Lone Wolves Stick Together: Research as a Journey to an Aesthetic Understanding of Immersion and Participation through VR and roleplaying (LARP)

Nadja Lipsyc

This research explores the artistic and critical potentials of using tools from live action roleplaying (larp) to create narrative VR experiences. In particular, it unfolds the conception, physical play and VR play and production of the live action roleplaying (larp) Lone Wolves Stick Together. Inspired by the film Stalker (1979) by Tarkovsky, Lone Wolves Stick Together stages the immersive environment as an omniscient Sphynx-like character that pushes the players to question one another and to introspect. By using larp and video game design knowledge conjugated to cinematic aesthetics, this research project seeks to honor the creative and narrative potentials of immersion and participation. As such, between 2018 and 2023, this research took the form of classic chamber larps, immersive theater experiences, scenography installation, VR larps (including two other projects: The Space Between Us and Ancient Hours) and a final multimedia installation. The artistic methods rely on principles of environmental design, explored physically through production design and ambisonics, and virtually through a highly reactive virtual environment. The research method is based on a constructivist approach where we experiment to find an answer, not the truth. Here, experimentation is not conceptual but aesthetic: knowledge is lived and felt through artistic experience. Centred around VR and within a film and new media context, this research also develops a reflection on the industrial and technological influences on the creative process and their friction with artistic-research.

The journey document branches out regularly to three peer-reviewed articles I have written and co-written during my time as a PhD fellow:

Storydiving: techniques for engaging 360 experiences for the ISEA conference, 2019

Axes of tension: navigating craft, institution and industry as an artistic researcher in film and new media, written with Camilla Jaller & Frederick Howard for the International Journal of Film and Media Arts (IJFMA), 2020.

Comments on VR and Larp, for the companion book to the Solmukohta conference, to be published in 2024.

articles

/ annexes

research process documents

Annexe XIII: Coincidences - journal entry (2018)

Annexe XIV: Decolonization workshop action plan (2021)

development process documentation

Annexe VII: Lone Wolves Stick Together pre-prototype script (2019)

Annexe VIII: Pre-prototype jam results (2020)

Annexe IX: Lone Wolves Stick Together development trailer (2020)

Annexe X: Lone Wolves Stick Together Breach VR prototype storyboard (2023)

Annexe XI: The Space Between Us technical dilemmas (2020)

Annexe XII: The Space Between Us development trailer (2020)

design documents & bibles

Annexe I: Lone Wolves Stick Together bible (2019)

Annexe II: The Space Between Us bible (2020)

Annexe III: Blackbox VR short presentation (2020)

Annexe IV: Ancient Hours design document (2022)

experience documents

Annexe V: Lone Wolves Stick Together fictional walkthrough (2021)

Annexe VI: Pre-play documents available in the pre-play exposition (2023)

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