The Planning Table

Research project by Steph Holl-Trieu, Lore D Selys & Carina Erdmann.

The collaborative research takes the form of a role-play workshop that examines and remakes economic systems departing from everyday concerns. Participants embody semi-fictional characters, created via live-action roleplay (LARP) and worker’s inquiry. As part of a speculative council, players are invited to play an adapted version of The International Trade Game (a game that is used to teach macroeconomic paradigms.) At first playing with the existing rules, players can successively modify the rules proposing amendments to the game system based on the principles of Nomic (a game that aimed to embody ‘the paradox of self-amendment’ in law.) As they continue playing, they simulate a transition of the economic system. They might not be successful in satisfyingly altering the game, but the resistance to change in the system is a crucial element of the game hacking experience.  The workshop concludes with a reflection on the values and dynamics that were enacted in the groups, how they were enabled by the rules at play and how those can be deciphered as a metaphor for the systems that (may) be. 


Methods
Live action role-playing serves as a method to enter into systems of our own making. These are not just described in the abstract, but experienced through the complexity of their emotional and social dynamics. It allows participants to encounter contradictions—both individually and collectively. In a reality premised on competition and cynicism, the game offers a space to rehearse what it means to overcome the impasse of capitalism as the end of history. Instead of theorising from above, it is a game about inhabiting the textures of systemic transformation.

Game hacking serves as a method to simulate the economy as an adaptive system. While the project emphasizes the lived experience of an economic model through personal storytelling; the narrative interacts with adapted game systems that stimulate the economy at scale. During the research phase existing pedagogical games will be tested and adapted to metaphorically represent economic systems. As part of the workshops, these games will be adapted and “hacked” according to the participants’ values, desires and needs.

PAST WORKSHOPS:

30th of November:(re)connecting.earth biennale and Les Créatives Festival at La salle communale du Faubourg, Geneva

3rd of December:
FTW (For the Win) at 
Le Commun, Geneva