Choosing a direction
The topic I have been given for the test lecture can easily occupy me for an other five years. If I try to make an exhaustive presentation of the relationship between live action role-play and culture, I will have to do a world-wide study of how participants use, shape and perform their many different types of games. So if I want to do something meaningful in the 45 minutes I have, I have to limit this. I have to restrict myself until it's a tiny little topic that will fit into 10 pages of text.

So here are my initial limitations: I define Live Action Role Playing as full immersion LARPs - what in Norway is known as a "laiv" (from live). I will focus on the LARP culture in Norway. I will interpret culture in an anthropological sense, and thus include tradition, myth, folklore as well as present day Norwegian culture.

Since there is no real question in the topic, I will not attempt at making a conclusion, but think of the lecture as a presentation of the RPgames and how they (in Norway) connect to culture. To the extent I go abroad in this discussion, it will be to demonstrate how the Norwegian laiv is flavoured by Norwegian culture, while it's part of a youth culture movement which has spread over the world over the last 30 years.

I will probably redo this many times in the weeks to come.

LARP links and beyond
Live Action Roleplayers association
Society for Creative Anachronism
Mythical journeys
larp.com
LARP Welt - Germany
International Live Action Role Playing Meetup day (13th of September)
GLARPS The Generic Live Action Role Playing system
LURPS - Lancaster University Role Playing Society

Hyperion - Norsk forbund for fantastiske fritidsinteresser.
Norges rollespill portal
laiv.org Norges offisielle laiv-portal
Rollespill

Historier fra uvirkeligheten hovedfagsoppgave om rollespill

Studies about fantasy role-playing games
The RPG Times
Myths and Cultures in Fantasy Roleplaying
Internal and external perspectives on the roleplaying gamer culture

Role-Playing Games & Popular Occultism, on how role-playing games seduce the innocent, from the Kjos Ministeries
What role-playing teaches..., from The Amethyst Circle Ezine by The Amethyst alliance

Test Lecture
"Live Action Role Playing (LARP) as cultural phenomenon"

If you want to hear all about that, make sure to be in Volda, at the College, 11th of September, 16.30.

And if anything goes wrong during the lecture, I can just blame the demon of the day.

Two voices
There are two distinct voices in the assessment of the thesis. By now I recognize them by the first couple of words. They are very different in the words they use, in the questions they ask and in the digressions they make. When I pick a new strip of paper from my heap, it's like meeting familiar faces: "Hello, we just talked, that was the other topic you addressed just on the last strip of paper. Now let me explain to you what this really means..."

Rather than hold your breath
(as I know you all do, in painful suspense as the last days of my non-defended pre-doctorate life tick away relentlessly), read Game Research's history and genres links - a clear if somewhat simplified description og game genres, but with some good and interesting descriptions, for instance of the Adventure game.

Pressemelding
This is the press release, which it's part of my duties to write. It's in Norwegian, as I don't anticipate international press coverage. If somebody really want to represent international media at this defense, they should get in touch, and I will personally translate.


Spill, fryd og kontroll

Torill Elvira Mortensen disputerer fredag 12 september for dr. art graden ved Universitetet i Bergen med avhandlingen:

Pleasures of the player: flow and control in online games.

Avhandlingen tar for seg hvordan tekstbaserte dataspill på nettet, MUDs, brukes av spillerne. Den utforsker forholdet mellom rollespill og fortellinger, særtrekk ved gode dataspill og hvorfor flerbrukerspill på nettet er så tiltrekkende for deltakerne.

Torill Elvira Mortensen har spilt dataspill, særlig nettbaserte flerbrukerspill, og intervjuet spillere hun møtte i disse spillene. Det som skiller spillene ut fra andre underholdningsmedia er hvordan de gir spilleren innflytelse over opplevelsen. De er sosiale aktiviteter som oppmuntrer til samhandling med andre mennesker, og utfordrende områder som stimulerer problemløsning, utforskning av det fremmede og ukjente, og kreativitet.



Personalia:
Torill Elvira Mortensen er født og oppvokst i Ålesund. Hun er cand. philol i Massekommunikasjon og kulturformidling ved Universitetet i Bergen (1990), og underviser ved Avdeling for Mediefag ved Høgskulen i Volda, hvor hun har vært tilknyttet Informasjonsutdanninga siden 1991. Doktorgraden er finansiert av Norges Forskningsråd, SKIKT-programmet.

Dette er den første doktordisputasen som blir arrangert i Volda. Torill Elvira Mortensen er den første fast ansatte ved Avdeling for Mediefag som tar en doktorgrad, og blir eneste kvinne med førstekompetanse ved avdelingen.

Hun er gift og har to barn, 15 og 17 år gamle.

Tidspunkt og sted for disputasen:
Prøveforelesning: Torsdag 11. september, klokken 16.30, Høgskulen i Volda.
Disputasen: Fredag 12. september, klokken 10.15, Store Auditorium i Berte Kanutte huset, Høgskulen i Volda.

Kontaktpersoner:
Cand. philol Torill Elvira Mortensen
Informasjon ved HVO Per Arne Brandal
Ingunn Vie Skare, Mediekontakt ved UiB

Support team
I am not alone. That is the great part about doing the defense here in Volda.

Ingvar Elgesem, our administrative director, keeps a keen eye on the formalities, negotiating protocol and procedures with the University of Bergen, while making the practical parts of the defense happen.

Sverre Liestøl, our dean, is cutting through the worst knots of who does what and who spends money on what. The sum the University gives the institutes in order to arrange the practical things around the defense (travel and board for the comittee not included) is almost symbolic, so Sverre manages to find what else is needed to print and publish.

Thomas Lewe has made the cover for the thesis. It is so beautiful, I'll want it framed on the wall afterwards.

Øystein Sande takes care of the type-face. If I hadn't done the defense here, I'd have been spending my days going through the thesis looking for stray fonts now, not struggling to read the assessment.

Jan Ole Bolsø is taking care of the defense dinner. It's one of those things he does for a living (among innumerable other things, all useful), so it is running quickly and smoothly, and I can just lean back and send him addresses for invitations.

I may at times yell and rant and kick and scream at these men; for their pigheadedness, meanness, inability to understand and sheer contrariness - but once you are embraced by this department, you're not just an other colleague, you are family: with the good and the bad. And right now, it feels so, so safe.

Panic attack
As mentioned, I was notified of the defense date almost a month later than I should, in order to organise everything in time. That means that I also received the comittee's comments on the thesis a month late. I was feeling pretty relaxed about that the first days, because I was so relieved that I had passed at all. Today I am panicking over it.

First: it's more than five months since I submitted the thesis, and it is about 400 pages long, including attachments. I have three days to get a grip on it.
Second: It has taken me five days to manage to sit down and really look at the assessment. I have skimmed it, and found "more important" things to do. Now I have to face it, and I find that I still can't do that.
Third: Volda College has never arranged a doctorate defense before. The infamous Media Department in Volda can do anything, as long as we all want it, and yes, all want to arrange this defense and the ensuing party. It's just that nobody knows what needs to be done, and we have 300 students arriving at the same time.

I really should complain. I really should start yelling, and tell the people who have planned their autumn to include a visit to Volda in the middle of September to reschedule. I really should assert myself, something people think is so easy for me, loud, visible and uninhibited as I appear, and demand the month I lost to the administrative errors. Give me a month, and I should be able to read that assessment.

I have three days.
So here is what I am doing right now. I am cutting the whole thing into paragraphs, using my very sharp scissors. I will read a paragraph at the time. I will read it disjointed and jumbled, and see what I can do about the argument before me, without linking it to the devastating argument over or under on the page. Doing this I am asserting my power over the criticism, which, right now, does feel like an attack. Hopefully I'll manage to read all the bits and pieces before the test lecture. If not, we'll see at the defense if I can fly. Or rather, as we would say in between the lovely fjords of Norway: If I can row.

Salmagundi News
Most MUDs don't go as far as they might have, because the staff can't cooperate. Salmagundi is down for a while, as we are looking for a new host. Too many people who think of the game as their personal toy is not good for efficient creativity. So we are off to play elsewhere, and kyndig.com doesn't take you to Salmagundi any more. Sad, but that is how MUDs spawn!

Torril bug
I think I may have found the reason why english speakers constantly typo my name. It is actually a word: torril. (n.) A worthless woman; also, a worthless horse.

So that's me: a worthless woman, or perhaps a worthless horse. Flattering.

Gender confusion
The only thing I have written lately which is written by a female is the previous post. At least according to the Gender Genie. Perhaps that other woman is a man? Or perhaps I am a man who dreams of being a woman?

Genie by way of Jill/txt. She's somewhat manly, too.

Rewrite
Today, I have this intense urge to rewrite myself. I have a cold and an accompanying headache, I am drifting aimlessly in a lull during the (rather intense) preparations for the defense, I am broke after buying two new pairs of glasses for my son (yes, he needs two, or we'll all be spending half an hour every morning finding them) and it's three weeks until next payday. I need a new passport, which isn't all that expensive in itself. But because the US has changed their visa rules it has to be machine readable, which means I have to go to Oslo or Bergen to get it, as little places like Volda don't have the machinery to produce those passports just yet - and the ticket to Oslo is not insubstantial. It's not exactly just around the corner. So who would I be if I could rewrite myself?

I think I'd be an egoist. I'd be single. I'd live in a city, not neccessarily in Norway. I'd make enough money to pay for the appartment (small, but elegant and always tidy) and the student-loan and still have a little left over, so I'd probably not be an academic. A journalist perhaps. It's probably what I'd be if I hadn't needed a steady income immediately after I finished my main subject. I write well, I learn quickly, people trust me and talk to me, and I do quick and thorough research. I am also a passable photographer. Yeah, probably a journalist in one of the medium to large papers. Not the hot-shot front page one, but the one who could always be relied on to deliver the bread and butter of the paper. And the culture-stuff, the reviews, not the gossip. I don't do gossip well.

I'd have a mixed group of more or less steady lovers. Other single people like me, who didn't need a close monogamous relationships, but would prefer comfortable friendships and civilised passion at appropriate times. I'd meet them in cafés and we'd go to movies, plays and exhibitions together. Once in a while I'd go with them on vacations. Most of my travelling I would do alone. There would be herbs in pots on the tiny balcony outside my livingroom, and the livingroom would be a shared work and leisure space. The guestroom would double as a room where I could paint, sew or play around with the different crafts projects that only my family and close friends knew about. There wouldn't be too much time for this, because I'd be busy at work and busy with my friends. That's why it would be so important not to have to clean up every time I had started something.

When I didn't get engaged in deep cultural discussions with my cultured little circle of friends, do creative crafts projects, write important, meaningful articles and travel to new and interesting places, I'd be writing the big novel. You know, not Bridget Jones, but the other one. The one that would connect all the dots for the reader, the one that would make meaning emerge from the shallow waters of modern life. The one that would explain all the small frustrations, give them a place in the larger image of the world, and connect our individual lives into the collective consciousness. And it would be a wonderful novel. Each paragraph would be a gift or verbal delight, fresh, fluid, changing but clear. Each chapter would brings a new realisation. And they would drip from the tips of my fingers uninterrupted, in that organised, uncomplicated flow which would be my life.

Problem is - I think this rewrite of myself is a lot more boring than the life I live. There would be none of the glaring inconsistencies that fill my reality. Everything happens in a kind of flat, comfortable twilight (with fuzzy filter for dream-like effects), I see no bright peeks and no deep dark abysses. I think if I dare write the unedited version of my life when I reach old age, the woman who writes that book will be a much more interesting person than the other one, the one I'd like to be right now. And she, the single one, probably dreams about being me, love, pain, insecurity, ambition, responsibility, spent paycheck and all.

Arda Encyclopedia
For when you need to know what is what in a different world.

NotQuiteBlackOut
David Gallagher, of the wonderful photo blog Lightningfield.com, posts pictures of the blackout in New York. The fascinating part is that despite the total lack of electricity along the main lines, when you look at the pictures that give a bit of a view of the town, it's not blacked out at all. There are still signs lit up, there are whole floors in the sky-scrapers where all rooms are lit, there are stores filled with an odd, blue light, there's even the entrance to a cinema flooded with light from within.

I assume that these pinpoints of light represent emergency generators, resourceful people with batteries and torches, and of course, there are the cars. But it's still interesting - almost poetic - how the Manhattan skyline is dotted with light, even at the darkest hour.

On the side of caution
I have discovered a rather unexpected problem - minor one, but a little unsettling to my jittering nerves. In order to make certain I don't reveal anything people did not wish to reveal in my thesis, I have changed all the names of the characters and the players. As I read through the criticism of the thesis, I find that I have a hard time recalling who is who! Who the #¤&& is Mariah? And what character did she play? Well, I know, of course, I have her in the name-list and I have no REAL problem finding her. But it's a little like reading with a dictionary - each name signifies something other than I had expected, and I need to keep checking. That means one more thing to remember for the defense: make a cross-referenced list of the real names and the made-up names, so I know what is going on...

Dates
Thursday 11th of September, 16.30, Volda College. This is the test lecture.
Friday 12th of September, 10.15, Volda College. This is the defense.

Splendid nature, intricate discourse and arcane academic rituals. All free at the cost of a trip to Volda.

Virus checking
Somebody have been sending out emails with my address as the sender, emails containing the annoying and widespread worm SOBIG.F. This morning my mailbox was stuffed with alerts about emails stopped due to attachments containing this virus, and a few emails alerting me that my address had sent out this worm. I am checking my own email and computer right now, and the updated virus control (Norman) has not found anything yet. It's unlikely that any genuine emails from me contain the worm: I am checking and rechecking. But if my email stands as the sender of a wicked screensaver: DON'T open it! I promise you, I don't have wicked screensavers on the computer. They are all running in my mind.

Culture shock
This is the first doctorate defense ever at Volda College, and it may turn into one of the more amusing events at the Department of Media Studies. Our administrator, who received a phone call from the Faculty of Arts, University of Bergen, was told how the defense will happen. First, the dean will enter, wearing his robe and silver chain of office, followed by the candidate (me) and the opponents (Stuart Moulthrop, T. L. Taylor and Dag Elgesem)... At this point our administrator interrupts, frantically muttering about the need to have a dean's robe made up by the 12th. The lady in the other end of the phone happily relieves his worries. The Faculty of Arts will bring their own dean...

Of course, as the complexity and number of rituals dawned on our administrator, he asked carefully if routines couldn't be adjusted a little bit, to suit the less formal, more populistic nature of the District Colleges. "Oh dear no," was the reply. "There are regulations for this, and they can't be changed by the 12th!"

So our dean, who strolls through life in blue jeans and a dongeri jacket, will be representing alongside the dean from the Faculty of Arts wearing velvet robe and silver chain. How to counter that? I am also not sure where we ought to have lunch. In Bergen that's normally at some rather nice restaurant. Here we can choose between the tourist hotel and "Dirty Nelly", a semi-irish pub.

I think I may enjoy this. There will be so many absurd little details revealed before we are done (in just a little over three weeks!) that I will hardly have time to be nervous.

there's hope
For all of us. I mean - if they can manipulate that much on an already goodlooking body, they ought to be able to take a few years and kilos off us with no such hich model expectations?

(this link has been making the tour of the blogs. I just put it in because it is so good to have suspicions confirmed...)

interruption
Everything in my life just got interrupted. The acceptance is formal now, and the date is set. September 12th. This means that I have been notified several weeks, almost a month TOO LATE. The thesis, according to the rules, should have been available to the public a week ago. I don't have a chance to keep their deadlines. Yep, surprise party is is...