How to use vocalization to create a sense of shared ritual?
Redemption was a larp about the last days of the Romanovs before the revolution changed everything, at a retreat organized by a breakaway Orthodox sect who believed that to achieve redemption one must sin. The larp’s sound design was created by Anni Tolvanen who also came up with the larp’s signature ritual technique, participatory ritual vocalization.
The core team for the larp consisted of Maria Pettersson, Massi Hannula, and myself. I was particularly happy with the vocalization technique Tolvanen created because it was accessible even to somebody like myself with no singing ability. As long as I was able to hum O or A, I was able to participate.
Here, Tolvanen answers a few questions about how this technique works.
Anni, what are the design reasons behind this technique? What’s the effect it’s intended to have?
The main goal of the technique was to create an inclusive and intuitive way for all participants to join in on or run their own rituals during runtime. The technique aims to give everyone the feeling of “doing it for real,” without requiring time-consuming pre-runtime practice, or previous experience in ritualistic singing or chanting. The technique is designed to blend into the general soundscape of the larp; to become part of it and add to it in a diegetic manner.
Each participant has equal agency to impact the ritual’s mood and content through their personal contribution to the shared soundscape. One is not merely allowed to accompany an appointed ritual leader, but to improvise their own content within the parameters of the technique.
The technique forms an intuitively understandable frame around a ritual scene. By joining the technique you are joining the ritual.
Can you explain how participatory ritual vocalization works? What do people do?
All participants are free to start using the technique at any time. When someone starts praying or chanting, other participants taking part in the scene find a shared note to hum. This hum provides the anchor – the drone – to the ritual recital. The drone is collectively carried on throughout the ritual, and does not stop until the ritual ends.
The drone acts as a musical base for the ritual leader or leaders. They can recite and improvise text either by sticking to the same note, or by freely chanting or speaking on top of it. In the workshop for the technique participants practiced a simple musical scale of 2-4 notes while acting as ritual leaders – but sticking to the scale is obviously not mandatory.
Ritual leaders are not meant to be solo performers: Participants doing the drone are also invited to improvise content, for example by repeating particular words or sentences of the leaders, shouting inspired remarks, or making the drone change in intensity, volume, and tone color.
When the ritual leader wants to end the ritual, they end their recital with an emphasized end phrase (in Redemption, “Amen”). This phrase or word is then repeated by everyone in the scene, after which the drone stops, and the ritual is over.
What’s the deeper musical thinking and history behind the technique?
Using one’s voice to contribute to a soundscape is an ancient and deeply human activity to take part of. While singing or chanting with others, we do not merely join into making music. We also sync our expression, our internal pacing, and even our breath with others around us. It is a powerful experience, which forms its own temporary magic circle: You join the circle by adding your voice to the soundscape.
Musically speaking, the core benchmarks for the technique are the use of drone notes, improvised recital on top of the drone, and (optionally) the simplistic scale used by ritual leaders. At Redemption, the latter was modeled after the medieval theme “Dies Irae” – a particular four note scale which is nowadays used by composers all around the world to communicate tension, ardor, and fatality. (In other words, it’s a musical meme.)
How does the technique work if people have wildly varying levels of musical skills? Some have none, others are great singers.
For practical purposes, singing skill does not have a meaningful impact on the technique. It is in fact advisable to instruct more experienced singers to stick to the basic drone and recital, and avoid more complex musical improvisation.
The power of the technique comes from its simplicity. Most people can find and stick to a drone note, and even if they can’t, doing things “correctly” is not nearly as relevant as following the collective ebb and flow of the ritual. Everyone’s voice contributes to the soundscape, and the soundscape creates the magic circle for the ritual.
How does the technique interact with the broader soundscape of a larp?
The auditory streams from the ritual (the drone and the recital) communicate to participants in different spaces that a ritual is taking place. The ritual becomes part of the larp’s soundscape and impacts the mood of the larp as a whole. At the same time, any pre-existing soundscape (for example, background music, other participants’ activities, other rituals) impacts the soundscape of the ritual.
When implementing background music in particular, some sound design ahead of time is needed. Background noise and ambient music may lower the threshold for using the technique, as participants can lean onto other sounds to find a coherent, shared drone, and get the ritual going. On the other hand, too dominant background music may make it harder for participants to use the technique freely, as music will set boundaries to what kind of sounds make sense during the ritual.
Cover photo: Anni Tolvanen at the larp Redemption (2021). Photo by Kai Simon Fredriksen. Photo has been cropped.
This article is published in the Knutpunkt 2022 magazine Distance of Touch and is published here with permission. Please cite this text as:
Pettersson, Juhana. 2022. “Participatory Ritual Vocalization.” In Distance of Touch: The Knutpunkt 2022Magazine, edited by Juhana Pettersson, 51-54. Knutpunkt 2022 and Pohjoismaisen roolipelaamisen seura.
This article describes how Confraria das Ideias (a larp group from Brazil) uses music as a game design element. The text is based on own experiences and learning, especially in the larps Blind, Deaf and Dumb (2017) and The Last Night (2019), with practical examples, future ideas, and sharing different ways to use music in the larp.
Since the late 1990s, the group has been making free-style and one-shot larps, each with different themes, proposals and stories. The games are held in public spaces such as libraries, cultural centers and theaters, all free of charge to participants and funded by public and private funds earmarked for cultural projects. (see Falcão 2014)
Over the years, Confraria das Ideias has utilized music in larps in different ways, recognizing its importance in the trajectories of the larps produced.
Music is able to bring old memories to the fore and make you experience feelings such as passion, sadness, anger and joy.It is present in the performing arts and derived from its earliest movements, from Greek tragedy to modern cinema, passing through the most artistic expressions and – also – in larp.
“Music, more than any other art, has an extensive neuropsychological representation, with direct access to affectivity, impulse control, emotions and motivation. It can stimulate non-verbal memory through secondary associative areas which allow direct access to the system of integrated perceptions linked to associative areas of cerebral confluence that unify the various sensations.” (Weigsding 2015)
Since the first larps, the group realized that the soundtrack had great influence on immersion and, with some scenography, served as a foundation for the stories proposed in the characters and in the plot to manifest themselves in a more fluid way. But, over the years, this use of music in larp grew and started to gain important space in the stages of creation and execution of larp.
When the Magic Begins: Music as a Soundtrack in Larp
It all starts with an idea for a new larp. It is discussed by the group, improved gradually. Characters are written, while the scenographic proposal is created along with the plot. Design elements, mechanics and props are developed. The larp is publicized and people express an interest in participating. The day arrives, the scenography is set up for a few hours; costumes are distributed, and the entire reception is prepared.
Then, the participants begin to arrive and prepare. Once everyone are together, the guidelines for the game are communicated.
After this the proposed immersion for larp takes place, and the participants are positioned on the stage – waiting for the combined signal to start. Until that moment, the larp does not yet exist.
And that is when, as if by magic, larp manifests itself. A song appears in the room, especially selected for the moment. It is the trigger indicating to everyone that the veil of reality, of everyday life, is on the ground and that from there their characters come to life for a new world of discovery, mystery, drama and adventure.
It is magic! For a spectator, it seems that everything prepared up to that moment comes to life instantly, with the first chords of the intro music. As a kind of trance, characters take on the bodies of the players, moving them through space.
Music works not only as an initial snap, but as a catalyst for this proposed new world. It plays a dramatic role, sometimes as a diegetic element, sometimes not. It helps to set the tone of the story, to break the limiting personal barriers that block actions: it frees action and imagination, aware that they will find support and reinforcement in other participants.
The control of the songs happens in a prepared sound table, and basic equipment comprised of a notebook and sound output, strategically placed at the scene.
The complexity depends on the design of the larp, which may require constant changes in music and sound effects or just a single track throughout the game.
Photo by Leandro Godoy
Paulo Renault, one of the founding members of the Confraria, producer and responsible for preparing and conducting the sound mixer, uses the Virtual DJ software to conduct the tracks during larps, says:
“Among the ways of giving rhythm to the larp, the sound, through music or sound effects, is something that plays in deep layers of the player. The use of equipment such as a mixer allows mixing effects and sounds, creating an immersive outdoor atmosphere for the game.”
As in the larp State of Grace (1997, 2011) where the soundtrack is composed of Gregorian chants in a constant loop, helping to transform the atmosphere of a traditional São Paulo mansion into a French monastery of the Middle Ages.
Or as in the larp Neon Dragon Express (2018, 2019), where the theme is a cyberpunk adventure. The soundtrack is composed of electronic and industrial songs that are played interspersed with pre-recorded ads and various reports that are inserted by the organizers according to the narrative of the game.
In both cases, music exerts a strong power in the participants’ imagination, quickly placing their minds and hearts on the theme planned for the larp.
In the larp Extraordinary Stories(2009, 2014, 2015, 2020), inspired by the tales of Edgar Allan Poe and set in a masquerade ball in the 19th century, the soundtrack also has the mission of helping the sensation the passage of time. In addition it marks important moments such as dancing in the main hall with the waltzes of Johann Strauss II: The Blue Danube Waltz, Kaiser-Walzer and Rathausball-Tänze in addition to using a dramatic and apotheotic melody for the final moments of history, with Lux Aeterna by Clint Mansell (soundtrack by Requiem for a Dream, version with violins).
Photo by Thomaz Barbeiro, larp Extraordinary Stories (2020)
The choice of songs to compose the track are contextualized and planned in the production stages; but it is important to pay close attention to the operation of the sound board. After all, the execution of the tracks ends up directly reflecting on the game’s actions, but it can also be influenced by them.
When the design of the larp requires this type of complexity in the operation, the organization needs to keep an eye on the larp’s events. From this perspective, they decide to change the pre-selected tracks and sound effects, in search of a better immersion and correspondence with the game, and also end up influencing the rhythm of the larp.
One might say that the music helps materialize the larp, with its execution bringing in the concepts of the game planned previously.
It is closely linked to the design of the game not only in its content and sequence of execution, but also in the format that it presents itself. One example is the larp Club D (2016) which has as its setting a mansion of the highest society, where it was decided to replace the sound table with a pair of professional guitarists, thus seeking the atmosphere of refinement that live classical music provides.
Photo by Thomaz Barbeiro, larp Club D (2016)
A New Trick, Another View
As a larp designer you can propose an experience that uses, as a tool, or a collection of songs where the lyrics provide insights for the players during the larp session.
The idea is to use the songs to evoke emotions, memories and feelings in the participants, as a way to employ bleed to create larps with more introspective themes.
“At its most positive, bleed experiences can produce moments of catharsis: when the player and character emotions are synced in a powerful moment of emotional expression. Most often, these experiences manifest in great displays of joy, love, anger, or grief; in-game crying is often associated with bleed.” (Bowman 2015)
The first larp with this perspective sought to capture the aura of the album Tommy (1969) of the band The Who and create a game that was born from a very personal reflection on the album.
This became the larp Blind, Deaf and Dumb, about a group of young people who over the years need to deal with the frustration, trauma, disenchantment and misunderstandings of adult life.
This time, the songs came to have a direct influence on the larp’s narrative. As a designer, it was necessary to dissect track by track of the disc, and from this analysis make the content reflect on the dynamics of larp.
This is not a literal transcription of the album into larp, even though it is present all the time from production to the execution of the game, but rather a source of inspiration for something new.
Photo by Thomaz Barbeiro, larp Blind, Deaf and Dumb (2017)
The larp was divided into acts, which represented the passage of the years. The players were workshopped to interpret music as part of the mechanics indicating not only the beginning and the end of each act, but also insights for the characters, who had plots created from excerpts of the lyrics of the songs.
This way, a character that had in his background, an abuse suffered by his uncle, would be impacted immediately upon hearing the song “Uncle Earn” where the theme was addressed.
This type of approach with music bringing emotional issues to the characters ends up also dealing with the affective memory that the songs exercise in the players. It has more impact on those who already knew the disc, but is capable of promoting different sensations in all the participants regardless.
“Recursively, the proposal sought to make the players’ experiences affect the sensations of the characters. The idea of a group of friends who, in the midst of disagreements, meet some times in the 47-year period was a metaphor for friendships that are absent due to setbacks in everyday life. A recurring finding by the players was that, even within the fictional environment of the larp, it was friendships distanced from the daily reality of the players that caused feelings to emerge on the characters.” (Iuama and Miklos 2019)
The larp starts with a group of friends gathered in 1969 to celebrate their last year in high school. When playing the “Tommy” album and lighting a candle, the mechanics of time travel, marked by music, begin.
Photo by Thomaz Barbeiro, larp Blind, Deaf and Dumb (2017)
The larp was set up on a theater stage. Therefore, the participants were instructed to address the backstage whenever they heard the music play, naturally, each in their own time, as if they were saying goodbye. There, they received a change of clothes and a card indicating when the next act will take place and some relevant facts about what happened in the character’s life. In addition, pre-recorded audio about events in the history of Brazil that were emblematic for the period. For example, the track Do You Think It’s Alright? was used to introduce the act where the characters returned from the “Diretas Já” marches – a movement that sought the end of the violent Military Dictatorship that devastated Brazil.
The return to the play was marked by the next song on the album, with the participants instructed to gradually return to the stage, which contained some updates of scenography to match the time.
Photo by Thomaz Barbeiro, larp Blind, Deaf and Dumb (2017)
The track We’re not gonna take it comes as a refusal to this whole trajectory full of secrets and annoyances, and the characters are invited by the stanza “See me, Feel me”, to look at themselves and return to the initial moment of larp, in 1969, with the same costumes and initial positions, and the provocation that their experience was a future that could still be changed, leading the participants to smiles and tears.
The choice to use the music to structure the larp brought the need for a guide sheet to help operating the sound table:
Sound desk guide sheet, by Leandro Godoy
The Materiality of Music as a Magical Element
The materiality of the music can be used in its design, bringing benefits to the player’s immersion.
The digital format and streaming allowed the distribution of music in quantity and speed never imagined, but the relationship of object with the music, the album, the touch to feel the vinyl records or the huge inserts that exhibited art were lost representing the songs.
“(…) materiality (and ‘possibilities’) are realities that are always perceived – mediated, therefore – by human actors, as social and cultural subjects. Thus, there is a complex dialectical interaction between the cultural dimension and the properties of objects (here, specifically, the musical material), which conditions the way in which a subject and an object interact, in a given context.” (Boia 2008)
Imbued with this nostalgic feeling, a larp was imagined where players had the opportunity to experience these sensations.
With the larp The Last Night, the Confraria das Ideias proposed to create a game about nostalgia, conflict between generations and the different ways in which these generations dealt with music.
The idea of having an old radio station as a scenario sought to allow participants to discover a little bit of this tangibility of music. Immerse yourself in an era: from the touch when handling vinyl records, discovering their sounds and shape; to occupy the space of the stage, use microphones, play out the script and perform radio soap operas; bring the programme to life.
Thus, the participants had control of the larp’s own soundtrack in real time.
Photo by Thomaz Barbeiro, larp The Last Night (2019)
In the main plot, half of the participants received characters who, in 2019, discover an old radio station that was destroyed in the early 1960s by a terrible fire. The rest received characters who were the ghosts of the people who worked at the radio station, and who were stuck reliving the last night, in an eternal loop.
For the idea to work, the sound table was set up inside the radio station itself, so that the participants themselves could operate it, including releasing the microphones for live musical numbers. The players were able to choose to sing live or use playback.
Photo by Thomaz Barbeiro, larp The Last Night (2019)
The audio was broadcast live across the larp venue (stage, aisle and dressing rooms), as well as being broadcast live to YouTube to simulate the radio.
Everything that the participants chose to put on the program also became the larp’s soundtrack.
With the characters in charge of the programming, they were given the power to command the tone of the larp, alternating moments that went from comic to dramatic, allowing musical discoveries and sharing their own repertoire.
Photo by Thomaz Barbeiro, larp The Last Night (2019)
Thomaz Barbeiro, professor of history and member of Confraria das Ideias, was one of those responsible for researching the material:
“For me, as a historian and passionate about culture, the search for vinyls for the composition of “The Last Night” is, above all, an instigating work with sources and, consequently, the satisfaction of being able to take some of the critical work of historical science into a larp, a game that adds fun and learning about you, the other, about the present time and the past you want”.
Some players used the vinyl record player for the first time in their life during the larp.The touch made the experience more real, contributing to the immersion.
With fun and memorable moments, the larp came to an end, but the magic remained present: the participants did not leave the scene even after the game ended, extending the fun for a few more hours in improvised sessions of songs, novels and new random fictitious commercials.
Photo by Thomaz Barbeiro, larp The Last Night (2019)
To transfer this experience to other larps, the designer needs to plan the technical part carefully (in-game equipment connected to the sound system) and provide the material (discs, CDs, musical instruments) for the players to use. Imagine a larp where a character can put a song in a dramatic moment, and it reverberates throughout the scene? Allowing players to directly interfere with the soundtrack can benefit your larp.
Is it Possible to Use this Magic of the Musical Larp to Change the World?
By tradition and intention, Confraria das Ideias does not abstain from speaking in its work on important social issues, always seeking a dialogue for reflection and learning. And social inequality is one of the most challenging problems in Brazil (and in the rest of the world), amplified by the rise of the extreme right with an oppressive, homophobic, ultranationalist discourse, causing serious social damage and disruption in the name of its perverse economic agenda.
In this context, art through larp comes to question this model, launch a discussion and shed light on the subject.
Thinking about these issues, the idea arose of using music in a larp in order to represent social conflicts, and provoke an empathic vision.
Rhapsody Paulistana is a larp currently in production in which the players will investigate using the format of the great musicals in game mechanics, in order to engage with the genre and still provoke the participants to leave the comfort zone.
Luiz Prado, producer of larps – with a repertoire of immersive games – and a member of the Confraria das Ideias has for some time been investigating how to encourage participants to use their whole body more when composing and representing their characters in larps:
“A song can grab us by the hand and offer trips to infinite lands. We all already feel that when we hear a song that really gets us. When the song is used in larp, it is a kind of turbo for the transformation in the character and the arrival at the game world. The right music, added to the right disposition, throws the head player into a somersault without any protection in the experience”.
Rhapsody Paulistana goes in that direction, by provoking the senses further, by the observation and support in the game of the neighbor, and in how well-defined movements can be powerful communication tools in the larp.
Can magic create a safe environment that allows people to risk trying something? What tools will the organization need to bring to make this experience enjoyable and unforgettable for everyone? In addition to the obvious challenge of creating the game mechanics, one of the biggest desires is to keep larp accessible to all people, even those who don’t know how to sing or dance.
The idea is to use songs and dances as these tools, as part of the mechanics to obtain narrative turns, in addition to developing the game’s plot.
A pre-larp workshop will probably be needed to help participants to naturally utilize the mechanics throughout the larp.
Photo by Thomaz Barbeiro, larp Blind, Deaf and Dumb (2017)
It is a provocation, seeking to challenge the limits of each one, and yet collaboratively build a dense narrative.
Music comes in as a magical element to unite differences. From the erudite to the popular, create a plot that confronts social issues, put the conflicts in focus by the musical style and promote a strong reflection of social inclusion. The players can do this with a strong emotional charge, as well as a repertoire that provokes a discussion that can go beyond the larp itself.
From Magician to Magician
A larp is an open work, which is built collectively. Regardless of how you choose for music to affect your game, it is important that not only the organizational team is fully prepared and involved with the game’s proposal. Communicating the intention of the work well is a way for everyone to contribute to the game.
Music plays a strong role in immersion, in the dramatic load and in the rhythm of the larps. It will invariably affect people emotionally, so take the time to discuss at the end of each larp. Hosting well is key to ending the game well.
While designing your larp, take time to reflect on these issues. And more: What is the best alternative to strengthen the experience you are proposing with larp? Make music part of the game? Live music? Loop soundtrack? Sounds that are mixed, controlled and played in real time according to the moment of the game? Having no music at all, and using only noise and sound effects?
Photo by Leonardo França, larp The Night of Love, Smile and Flower (2013)
Whether present in the game diegetically, pre-recorded or live, do not underestimate the power of using music in the design of your larp. Songs – popular or classical – have an influence on participants (including organizers). Being aware of this and recognizing this magic that surrounds us is quite enriching.
These choices should be made while you are designing your larp, when you have a more mature idea of how you want your larp to be. There is no ready formula for right or wrong, but different ways of interacting with music.
There are a few clichés: larps with a medieval theme using live folk music, larps that take place in a bar using a pre-recorded track from the time the story takes place, etc. We encourage larp designers to use the examples provided to extrapolate the use of music, think of alternatives, create soundtracks in which the lyrics appear as an insight to players, soundtracks that have markings during the larp, or deliver to participants a way for them to make their own larp soundtrack. You might also make a mix of all this. After all, there are no ready-made rules, just good ideas to enhance your larp’s emotions and experiences.
And, at the end of the larp when the music stops, each one will leave behind those fantastic characters, but never the lived experience, which will warmly perpetuate itself in their hearts.
Bibliography
Boia, Pedro dos Santos. 2008. Capturing the Materiality of Music in Sociological Analysis. Institute of Sociology, Faculty of Arts, University of Porto, Jun 2008.
Bowman, Sarah Lynne. 2015. “Bleed: The Spillover Between Player and Character.” Nordiclarp.org. Last modified March 2, 2015.
Falcão, Luiz. 2014. “New tastes in Brazilian larp”. The Cutting Edge of Nordic Larp.
Iuama, Tadeu, and Jorge Miklos. 2019. “Citizen and ecological communication: Experience of contemporary cultural resistance based on the performance of larp at the Youth Cultural Center of São Paulo”. Electronic journal of the Master’s Program in Communication at College Cásper Líbero Jun, 2019.
Weigsding, Jessica Adriane. 2015. “The influence of music on human behavior.” MUDI files v 18, n 2, p 47–62. State University of Maringá.
Audial Media
Mansell, Clint. 2000. ‘Lux Aeterna’. Nonesuch Records.
Strauss, Johann II. 1866, ‘The Blue Danube’, Op. 314.
Strauss, Johann II. 1889. ‘Kaiser-Walzer’, Op. 437.
Strauss, Johann II. 1890. ‘Rathausball-Tänze’, Op. 438.
The Who. 1969. Tommy. Recorded 19 September 1968 – 7 March 1969, Track / Decca.
Cover photo: Photo by Thomaz Barbeiro, larp Club D (2016)
This article is published in the companion book Book of Magic: Vibrant Fragments of Larp Practices and is published here with permission. Please cite this text as:
Godoy, Leandro. “The Use of Music as a Magical Element for the Larp Experience.” In Book of Magic: Vibrant Fragments of Larp Practices, edited by Kari Kvittingen Djukastein, Marcus Irgens, Nadja Lipsyc, and Lars Kristian Løveng Sunde. Oslo, Norway: Knutepunkt, 2021.
From the Julio Plaza’s proposition that, based on the concept of open work of Umberto Eco, categorises the relationship author-work-reception in three degrees, and the division in cultural events in reception, interaction and participation, seen in the research of Kristoffer Haggren, Elge Larsson, Leo Nordwall and Gabriel Widing, this study plans to compare three works called The Road Not Taken: a 1916’s poem by Robert Frost, a 2008’s larp by Mike Young and a 2014’s music piece by André Mestre. Besides that framework, this research uses the notion of game from communication and culture theorist Vilém Flusser, which divides them between open and closed. In open games, the translation process would be seen as a modification of the structure of rules in a given game. From this theoretical basis, the objective is to draw a relationship between the open work and open game. In this context, the poem would stand as receptive work, the music piece as interactive work and the larp as participatory work.
Three Different Roads Not Taken: A Brief Presentation of the Works
In 1916, the US poet Robert Frost (1874- 1963) published a collection of poems called Mountain Interval. The opening poem was called The Road Not Taken. In general, the four stanzas of the poem make up the story of a traveller who finds himself at an impasse after the initial event in which “two roads diverged in a yellow wood”. (Frost, 1916, p. 9) After watching each of the paths, the traveller chooses one. However, he keeps thinking about the other. The end of the poem perpetuates a puzzling atmosphere, since the poem ends complementing the initial starting sentence, pointing that “two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference”. (p. 9)
In 2008, the larp The Road Not Taken was created by US game designer Mike Young, described by him as “a game of emotions and decision” (Young, 2008, p. 3). In his script, designed for six to twelve players, each one will be the main character in a scene of about ten minutes, where he or she will be in a moment of critical decision. The other participants represent voices that indicate different views or decisions to the protagonist. According to the author,((Although the relationship with the Frost poem is not made clear in the larp script, it was clarified by Young in an email conversation on 05.03.2016.)) the influence of Frost occurs since both the poem and the larp are about decision making, so it seemed appropriate to give an eponymous title.
In 2014, the Brazilian composer André Mestre writes The Road Not Taken, an “open piece for two instrumentalists” (Mestre, 2014, p. 2). It is clear that Frost inspired more than merely the title, since:
(…) The two voices contained in the work poetically represent the path taken and the path that could have been. One acts upon the other as a shadow, a memory, an anxiety. It is my hope that the spirit of the poem can also be extended to alllevels of decision-making of the piece, especially those pertaining to performance. Contemplate the multitude of options at every moment, take the road less traveled.
Mestre, 2014, p. 2
Mestre’s proposal extends beyond the literary sphere and the musical sphere to the imagery sphere, since the very music score escapes from a more orthodox pattern to merge itself with the poem and the wood’s image where (in Frost’s poem) the decision was taken, as seen in Figure 1.
In order to immerse the instrumentalists deeper in the experience of playing the roles of path taken and path that could have been, Mestre suggests the use of live electronics, as pointed out by indicating that the piece:
(…) makes use of two electroencephalogram headsets, to be used in real time by the performers. These headsets are responsible for measuring and monitoring focus levels and performative efforts. This data is then used to process and trigger recordings that are constantly being made during the performance. Both performers should be microphoned. Each of them, however, can only access the other’s recordings — “playing” the other on the level of the mind. It is a poetic metaphor for our constant pursuit of alternatives, of “what ifs?”, of trying to go beyond our fate of always having to choose one instead of the other.
Mestre, 2014, p. 3
Thus, we present here (although superficially) three different works. Two of them, despite being made to other artistic platforms (music and visual elements in the case of Mestre, the larps’ dramatisation in the case of Young), derived from the Frost poem.
Figure 1 – Excerpt from The Road Not Taken music score. Source: Mestre, 2014.
A Road Less Travelled in Translation
For the scholar Vilém Flusser (1920-1991), a Jewish Czech who spent 32 years of his lifein Brazil, the game is a comprehensive concept, considered “all systems composed of elements combined according to rules” . (Flusser, 1967 p. 2) Flusser (1967) calls repertoire the set of game elements, while the set of rules is called structure. Competence in this case would be “all the possible combinations of the repertoire in the structure” (p. 2), while the universe of the game would be all of such combinations already performed. In games where repertoire and structure are unchangeable, “competence and universe tend to coincide. When this happens, the game is over”. (p. 3) Once defined, Flusser’s relevant terms for this study (repertoire, structure, competence and universe), it is observed that:
The game’s competences, although specific, given their disposal, tend to interpenetrate themselves. There is a tendency for anthropophagy between games. In spaces of anthropophagic interpenetration of competences there is the possibility of translation, and does not exist outside of these spaces. And the translation is always a modification of structures.
Flusser, 1967, p. 5
In this manner, one arrives at one of the focal points of this study: the notion of translation. In the works cited, understanding that we are dealing with three different formats (literature, music and larp), there is a translation process. The common element in all of them is the notion raised by taking a road. Each of the works (or each of the games, adopting Flusser’s term) fits the elements to its structure, thus creating a completely different game, yet with elements that refer to each other. Thus, from the element taking a road, it allows to relate the polysemy of the poem both the decision-making of performers and visual presentation of the musical play score as in the creation process of a narrative in larp.
This position could be supported by a separate definition. For the Spanish multimedia artist Julio Plaza (1938-2003), the translation process between the three briefly outlined works could be considered an Intersemiotic translation, a term supported by the Russian linguist Roman Jakobson (1896-1982), which defines it as the interpretation of a sign system to another (Jakobson apud Plaza, 2003a). Plaza extends the concept of Jakobson, because for him the Intersemiotic translation would be an artistic practice, since it is:
(…) a critical and creative practice in the historicity of the means of production and re-production, such as reading, metacreation, action over event structures, dialogue of signs, synthesis and rewriting of history. It means, as thought in signs, such as tra c of meanings, as transcreation forms in historicity.
Plaza, 2003a, p. 14
The common point between both hypotheticals is that the translation would refer not only to an adaptation of one language to another. Because they have different rules, they form different games.
The (Gradually) Open Works: Reception, Interaction and Participation
Although not the aim of this study, exhausting or even encompassing the myriad of possibilities related to the concept of translation, the notion presented here allows us to bring to light the second of its focal points: the concept of open work. Coined by Italian philosopher and semiologist Umberto Eco (1932-2016), open work refers to the idea of a text that conveys not only one interpretation. In these works, “a plurality of meanings coexist in one significant”. (Eco, 1991, p. 22)
The concept of Eco concerns the subjectivity of enjoyment, and not the objective structure of a work. Thus, while closed (in the sense of finished) as an author creation, Eco points out that:
(…) in the act of reaction to the web of stimuli and understanding of their relations, each spectator brings a concrete existential situation, a particularly conditioned sensitivity, a determined culture, tastes, trends, personal biases, so that the understanding of original form is found in an individually designed perspective.
Eco, 1991, p. 40
Plaza (2003b) starts on this definition of Eco to demonstrate three different degrees of openness in the work. To Plaza, the fruition of the work would have different degrees of participation of the spectator, following a designed pathway between passive participation, active participation, perceptive participation and interactivity.
In this logic, the first degree of openingwould be the open work advocated by Eco, characterised by polysemy, ambiguity, multiplicity of readings and wealth of meanings (Plaza, 2003b). The second degree of opening, in turn, was unrelated to the ambiguity, which is related by Plaza with a passive participation. Instead, counts with the active and/or perceptive participation of the viewer, aiming to bridge the gap between creator and viewer, using as tools playful participation, randomness and creativity of the viewer (Plaza, 2003b). Flourishing as a counterpoint to the mass culture, this “art of participation” (Plaza, 2003b, p. 14) understand the perception of the spectator as a re-creation of the work, as opposed to the polysemy of the first degree of opening. Finally, the third degree of opening would refer to the interactivity, placed by Plaza as the art related, above all, to contemporary technologies. Here, artists were “more interested in the processes of artistic creation and aesthetic exploration than in the production of finished works” (Plaza, 2003b, p. 17), so that both the artist and the work “only exist for effective participation the public” (Plaza, 2003b, p. 19). Because of this requirement of a receiver so that there is the author and the work, Plaza also gives this degree of opening the name of communicational art as it “allows a creative communication based on the principles of synergy, constructive collaboration, critical and innovative”. (Plaza, 2003b, p. 17)
Synthetically, the different degrees of openness proposed by Plaza could then be called in accordance with the inclusion of the viewer in the work on:
First degree of openness: passive participation;
Second degree of openness: active/ perceptive participation;
Third degree of openness: interactive participation.
However, polysemy also affects the very theoretical concepts that underlie it. This is the case of the positioning of Swedish researchers Kristoffer Haggren, Elge Larsson, Leo Nordwall and Gabriel Widing. Similar to Plaza, they divide the arts according to therelation author-work-reception in three different categories.
The first artistic category would be spectative art, assuming that “to spectate an event is to subject an individual to a solitary internal mental process: our senses perceive stimuli, we interpret them and create an experience for ourselves” (Haggren et al, 2009, p . 33). For the authors, the works of art encompassed by this category would occupy the space of thinking, had here as the “potential experiences that a certain sensory stimulation can bring up at a certain time in a certain observer” (Haggren et al, 2009, p. 36), including that spectrum “all possible thoughts, emotional reactions and associations that the subject can connect to the stimulation of the work” (Haggren et al, 2009, p. 36).
The second category is the interactive art, which “can be described as a perception of stimuli driven by choice” (Haggren et al, 2009, p. 39), since the works in this category “gives the observer the possibility to choose which sensory input will be exposed “(Haggren et al, 2009, p. 40). Here, although the authors show that the vast majority of works generate a space of potential thinking, we also have the space of choice, or “the range of all possible stimulus where the viewer can choose” (Haggren et al, 2009, p. 41).
The third (and last) category would be participative art. Participation in this context is understood as “the process by which individuals produce and receive stimuli to and from other subjects in the framework of an agreement that defines how these exchanges will be performed” (Haggren et al, 2009, p. 43). Here, the viewer’s notion breaks down, since he becomes a participant, a simultaneous consumer and producer of stimuli. The rules of stimuli exchanges make up a pillar of the participative art, since they give to this agreement a social meaning and, therefore, communication. It comes as the space of action, that “indicates to participants subsidies and restrictions to act communicatively”. (Haggren et al, 2009, p. 46)
The main difference between these two theories are in the meaning employed to the word interactivity. While, in Plaza’s research, interactivity refers to the “reciprocal relationship between the user and an intelligent system” (Plaza, 2003b, p. 10), showing the position of the author of that interactivity is related to “issue of technical interfaces with the notion of program” (Plaza, 2003b, p. 17), for the Swedish authors interactivity refers to the notion of choice. From this concept, the categorisations of both are distinguished by creating distinct incremental positions.
In this respect, this study is based on the second theory, marked by the apparatus notion viewed in Flusser (2002; 2007): the apparatus would be the producer of information, or non-things (as opposed to tools and machines that perform work or, in Flusser’s terminology, produce things), always subjected to a program. The person operating the apparatus (or that for it is operated, if we take the servant’s notion mentioned by Flusser) seeks to exhaust the options already pre-prescribed in the program. In this sense, it points to a connection between the use of the term interactivity both by Plaza and by the Swedish authors: interactivity would occur for a series of choices resulting from the user’s relationship with the program. The participation, however, is part of a more complex level: a deprogramming of the apparatus, namely the freedom to incorporate noise as part of the repertoire (Flusser, 1967) of the apparatus. The American media researcher Henry Jenkins also points to this sense of insubordination to the apparatus as ulterior to the interactivity, under the name of participatory culture (Jenkins, 2009). Explaining: only a culture that has dominated the apparatus, as seen in some contemporary groups, could insubordinate themselves as the way we see in the Jenkin’s participatory culture that deprogram the apparatus moved mainly for entertainment and pleasure.
In short, the spectative art is a first degree opening, polysemic, where there is a dependence of an viewer on a finished work by an author. In interactive art, the third degree opening restricts the dependence between author and spectator just to one program mediating the process, and no longer to a work. Finally, participative art, the relationship between the participants (a second degree opening in Plaza studies) is given by an agreement.
Open Work and Open Game
Once demonstrated, the three aspects that make up this study (i.e. the aforementioned works of art, the concept of translation, and the opening of the work), this research reaches its central point: the relationship between opening of the game and opening of the work. It is evident that by opening the game means the increase or decrease of the repertoire and/or modification of its structure (Flusser, 1967). The increase or decrease in the repertoire would occur by the transformation of noise in game elements, and vice versa, understanding noises like “elements that are not part of the repertoire of a particular game” (Flusser, 1967, p. 4).
In Frost’s poem, the original((Despite the use of the term original, it is assumed that even the poem can be considered a possible translation of Frost’s thoughts, memories, perceptions and interpretations.)) of which the other two works has operated translations, could be admitted an opening of the first degree, or a spectative art. The possibilities of game openness are limited to the repertoire of each spectator, i.e. the set of elements, in this case the meanings, that he can give to the work. However, the structure of the game/work remains unchanged.
In Mestre’s music piece, the translation, or modification of structure (an openness in the game), incorporate different elements to Frost’s poem. The usual score’s pentacle is replaced by a structure that unfolds in the image of a tree, in allusion to the point where the roads diverged in the poem. The two musicians take on the role of the possible paths, invited to improvise on the suggestions of musical notes that they may possibly take from such subjective musical notation. The very distinction between the two demonstrated interactivity concepts here have their place: on one hand there isthe third degree opening, the interaction between user and program, seen as changing the music through the capture of concentration and relaxation states of the performer (hereinafter also receiving the output of the other performer) by electroencephalogram (EEG).((This study highlights the metagame played by Mestre, who incorporates a noise to the electroencephalogram repertoire, which could be understood, in Flusser’s terms, as a deprogramming of the device in question.)) On the other hand, the relationship with the possible choices, based on the music feedback returned to each of the performers, suggests a second degree opening.
Finally, in Young’s larp, the very perception of the participants on the few lines describing each scene and each role is the heart of the matter, because it allows them to create, in every execution, a completely different work for producing and receiving completely distinct stimuli.
Which Road to Take Forward?
Although Mestre never played Young’s larp, he has been a role-player for several years. To which degree would the immersion in a participative art affect the production in other (and sometimes less opened) artistic structures?
Larps have been around for a while: about 20 years as an artistic expression, if you take the nordic larp slope; about 40 years if you take a common origin with the tabletop role-playing games; or even millennia, if you take the relationship between larps and Roman Saturnalias, as pointed out by Brian Morton (2007).
Eco stays in the metaphor of a wood to the narrative. The Italian semiologist, with this term, honours the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), for whom:
(…) a wood is a garden of diverging roads. Even when there are not well-defined paths in a wood, everyone can draw their own path, deciding to go to the left or tothe right of a particular tree and, in every found tree, choosing this or that direction.
Borges apud Eco, 1994, p. 12
Using this metaphor, the narratives, whether they be literary, imagistic, musical or ludic, would be composed of options all the time. Eco even compares the fruition of a work to a game, given the relationship between the author and the spectator, whom he defines as “someone who is eager to play” (Eco, 1994, p. 16). As pointed out by the Brazilian communicologist Monica Martinez, human expressions, even over the millennia and innovation of techniques, relied on “new interpretations layer overlaps on the same content”. (Martinez, 2015, p. 4)
Thus, passed this literature review, it is suggested that a possible road to be taken in the future would be to research, learn and absorb how a participative art, as is the case of larps, could contribute (or already contributes) to the choice of new layers to overlap the elements contained in different artistic expressions and/or structures.
Bibliography
Eco, Umberto. Obra aberta [The Open Work]. São Paulo, Brazil: Perspectiva. 1991
Eco, Umberto. Seis passeios pelos bosques da ficção [Six Walks in the Fictional Woods]. São Paulo, Brazil: Companhia das Letras. 1994
Haggren, Kristoffer, Elge Larsson, Leo Nordwall and Gabriel Widing. Deltagarkultur [Participatory Culture]. Göteborg, Sweden: Bokförlaget Korpen, 2009 [date of access: 03/05-2016] http://download.deltagarkultur.se/Deltagarkultur.pdf
Jenkins, Henry. Cultura da convergência [Convergence Culture]. São Paulo, Brazil: Aleph, 2009
Martinez, Monica. “Imagens que (nos) devoram: reflexões sobre tigres, jornalismo cidadão e coberturas jornalísticas. [Devouring Images: reflections on tigers, citizen journalism and news coverage]”. In: XXIV Encontro Anual da Compós, 2015 Brazil: Universidades de Brasília e Católica de Brasília, 2015 [date of access: 08/01- 2016] http://www.compos.org.br/biblioteca/monicamartinez_2883.pdf
Morton, Brian. “Larps and their cousins through the ages”. In Lifelike. Edited by Jesper Donnis, Morten Gade and Line Thorup. Copenhagen, Denmark: Projektgruppen KP07, 2007. p. 245-259. [date of access: 10/05-2016] https://nordiclarp.org/wiki/Lifelike
Cover photo: Allison Balcetis and Manuel Falleiros performing The Road Not Taken (Mestre, 2014) at University of Campinas in 2015. Photo by Luciene Mourige.
