Role Playing Games
Subject: Role Playing Games , and lifestyle change ( + inner / outer + reality emergence )
From: Dante-Gabryell Monson Oct 19, 2014
note to discuss :
I sense the potential to enable a "holiday package" ( as a temporary autonomous zone ) ,
which would be more like a "quest",
with a one year preparation phase,
including a variety of practices inspired by theatre, psychology, etc
facilitating not only inner awareness, listening to self ( old pains, past roles, liberation from pain bodies taking control, etc )
but also potential for convergence for shared vision and manifestation of realities into viable lifestyles.
I imagine at first the potential to reduce the threshold, through some kind of "holiday" style approach, but with the potential to progressively build it up into viable "festivalism" / economic resilience :
http://p2pfoundation.net/Festivalism
I have a friend or two having a half life of experience in a combination of theatre, healing, meditation, but also economics and the like ...
and I sense potential for us to converge to discuss such forms of synthesis, which can also generate facilitation roles,
and build up or connect with each other ( existing ? ) movements. Dante
From: Eric Hunting <[email protected]>Date: Sun, Oct 19, 2014 at 8:43 PMTo: [email protected]
Play rather than Place as the basis of a vacation. In the US, about ten years ago, there was a startup company that had a unique tourism concept. Composed of a group of SciFi fans and special effects craftsmen, they constructed a modular stage set system that formed the interior of a large spacecraft. All interior electronics of the vessel worked, hidden speakers provided various ambient sound effects, and the windows of the spacecraft were video displays that projected computer-generated views of space. Everything was controlled by a simulator program akin to an advanced flight training simulator but designed to play out various adventure and travel scenarios. The purpose of this simulator was to provide virtual vacations. People would pay for a simulated trip into space, staying for a number of days aboard the mock-up vessel as though it were a kind of cruise liner but with the service staff all playing the roles of formal crew of the vessel and performing for the various scenarios. Visitors could also take functional roles among the crew, being trained to operate various operations stations. With both software and set systems modular in design, they planned to create a whole fleet of different kinds of spacecraft and various space stations and planetary settings to serve as destinations for them to travel between, setting up various adventure travel scenarios as space cruise packages. Briefly garnering some worldwide media attention, the new company toured their mockup spacecraft in various cities but made the fatal mistake of exhibiting it in mainland China at a peak time for government corruption. After completing a successful showing and heading home, the whole set complex was confiscated without explanation by customs officials and disappeared. It now probably rests in the home of some corrupt party boss as a secret playground. The loss of this 'flagship' mockup was too much for the fledgling company and they went out of business soon after. There is precedent for the idea of play or games being the basis of holidays. For a long time fans of fantasy role playing games have taken the games to a higher level called LARP--live action role playing--where they setup adventures in woodland locations, dress in costumes to suit their game roles, and play-out these game adventures life-size while camping for a number of days. This was a derivative of the activities of the Society for Creative Anachronism which setup medieval-themed camp-in festival events with re-created battles--the largest and most famous being in Pennsylvania. But the first formal LARP may have been started as a business venture in Sterling Castle UK where, in the '80s, they first conducted Dungeons & Dragons inspired live role playing games with various costumed performers. Later, there emerged a fad in the 90s for murder mystery vacations. These were events held in hotels with period architecture where attendees would find themselves immersed in a murder mystery scenario with staff acting out various character roles. These culminated in mystery cruises and mystery trains inspired by the film portrayals of novels like Murder on the Orient Express. To some extent, this fad seemed to also be inspired by TV shows such as Fantasy Island and the '80s SciFi book series Dream Park. After the turn of the century these role playing vacations started taking weird, dark, perverse turns. For instance, a venture opened in Mexico where upper-class Mexicans could experience a re-creation of what it was like to be a poor Mexican refugee trying to cross the border into the US, complete with sadistic and abusive American boarder guards. Another venture explored the experience of being kidnapped by middle-eastern terrorists--inspired by a fictitious venture of the type in a radio play. I guess this relates also to wealthy people's affinity for the services of professional dominatrices. Most recently there emerged in Prague a fad for 'mystery/puzzle/trap room' attractions where visitors are locked into specially setup rooms and must cooperatively work out some mystery or puzzle within a certain amount of time or be 'killed'. It's designed to make excellent use of the city's wealth of period architecture and cloak & dagger history. Notice that, for the most part, these ventures are very structured. But with the emergence of the ideas of Festivalism and Temporary Autonomous Zones there has emerged a notion of a counter-cultural habitat as vacation venue independent of location. This trend is most commonly seen in the SciFi/Fantasy fandom convention phenomenon where fandom sub-culture conventions have become key tourism income for many cities and hotel chains. But no less significantly, it is emerging in the art/creative community as demonstrated most notably by Burning Man. The TAZ is a designated area for the existence of a different cultural habitat which really doesn't care about the particulars of its physical setting as it creates a habitat wherever it is to suit. It's rather like the vacation trailer/caravan camp where the people attending bring their habitat with them. But unlike these trailer camps that are exploiting the natural 'wilderness' attractions of a particular place, the TAZ and its attendants are collectively creating those attractions by what they are bringing with them to the location. So the location doesn't matter; forest, field, desert, parking lot, abandoned building, abandoned subway, hotel or convention center, whatever. The participants create the habitat. All they require is a place to temporarily be left alone, unmolested and free of the meddling of authorities and bureaucracies. (which is no mean feat anywhere these days...) Most notably, the TAZ idea was a key inspiration for the creation of the Burning Man festival, which is setup in the middle of a remote desert lake bed in Black Rock Nevada--a rather harsh un-place devoid of any infrastructure or physical attraction other than space and a significant physical distance from meddlesome authorities. However, as it's scale and popularity has ballooned so too has its compulsion for structure and control and it may no longer be sustainable as what it was originally intended. It may have already run its course. But many other imitators have been emerging around the world. How small could a TAZ be and function has a holiday retreat? TAZ for art exhibition have been well demonstrated and need no more than an exhibition space. I think a live-in/camp-in one would need more space, but perhaps not much more. Consider Basecamp Bonn as an example; a vintage trailer park in an industrial building serving as a youth hostel. http://hiconsumption.com/2013/10/basecamp-bonn-young-hostel-indoor-vintage-camper-park/ Imagining the TAZ as a Neo-Nomadic camping venue, it could be urban, indoors, in places no one has ever used before--even on water. (a German artist contact of mine specializes in that. http://www.joy-art ) The creation and exhibition of novel portable micro-dwellings and amenities could be the focus of the event--the chief reason for participating. (much like it has been for Burning Man) This notion relates to my old idea of the Vivarium; the suggestion of using Boxbeam/Makerbeam to create, in disused industrial or commercial space, a kind of open public lounge where people fabricate their own furnishings to suit whatever their ideas about pleasure and comfort may be. But there is a potential problem in the abstractness of the TAZ concept and the nebulousness of cultures that may emerge within them. How do you 'explain' it coherently enough to win support for it? Burning Man was founded by a small group of creatives who all 'got it' from the start and could accomplish the events without outside money and support. Thus they could physically, expositionally, demonstrate what it was and attract a critical mass of participation for it long before they had to start explaining what it was (or would be) to indifferent unsophisticated journalists and the public. It may always be a case that this is better demonstrated than explained, which means needing a capable group who get it right from the start. > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Open+M" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/op-n-m. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
-- Eric H
From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <[email protected]>Date: Sun, Oct 19, 2014 at 10:05 PMTo: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Great reply of yours Eric. With a bit of search engine optimization from our friends, such texts combined with discreet ads on a blog can certainly become additional income for you over time. Or else, an ebook illustrated with copyleft pics or illustrations ? / As for TAZ settings in europe,I could well imagine building on the intrigues of europe's past history, its towns, etc I also imagine the potential to build on its canal water infrastructure (floating modular housing solutions? ) and nearby available land, and the european cycling paths stretching europe along natural waterways and canals, with, if not a past related quest ( which for american tourists could reconnect them with their ancestry / identity related tourism ) may serve as infrastructure, combined with lightweight transportation such as bicycles,for permaculture farms / ecovillages (imcluding existing ecovillages, or external seasonal nodes in support of their local economy ), and/or partnering with farms who have depleted land, to generate, for example, food farms. Importantly, I wish to integrate psychological / emancipation elements, and future vision empowerment practices. I wish taz experiments to support a broader networked economy. I imagine reusing infrastructure along networks of autonomous phyles. I imagine "swarms" as collective intelligence, along such routes. I imagine progressive integration with a variety of existing subcultures, and/or simulating past subcultures, while also generating a broader viable set of alternative "real world" production infrastructure, ..