These five directions are an agglomeration of topics that came up most often in the Reality Check session of the design week. In order to be able to choose the most promising direction, some more work is needed…

ARG - a story that happens all around you; planning + player agency; in-game education & instruction; what is the intention? frame the context; what happens with spontaneity and improvisation?; as a medium to tie things together; unwittingly getting tricked into situations of experimenting with possible societies; stories about plants and eco-systems - plants as raw material for paper & stories themselves; plants myths and histories; plants in love letters; Integrating characters and realities; Tricksters to help the creative juices - curiosity and mischief; Working site-specific with narrow places and desolate spaces; working with non-verbal, pre-linguistic modes of communication; carnivals; look at trickster plants (in today's mythology); what games do plants play?; puzzles to communicate with the vegetal mind - looking for things that are not there; creative competitions - live action replays of elements of the garden; events: seasonal festivals; map - permaculture diagrams? formalised structure (pataphysics); robotic musical boxes mimicking crickets in city-parks; pairing: flavours, scents, pair programming, companion-planting; plant myths - soma plant (Indian), persian myth about medical plants, pre-helenic poppy-goddess, Celtic family living in a plant, sweet potato god; satisfaction from re-incorporation of different elements (recognition); multiple story arcs going on at the same time; gameplay & narrative gestalt; social aspects, multiple entries & paths, re-runs; atmosphere, poetry, multiple perspectives, RT; patterns - through repetition (recognition & novelty); a magic circle - safe zone to come out of character; what are the points of intimacy; transformation: personal, spatial, cultural; technologies as a storytelling device; ARG as a tool to become more aware of everyday life; recognition through emotional contact; who is the observer if the audience becomes the player?; characters are the ingredients and their relationships, long term patterns - structures over time - a character is something that engages u, through an emotional response; a character is expressed through action - what can a character do - a pattern of verbs evoking emotions; a character causes changes of events; physicalisation defines characters, relationships are shown through actions; ; narration through intensity (Pelkin) - it's not important what's happening in the image, but what's the relationship between the images; a live game needs spontaneity to incorporate mistakes; “adjustifying reality”; character in performance ↔ character in game; role-playing & socialising (not many people roleplay any more); stories as atmospheres; listening to trees - a hidden message inside - using trees as transducers (implant something while the tree is small (for fast-growing trees); stories to help us think ecologically;

LARP - westland's core of larp: equipment, technology & costume / socialising, coziness & comfort / drama, effects & story / physicality, openness & lay participants; + locative - walk through dramaturgy, networks of possible discovery

improvisation (notes from Bronwynn on Narrative Strategies workshop: http://timesup.org/laboratory/NarrativeStrategies/) - what is the story that's in the room - being spontaneous together; 'word at a time story; building a house together, everyone brings one brick; always furthering ideas, not bringing them down; audiences will create narrative bridges; work with myths and archetypes - true across cultures; monomyth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth) vs. science fiction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction); think about the dramatic arc - it depends on the energy level in the room; audience constructs a story, actors play it out; characters - have to be people we care about - stereotyping, with depth; played out honestly (think about which aspect of yourself relates to the character); people always have an anticipation & expectation - reaction is either satisfaction or surprise; characters and people are always developed in relationship to someone / something; what's fun in a game - taking risks that we wouldn't in real life; “there are no mistakes”; cross-cultural improv - more physical, almost dance-like, using visual forms; it's much more exciting to make a claim than to ask a question in improv

to do (maggie, maja, nik):

• survey of the field: ARG, tricksters, absurdist and sensorial theatre, non-linear embodied storytelling
• check resource feasibility (people, skills, time, funds)
• think about possible topics, sites, methods…
• do a situational map of the field and the forces acting on it + forecast most promising avenues

to do (nik, maja, lina, theun):

• survey of the field: virtual gardens, urban agriculture, roof gardens, permaculture, location based games
• check resource feasibility (people, skills, time, funds)
• think about possible topics, sites, methods…
• prepare concrete proposals for design week in october
• do a situational map of the field and the forces acting on it + forecast most promising avenues

see:groworld_hybrid gardens

to do (maja, maggie, lina):

• best practice analysis (foam and related)
• find people (see groworld archetypes )
• design and implement workshops (luminous green, open sauces, techNouveau)

to do (maja, theun, cocky)

• survey of the field: nomadic kitchens, state of the art industrial design for kitchens, permaculture kitchens
• check resource feasibility (people, skills, time, funds)
• make an inventory of what a mobile kitchen would need to include, how it would move, be powered…
• prepare concrete proposals for design week in october
• do a situational map of the field and the forces acting on it + forecast most promising avenues

see: groworld mobile kitchens

to do (cocky, lina, theun):

• survey of the field: lightweight structures, inflatables, temporary shelters, eco-tourism, 'holiday offices'
• check resource feasibility (people, skills, time, funds)
• think about possible topics, sites, methods…
• prepare concrete proposals for design week in october
• do a situational map of the field and the forces acting on it + forecast most promising avenues