Shared Fantasy: Live-action versus technologically mediated hyper-reality

Hello world. It has been some time since I had the leisure to post. But now I have a wordpress app! It’s the future. Jetpacks. Robot servants. A life of opportunity. Utopia or dystopia?

The fictional stories I read in the 1980s promised technological wonders such as these, and none so wondrous as the idea of virtual reality. Whether you remember the headsets of the 90’s or the holodeck from Star Trek, the notion of advanced technology blurring the line between what was ‘real’ and what could be experienced as real was a topic of much excitement and possibility. Of course, so was teleportation, but this post isn’t about that.
What I have been thinking about is the distinction between ‘swords and sorcery’ style LARP and the recent popularity of ‘augmented reality’ games made possible by the popularity of technologies like the iPad or smartphone. These games need such technology to create a consistent game world in a way that messing about in a field with some foam swords does not. Yet even foam swords and costumes are products of technology, artifacts that ‘mediate’ our engagement with our imagined world.
So I wonder about the role such objects play in our ‘pretend’ world compared with the ‘real’ one. Food for thought… (To be continued….!)

Hello (again) world

Dear internet,

it’s been a while hasn’t it? I do apologise, I have missed you. Sadly the ‘real’ world of work is not as forgiving as the fantastical world of roleplay, where if you neglect your position some bright adventurer will often seize power in a brutal coup, leaving you to calmly roll up a new character on your next visit to the field.

I have been putting together costume for a new game I am attending at Easter, and investigating wedding garments for myself and spouse-to-be. I was struck by how many of my concerns were similar during these shopping trips and online forays; how re-usable would the garment be for different events? How comfortable will it be? What associated props do I also need to budget for? These questions apply just as much to a wedding suit or dress as they do to costume for a given them and setting at a LARP event. I began to think about how important wedding clothes were for what in LARP would be called ‘immersion’. Will they make the day significant and convey my identity and life decisions by representing me in my ‘best’ light? How important is it that they be customised rather than ready-to-wear? Do they appropriately represent ‘me’ as a person?

I began to wonder how many of these concerns affected the other shoppers I could see around me in the gleaming urban shopping centre. I suspect (from my admittedly quite snobbish position) that they have the same worries but are perhaps less aware of the extent to which these worries are informed by the social power of ‘brands’ or our consumer habits. However, these criteria have changed significantly over time, as those items which are of significance and notable ‘in society’ are transformed by change in taste and technology. Hand-made items are now the preserve of luxury goods, but variety of colour and textile appearance is now something attainable by most consumers.

At LARP events our props and costume are generally considered relative to the setting or genre we are trying to portray, and also due to the skill and uniqueness apparent in their making. Sometimes there is talk of adding to the ‘authenticity’ of the narrative or experience in the same way that re-enactors value the authenticity  of historical reproductions. In our attempt to find commercially produced items (in the form of wedding stuff) that held the same value in portraying something about a ‘special day’ (and how I am beginning to hate that term), I reflected on how it must be hard to do the same with everyday shopping. Perhaps this lies behind the close attachment people develop to certain ‘brands’ as representing their identity.

One to think on….

Comments welcome!

….the role of props and background representations for conveying membership and performing ceremonial rituals…

Patching together a technicolour reality

One of the very first worries any player is likely to face, whatever their gender, is “what should I wear?” Costume is perhaps not the most important part of entering into the LARP world, but it does play a significant role. In this post, I thought I would share the story of one of my earliest costume creations for a LARP character, the emotions and the practicalities that surrounded that item, and how I think such items are important symbolic artefacts in the reality of the game.

Keeping Dry

Starting my experience of LARP as I did in the north-west UK, the unpredictable nature of the British weather played a large part in my experience of the game. LARP was fun, but it was also interspersed with clammy goosebumps and shivering, which (if you’ll pardon the pun) put rather a dampener on things. My early experiences of ‘fest’ LARP also made me keenly aware of the large proportion of the time that was not running screaming into battle, but instead standing around in the drizzle, huddling together with other players over a small campfire and passing a small hipflask around to keep warm. Cloaks were available for sale, but they tended to be very pricey, and I was on a student budget. Someone at university made blanket cloaks (rectangular woollen things with a clasp), which were better than nothing but didn’t quite keep the rain out or the warmth in. Most importantly, they didn’t convey the dramatic swirling atmosphere of highwayman-come-fantasy romance that the game seemed to aspire to.

Taking all of the above into consideration, and having acquired a budget sewing machine, I began to hatch my plans. Cloaks require a lot of fabric, and wool was expensive. I thought about how I had seen people playing wood-elves in leaf-patterned leather armour, and how I intended my next character to be a mildly aggressive wood-fairy, inspired by woodland, thorns and branches. I wanted something that reflected forest colours in all seasons but which could be used in different situations to blend in as well as to stand out. With that in mind I decided to make a reversible patchwork cloak. I would be able to use scraps to assemble the quantity of fabric required as well as to get the “dappled woodland” feeling I wanted. The gap between the patchwork and cover layer would create an insulating barrier and thus the cloak would be warm even if made from synthetic fabrics.

I bought a pattern, and made free with the sample section of a local curtain shop. I also kept an eye out for bargains in the offcut bin, and bought a large amount of green suede-like fabric for the backing. At a tiny tea-table I sewed square after square together into long strips, then sewed these to each other until I could barely see. I toiled like this for three days, barely eating or sleeping, then trimmed the fabric to the pattern shapes on an ironing board. The more I worked on the fabric, the more I thought about the character. My frustration at a broken machine needle became yet another obstacle in my way to the character’s goals, and why she had left the forest to meet the other players in the game. The fusing of the pattern pieces was fundamentally part of developing the story I intended to play, since as the patches came together, so did the personality of the fictional role.

After the frenzy of stitching, the cloak had to be washed, rinsed in waterproofing solution and dried. Waterproofing solution has a particular waxy scent to it, a scent that to this day I associate with adopting the belligerence and stubborn prejudices of that character. When a close friend of mine became tainted in the game world I refused to associate with her during game time for around three years. We are, of course, still marvellous friends the rest of the time.

Getting kitted up

The cloak, once made, was (and still is) enormous. It would not conveniently fit inside my rucksack, but instead had to be rolled and strapped to the outside of the bag, exposed to the elements. Once arrived at the event in the game world I found that the cloak, although successful at keeping the rain off and some warmth in, was so long as to make standing up once having sat down a perilous process. Other players/characters often stood on the hem and accidentally pinned me to the spot. I feel that this difficulty only encouraged my stubborn nature as the character.    The only way to go into combat elements of the game was to throw the garment over my head and hope to return to it later. I did begin to adopt a rather particular attitude towards objects as a result of this, trusting an item only for as long as it was within my grasp, for who knew what purpose another would find for it? Other player characters held strong views against the written word because of the way it could be twisted when taken away from its originator, and my character fell in line with this argument. My interactions with other players, rather than encouraging segregation due to my performed stand-offish personality, actually encouraged development of the fictional community, establishing a different group morality that was distinct from other types of character. However, it was still an easy task to cast off the persona at meal times along with the cloak, transforming it into a warm wrap or picnic blanket on which to chat and socialise with friends from all parts of the game around a hot drink and bread roll.

Reflections

My intentions in constructing this piece of costume were based on many requirements, but I was determined to create something specific to the identity and presentation of the character I would be playing. Although many parts of the cloak were scavenged from materials aimed at a mass market (in curtains), the outcome was in many ways unique, and the experience of producing the cloak distinctly coloured the wearing of it and behaviour while doing so. Making this item was only the beginning in my own journey of making various costumes for characters, as well as dressmaking more generally, and I have found this causes me to look at items of clothing for sale in a very different light. It is nearly impossible to purchase clothing that fits personal requirements of taste as well as practicality and uniqueness in everyday commercial settings, unless custom made. What effect does that have on my ‘performance’ of identity, or of my character (in the non-LARP sense) in the everyday? Does the limited range of options make it easier to identify those in the same social grouping as myself? Are we all likely to share the same frustrations with  ‘disposable’ mass produced fashion? And do the ‘unique’ items of clothing we adopt declare us idols and/or outcasts by default?

Reflections and comments welcome as always.