Systemic Perspectives on Information in Physically Performed Role-Play
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J. TUOMAS HARVIAINEN Systemic Perspectives on Information in Physically Performed Role-play ACADEMIC DISSERTATION To be presented, with the permission of the board of the School of Information Sciences of the University of Tampere, for public discussion in the Auditorium Pinni B 1097, Kanslerinrinne 1, Tampere, on October 18th, 2012, at 12 o’clock. UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE ACADEMIC DISSERTATION University of Tampere School of Information Sciences Finland Copyright ©2012 Tampere University Press and the author Distribution Tel. +358 40 190 9800 Bookshop TAJU Fax +358 3 3551 7685 P.O. Box 617 [email protected] 33014 University of Tampere www.uta.fi/taju Finland http://granum.uta.fi Cover design by Mikko Reinikka Acta Universitatis Tamperensis 1764 Acta Electronica Universitatis Tamperensis 1237 ISBN 978-951-44-8913-6 (print) ISBN 978-951-44-8914-3 (pdf ) ISSN-L 1455-1616 ISSN 1456-954X ISSN 1455-1616 http://acta.uta.fi Tampereen Yliopistopaino Oy – Juvenes Print Tampere 2012 KEYWORDS: information behavior; information environments; larp; learning games; liminality; role-play; second-hand knowledge; serious games; simulation; social information systems. SUMMARY This dissertation examines information phenomena that take place in, and related to, physically performed pretence play. The most obvious of such is live-action role-playing (larp), but other forms also exist. The emphasis is on one hand the play experience and the elements constituting it, but underneath that all exist information processes which essentially define the perimeters of what can be done and during play and how. Being primarily a metatheoretical work, the dissertation draws on the empirics of earlier researchers and practitioners, further supporting with the author’s own experiments and field observations. References are analyzed with the use of systematic analysis, a hermeneutical method for finding their key essences, which are then compared with other works. Through this process, new data emerges from the combinations of the old, as seemingly disparate concepts are shown to actually discuss the same things. The primary research question of the dissertation is “What are the essential information systems traits of live-action role-playing situations, and how do those traits affect information behavior during play?” To understand that question, I explain how live-action role-playing can be defined and what the discursive limits of the phenomenon are. Through a look at how larping takes place also in activities such as historical re-enactment, sadomasochist role- playing and post-modern magic, I show that the same processes exist in them as well, but with a different type of framing. So as to understand their differences, I discuss the ways games and role-playing are defined as concepts. In my definition, for something to constitute larping requires three criteria: 1. It has to be role-playing in which a character, not just a social role, is played. 2. The activity has to take place in a fictional reality shared with others, and breaking that fictional reality is seen as a breach in the play itself. 3. The physical presence of at least some of the players as their characters is necessary, or the activity becomes some other type of role-playing. Role-playing consists of the intentional evocation 3 of artificial experiences through the use of fictional characters as masks, identities or personas. In larp, it is done physically. To assist in explaining the information-environmental properties of the fictional realities of play, I use Andy Letcher’s (2001) concept of the temporary tribal zone (TTZ). TTZs are temporary realities (such as religious rituals) in which normal rules do not necessarily apply. They are liminal, i.e. steps beyond the mundane. TTZs rely on social contracts between their participants. The border of the temporary space, commonly called the magic circle, acts as an information systems boundary that either blocks or transforms incoming information. People inside a TTZ require information, and their play, in the case of game-TTZs, consists of information behavior: active searches, ongoing searching, passive attention and passive searching are all utilized. Players interact with each other and the fictional environment through cognitive subject representations, constructed as extrapolations from information given by the organizers. This makes a larp a self-referential, multiple index entry information system. Within it, the play is its players’ primary frame of reference, and the activities within seem separate from mundane existence. Parts of the missing information, however, cannot be found inside the system. Players therefore use various strategies to handle the conflict between needing more information and not being able to access optimal sources for it without breaking the fictional reality. Their reliance on second-hand sources, particularly cognitive authorities – persons or groups presumed to be in the know – is heightened, and certain cognitive authorities (usually the game masters) are vested with the power to re-define the document properties of anything within the fictional reality. Players also protect the illusion, by engaging in boundary control, the act of screening what is allowed to cross the magic circle. Boundary control consists of several processes: Participants berrypick information so as not to disturb the illusion of play with direct searches to outside sources. They also blunt information that would cause problems to the activity at hand and its fiction, and they seek to follow the agreed upon rules of the play while supporting the immersion of others. Boundary leakage is nevertheless inevitable, but players seek to minimize it through such measures. 4 In a hermeneutical sense, role-playing consists of multiple texts that interact with each other. Some of them take place outside the fictional reality of play, others within, and some cross the magic circle, being transformed by it. Players constantly re-signify elements within the fictional reality, so as to keep it functional and interesting, thus creating evolving texts out of the re-significations and any meaningful actions they perform. The participants interpret such texts and reference to them in their own play. In order to be intriguing, many larps manipulate their players’ information uncertainty, in the form of an anomalous state of knowledge (ASK). By extending the state where participants know that they need more information, but not exactly what, they create emotional arousal and increased credulity. Educational games, in turn, may seek low ASK, so as to facilitate a higher learning potential. To study and explain these issues I construct and introduce the sub-field of liminality informatics, the analysis of ritualistic, liminal activities as information systems. What it studies are the information roots and fundamental information-environmental prerequisites of liminal experiences. Liminal spaces do not just include key (tacit) information processes. Their liminality, in the first place, requires those very processes (as well as others) in order to exist. Players actually perceive the game environment on multiple levels, including an external perspective. They are aware of potential information sources and conflict negotiations that exist outside the fiction, but for the most part, they try to act as if those elements did not exist. Accepting the limitations of play makes the play more interesting to them. All these phenomena also exist in information environments that are not connected to games or play. The play-context, however, makes them more prominent and visible than in many other cases, and thus easier to observe and analyze. The artificial nature of games, including the way a designer can manipulate their systems properties and internal documents, further emphasizes this. By analyzing the impact of the information environment in liminal games, it is possible to understand much more also about the influence of information environments in mundane life. 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wants to thank a myriad of people without whom he would never have completed this dissertation: My wonderful supervisors, professors Reijo Savolainen and Frans Mäyrä, two incredibly knowledgeable scholars, who both took a leap of faith and trusted a mediocre theologian who promised to do a doctoral dissertation efficiently, in a completely new field. I hope I have sufficiently rewarded their trust since then. My external reviewers Phil Turner and Suellen Adams, for their extremely valuable critique, resulting in dozens of crucial improvements. Andreas Lieberoth Wadum, in discussion with whom the first principles of liminality informatics were developed, and for teaching me throughout our co-authoring of Article Three. Markus Montola, who blazed the trail of academic red tape and suspicion for the rest of us Finnish role-playing scholars, and who has been both my friend and my harshest critic over these years. Jaakko Stenros, colleague, friend and critic whose words have improved more passages in my text than I could ever remember. Ari Haasio, whose excellent teaching way above and beyond just course requirements showed me that library and information science could be utilized to explain game phenomena previously thought inaccessible, and who therefore inspired this whole thesis. Satu Heliö, whose assistance was crucial in developing the questionnaires leading to my first peer reviewed article, which in turn opened the door for my acceptance as a doctoral student. Hanna Lohijoki,