Focusing on Witness as an art project to unlock imagination, we have defined three major tracks in today’s call (agenda here, some of the questions discussed in December here):
GAME DEVELOPMENT
Question to answer: the game should be a rules-heavy simulation or a light storytelling exercise?
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a societal D&D (RPG)
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the worldbuilding and the role playing aspects as powerful elements and easy to interact with
- a modular approach with lightweight storytelling and adaptable plug in mechanics to simulate the economy
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LARPs can be facilitators of discussions on topics difficult to approach directly
- Example: the coastal communities imagine a future of severe climate change consequences
- need to define priorities: economy, culture, community?
*mechanism: play - analyse the outcomes scientifically - connect to policy making
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“actual play podcasts” from the TTRPG world - @jolwalton UK contacts and the podcast Serious Play
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Witness as an intricate board game where rules change according to the economy + culture of each district as you move around the board
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GOOD TO TAKE A LOOK AT:
- open source System Reference Documents for RPGs that exist to be hacked for different settings: Hackable games
- longform game jams on Itch.io: Jo’s Applied Hope: The Solarpunk & Utopias Jam - itch.io
- a storytelling platform it’s worth looking further afield at more improvisational RPGs such as Unbound, Spire, Baron Munchausen etc
LOCAL DEVELOPMENT
Witness as a tool for development of imagination and boosting the ideas
- Example - small municipalities in Sicily getting a lot of funding money but without the capacity and the imagination to employ it
- similar projects with NL public organisations and youth require including/embedding the policy mechanisms in the game/tool
The result would be a very practical tool to connect (small) communities with the local government policy implementation.
- idea: The resilient futures workshop
- in a second moment - a guide for facilitators - (ten points on how to use witness for that)
THE EXPERIENCE BUILDING
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Starting from Giacomo’s idea to organise the Witness installation in Messina’s contemporary art museum as a virtual scenario:
- Upon entering a room equipped with motion sensors and sophisticated projectors, the visitor, touching the walls, enters the immersive interactive experiences (i.e. deep sea for Messina)
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threads open with Plurality University
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work on health, satisfaction, general wellbeing, macroeconomic indicators in combination with radically different ways of data usage
GOOD TO KNOW:
Globus Opstart funding for the writers’ retreat is still available at Blivande - @hugi will contact the funders to find an extention
GOOD TO TAKE A LOOK AT:
To facilitate the entrance of the newcomers we could create multiple pathways in?
1-2 page guide for educators, 1-2 page guide for facilitators, 1-2 page guide for writers / game designers
A call for projects on immersive storytelling https://www.storyfutures.com/academy
The Writers Salon, for fiction daily words quotas.