Alien phenomenology larp – playtest
Saturday 22 April, 1-5pm
This is the preliminary run-through of a new larp* about a silent encounter that offers a brief window of experience into the relationship shared between beings, objects or sites. It might be about a healer and their patient, or two friends, perhaps one of those friends is not a human but a dog, or an ancient tree, or even an entire landscape.
This non-verbal workshop exists on the intersection between participatory performance and larp. It’s lightly structured and involves each player building internal narratives based on their physical interactions, with an emphasis on playing out dominant and submissive fragments of an engagement with another form.
Alien Phenomenology will use touch and other physical contact to explore care, consent, responsibility and vulnerability. There will be a two hour workshop to explore ways of touching and receiving touch, building trust and understanding and negotiating ranges and limits of such interaction. Players will be encouraged to remain in control of the levels of contact, although the workshop will be designed to build confidence with physical contact. Writing will be used to help develop individual narratives, but any text produced will not need to be shared publicly. The playtest will be followed by a debrief to discuss experiences and to help develop the larp. A play through of the final development of the larp will be announced in May.
No experience of larp is necessary (and indeed this is not a typical larp). Familiarity with movement, somatic or other physical practices is welcomed, but not necessary. No agility or fitness levels needed. Please wear clothes you are comfortable moving in.
Key words: non verbal, partly abstract, physical, slow, somatic
Possible sensitivities: Lying down, passivity, negotiating consent, negotiating touch, silence
–If you have any questions or would like to book for any of these events please emailcontact@beingres.org.
Hamish MacPherson is a London-based artist who uses ideas and methods from choreography and dance to think about politics; as a kind of embedded philosophical enquiry. Hamish makes workshops, games, performances, writings, images and other elements in artistic, academic and community contexts. Current projects include THIS MOVEMENT, looking at how we use our bodies to make politics and Hard Care looking at care as an aesthetic, choreographic and political practice.
*Larp, originally an acronym for live action role-play, is a form of role-playing game where the participants physically act out their characters’ actions, interacting with each other in character. The outcome of player actions are mediated by game rules as well as determined by consensus among players.