TY - JOUR

T1 - Nordic game subcultures

T2 - Between LARPers and avant-garde

AU - Fuchs, Mathias

N1 - In Vol. 2 - Critical notes von: Issue 3, 2014 – Video game subcultures: Playing at the periphery of mainstream culture

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - The article is about structural resemblances, linguistic and rhetoric similarities and media-strategic as well as tactical operations, that Nordic LARPers and 20th century avant-garde artists share. Many of the 20th century avant-garde movements and subcultural formations started from a shared collective experience and then branches out into refined, diversified and individualized forms of expression. Futurism, DADA and Fluxus, Punk, Emo and Goth did originally constitute a dress code, a toolset, a jargon, a mission statement and a territorial assignment within the cities they choose as the center of their activities. Manifestos defined what a Futurist, Dadaist or Punk would most probably think and say, and how he or she would say it. A similar observation can be made for the communities that engage with live action role playing games (LARPs) in the Nordic countries. The Turku manifesto and the Dogma 99 manifesto influenced directly and indirectly how the Nordic LARP subculture framed defined itself and presented itself to the world. The initiating, collective experiences of Cafe Voltaire, the Wuppertal art galleries, SOHO, and respective locations for Nordic LARPers have been constitutive for the process of identity building and identity shaping for artists and gamers alike.

AB - The article is about structural resemblances, linguistic and rhetoric similarities and media-strategic as well as tactical operations, that Nordic LARPers and 20th century avant-garde artists share. Many of the 20th century avant-garde movements and subcultural formations started from a shared collective experience and then branches out into refined, diversified and individualized forms of expression. Futurism, DADA and Fluxus, Punk, Emo and Goth did originally constitute a dress code, a toolset, a jargon, a mission statement and a territorial assignment within the cities they choose as the center of their activities. Manifestos defined what a Futurist, Dadaist or Punk would most probably think and say, and how he or she would say it. A similar observation can be made for the communities that engage with live action role playing games (LARPs) in the Nordic countries. The Turku manifesto and the Dogma 99 manifesto influenced directly and indirectly how the Nordic LARP subculture framed defined itself and presented itself to the world. The initiating, collective experiences of Cafe Voltaire, the Wuppertal art galleries, SOHO, and respective locations for Nordic LARPers have been constitutive for the process of identity building and identity shaping for artists and gamers alike.

KW - Cultural studies

KW - LARP

KW - manifestos

KW - Futurism

KW - Fluxus

KW - Role Playing Games

KW - Punk

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 2

SP - 5

EP - 14

JO - GAME : the Italian journal of game studies

JF - GAME : the Italian journal of game studies

SN - 2280-7705

IS - 3

ER -