually there if we cannot know what
they are feeling and hopefully never
have to feel the way they are feeling an
example of this is halat’s our a
palestinian finnish lar projects where
palestinians created a pseudo finland
reminiscent of the actual finland but
modeled after what they were daily
experiencing in palestine where you have
to have your passport checked before to
go into class or you would wake up in
the morning and you weren’t sure if your
roommate was still going to be there or
if the military police would have taken
them from their beds it’s a chance to
step into another person’s shoes but
what makes LARP such a medium for that
well for one there’s a complex social
construct going on in LARP and in our
real world which is vastly different
once we start participating in a LARP we
all decide that that fiction of the
world will be our reality for a little
while and whatever we will do in there
will stay in that fiction so we can be
horrible people but once we step out of
it we’re back to our own selves and we
will not hold the actions of somebody in
that fiction against him then there’s
also alibi we take on a character we
take on something that will help us
explore the feelings of somebody else
and at the same time it allows us to
step away from those experience
afterwards and say but I wasn’t that
horrible person that was my character
and that’s okay
because in that fiction those actions
were acceptable or understandable
another example is the quota made
together with the actual refugee council
in England where participants will be
refugees waiting to be allowed access
into the country but there’s a quota and
how far will you go how far will you go
to be allowed on that list and it’s what
you do really going to make a difference
or has somebody a lot already decided as
for you and it will be played in an
actual prison something that will only
enhance the experience of those
participating and then there’s another
thing that helps us it helps us
significantly and that’s fun LARPing is
fun really I swear there’s something
amazing about going into a forest and
beating your friends with a sword
because it’s a lot for once but at the
same time not all worthwhile experiences
have to be fun feeling repressed
exploring what somebody else is feeling
can be a worthwhile experience even
though it hurts or it scrapes a little
bit it’s part of the experience for
example circ a LARP about freakshow in
the 1920s in America where a lot of the
participants were part of a show showing
skills that actually practiced at home
already and they had a lot of fun with
the audience who was cheering now on and
actually rooting for them to do good but
at the same time that was still the
outside world presence telling those
circus freaks that they weren’t part of
society and they felt that pressure they
felt that social exclusion as well and
for many of them the fact that the
experience was both fun and a bit
painful was what made it actually worth
it so I believe that carefully curated
experiences in larks that leave a lot of
room for
reflection and afterthoughts that allow
us to revisit the emotions we
experienced in our characters can
actually grow empathy after all if we
walk a mile in another one shoes maybe
it will help us a little bit to
understand better what they’re feeling
and were actually more informed and can
make better decisions about her opinion
about them thank you very much [Applause]
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