Foreign Affects – Trojan Horse live action role-play 20.

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<title>Foreign Affects – Trojan Horse live action role-play 20.–22.4.2018</title>
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<img width="60%" height="auto" src="tryit_tiedostot/foreign-affects-logo-web.png">
 

 
<h2>Live action role-play 
 by Trojan Horse summer school 
 20.–22.4.2018</h2>
 

 
<!--
THE FIRST DRAFT:
 
The Voice of Fear
There are parts of the world that we are not aware of. Off course this is just a partial truth. Google maps has demystified most of the globe. Laid it out for us on a flat digital map. Look around. Nothing is hidden.

But then again this is only one view on the subject – a street view. From a different angle it seems that we know nothing. We see everithing, but know so little. Understand even less.

No need to look far. No need for Google to show me, I can see it right where I am – I know very little of this place. This building for instance, a five storey hotel in a city I have never been before, is full of places I know nothing of. Probably dont want to know. Hopefully never will.

But why look so far? Why look at something else if I myself am full of things I am ignorant off? There are places inside of me that blink mercilessly for my attention like pop-up ads, but which I have mastered to ignore with ease and efficiency.

The subject makes me eerie. I have visions of chambers and rooms, inside and outside of me, that are vivid, perplexing, mysterious – full of ghosts and whispers.

Its almost as if I would have to be a ghost myself to address these questions.

...

A ghost takes my hand and leads me to fear. Fear has many outfits – stress, anger, angst, anxiety, horror, fright, panic and sadness. It has pleanty of subjects – work related stress, anxiety towards the future, horror of a specific situation. It is diverce, but our language towards it is paralysis, avoidance, good old ignoring – quite patronizing, if you ask me. We should pay more attention to fear. Give it a voice, let it speak.

The voice of fear has power. It changes the way we behave, it changes the way we are and who we are. In short it makes us different. And for that we must be thankful – after all fear is a possibility. A possibility to change.
-->
 

 
<!--
SECOND DRAFT:
 
There are parts of the world that we are not aware of. I mean, off course our mental landscapes are just partial truth, situated individually in space and time, varying body by body, day by day. At the same time, computational models such as Google maps have demystified most of the globe. They organize our planet for us as a flat digital surfaces with an intuitive and easy to use interfaces. Look around. Nothing is hidden. The world appears to be available for everyone rendered a at any given moment. This is real. I’m a generic universal user and this sphere we call planet Earth is a totality I can call “it”. I’m on it, and you are (most likely) on it too!

Yet still, I feel, there are parts of the world that this universal user, a technologically constructed me-we, is not aware of. These models also project only a partial views on “it” – street views, satellite pictures, computational models infiltrated with zettabytes of crowdsourced geospatial information. From my corporeal personal perspective it seems sometimes that me-we knows nothing at all. It seems to see everything, but feels to know so little, understand even less. I can’t transcend my situated experience of the world, I can’t travel on the speed of light, I can only process so much information, I’m struggling to communicate my feelings with unicode characters and metadata. These two worlds I inhabit at the same time are in conflict.

So I say: there is no need to look far. No need for Google to show me, I can see it right where I am – I know very little of this place. This building for instance, a five storey hotel in a city I have never been before, is full of places I know nothing of. Probably dont want to know. Hopefully never will. But why look at something else if I myself am full of things I am ignorant off? There are places inside of me that blink mercilessly for my attention like pop-up ads, but which I have mastered to ignore with ease and efficiency.
            
The subject makes me eerie. I have visions of chambers and rooms, inside and outside of me, that are vivid, perplexing, mysterious – full of ghosts and whispers. It’s almost as if I would have to be a ghost myself to address these questions.

A ghost takes my hand and leads me to fear. Fear has many outfits – stress, anger, angst, anxiety, horror, fright, panic and sadness. It has plenty of subjects – work related stress, anxiety towards the future, horror of a specific situation. It is diverse, but our language towards it is paralysis, avoidance, good old ignoring – quite patronizing, if you ask me. We should pay more attention to fear. Give it a voice, let it speak.

The voice of fear has power. It changes the way we behave, it changes the way we are and who we are. In short it makes us different. And for that we must be thankful – after all fear is a possibility. A possibility to change.
-->
 

 

 
WHAT? 
Foreign Affects is the second Trojan Horse live action role-play. This year the topic of the LARP is fear. Through role-playing we will deal with various questions related fear. We will look at fear as an active form constructing situations and subject positions, but also design objects, services and cities. 
 
SOUNDS SCARY, DO I NEED TO DIG DEEP INTO MY PERSONAL UNCONSCIOUS? IS IT GOING TO BE SOME KIND OF A PSYCHOTHERAPY SESSION? 
No, not really. We borrow some methods from Bertolt Brecht to produce distance and estrangement. And some theoretical reflections will give us tools and vocabulary to understand and see how fear can become virtual and have much broader effects on our societies and our world-views and our ways to work as designers and architects. So, even though we will talk and analyse our pre-subjective reactions, these reactions will all be related to architecture and design, and not to our personal mental landscapes. 
 
WHERE? 
The role-play will start from Helsinki and end in Tallinn. For those of you who join us from Helsinki, there will be a ferry back to Helsinki. That is where the price difference also comes from. 
 
WHEN? 
The second Trojan Horse live action role-play will happen in the third weekend of April. From Friday the 20th to Sunday the 22th of April 2018. You will be away from your own planet for two nights. 
 
We will also have a pre-game session where we meet each other sometime during the week before the actual role-play and go through the basic concepts of role-playing and how to prepare for this event. There will be separate meetings in Helsinki and Tallinn. 
 
WHO CAN TAKE PART? 
The role-play deals with issues broadly related to design and architecture. There is no right age or professional status for this! You could be an already retired professor, working professional, open minded researcher, student or someone who's curious about design and architecture. We hope to equal amount of participants from both Helsinki and Tallinn. 
 
FOR HOW MANY? 
We will be 16 people in total. We are three people organising this, so our space ship has space for 13 participants. 
 
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? 
130€ (For people who return back to Helsinki)
120€ (For people who will stay in Tallinn) 
 
The price is all inclusive. We cover ferry tickets, vegan food and accommodation for two nights. 
 
WHAT IS LIVE ACTION ROLE-PLAYING? 
Live Action Role-Play; LARP, is a critical play for a first person audience. In a LARP players relate to a fictional world from the first person perspective of a fictional character. The process of larping together generates a temporary community, a game world. The game can portray an imaginable world or society, and can be used as a tool for studying questions such as what kind of a world is possible, what the world should or could be like – and what our world actually is like. 
 
The great thing about role-playing is that you are acting as someone other than yourself. In the game we can safely fail, try out things that we would avoid in real life and be more adventurous, receptive and open-minded. We don't need to fear the consequences of failure which we hope could open the door for a space for exploration. 
 
IT SOUNDS INTERESTING, BUT ALSO VERY SCARY. WHAT IF I DON'T HAVE ANY PRIOR EXPERIENCE OF PERFORMING? 
Don't worry. None of us is a “professional” performer, nor a LARPer. Let's get together and try it out. 
 
DO I NEED TO PREPARE SOMEHOW? 
We will provide you with basic background information about your character – who you are, why are you interested in the things that you are interested in, what are the motivations behind your actions etc. But don't worry, there will be plenty of freedom to interpret this as you wish and fill all the gaps the way you want. No matter what we have written, your interpretation is what matters. (We'll write you about this as well... We are trying to make this as safe as possible :) ) 
 
WHY DO WE ORGANIZE THIS? 
The role-play is organized because we feel it gives us as designers a chance to reflect on what we are and what we do. It's a good way to break the circle of serious work, professional consensus and relate to design in a more playful way. 
 
WHAT DOES SCIENCE FICTION GOT TO DO WITH DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE? 
In our opinion there is not much difference between design, architecture and science fiction. They are all forms of world building. Because design and architecture are based on real needs they are considered practical in nature. We do not find this distinction between design and architecture / science fiction relevant, nor necessary. We feel that it is even dangerous to forget the imaginary potential of any design and/or architectural project or practise. 
 
IS THERE SOMETHING I COULD READ IF I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT ROLE-PLAYING? 
There is this very interesting <a href="http://tampub.uta.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/95123/nordic_larp_2010.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">book about the nordic larp scene</a>. And also <a href="http://mikepohjola.com/turku/manifesto.html">this manifesto,</a> and this article about <a href="http://modesofcriticism.org/defamiliarisation-and-criticality/">Bertolt Brecht, defamiliarisation and criticality</a>. 
 
IS THERE SOMETHING I COULD READ IF I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE TOPIC FEAR? 
 
Yes, there is this one very interesting theoretical article from Brian Massumi <a href="https://www.brianmassumi.com/textes/Fear%20(the%20Spectrum%20Said)%20-%20Positions.pdf">Fear (The spectrum Said)</a>. And more of course, but we'll come back to that a little later.
 
 
For more information: 
info@trojanhorse.fi 
 
<a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScQgkE6LLf5JXIODkSA530-bgTsDi3zN1WA5p9fpCPPzYW7rA/viewform">Apply here</a> 
 

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