flash L.A.R.P.

This project was workshopped at the Research Center for Proxy Politics.

This LARP (Live Action Role Play; such as fantasy/sci-fi “battles” or historical reenactments) model is intended to create a new and dynamic scenario for public protest. Traditional protests are expected and covered in the media as such, but if a surprising and confusing flash mob occurred it could draw attention and provoke inquiry into matters through a new lens. All press is good press — capturing the attention of the cable news camera is the goal (newstainment). Protests can be big or small, and it’s always unclear exactly how many people may show up, so it’s important to ensure the LARP is scalable. I used a basic coding language (developed by Orteil) for creating simple generators that can produce infinite roles for characters and proportionally distribute characteristics for making the most compelling scene. The beta version of the generator can be found here.

Background:

The 2016 Trump Campaign will go down in history as one of the most masterful instances of media manipulation ever. The more he lied and provoked, the more he was covered, and with this emerged a new illogical phenomena: being called out as a liar was actually beneficial – repeating the lie made it more true. The presidential race become a mass media feedback loop for falsehood; generating meaning out of an otherwise illegible perspective on policy. As a reality TV star, Donald Trump knows that mass media is essentially a sea of noise where things like boring politicians and quotidian protests blend in with the noise, and are rarely parsed out as signal. Everything he said became a signal, piped into people’s thirsty ears. In a word, we have reached maximum newstainment.

A recent pro-life march across Berlin drew 7,500 catholics and protestants solemnly marching and holding signs with various slogans all specific to abortion. In response 1,500 counter-protesters gathered at the Weidendammer bridge to stand in place on the opposite side of the Spree. However, the counter-protest was far more broad in their messaging: pro-choice, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, sexual libertinism, and secularism. The concentric intersection of the protest-counter-protest created an alarming spike, and police arrived and attempted (but failed) to keep the counter-protest away from the riverside.

Unfortunately this incident was extremely overshadowed by a simultaneous TTIP protest occurring in a different part of the city, and received almost zero media coverage. Regardless, a [if:protest_then:counterprotest] model is a productive way of generating some sort of event with the potential of getting wider coverage. Is it possible to construct and catalyze this?

Flash LARP (fLARP)

This LARP model is intended to create a new and dynamic scenario for public protest. Traditional protests are expected and covered in the media as such, but if a surprising and confusing flash mob occurred it could draw attention and provoke inquiry into matters through a new lens. All press is good press – capturing the attention of the cable news camera is the goal (newstainment). The fLARP combines five existing, distinct strategies to give it its potency:

• LARPing

• Protest

• Flash Mobbing

• Open Source

• Newstainment

Modular & Scalable

Protests can be big or small, and it’s always unclear exactly how many people may show up, so it’s important to ensure the LARP is scalable. I used a basic coding language for developing simple generators that can produce infinite roles for characters and proportionally distribute characteristics for making the most compelling scene.