The Nordic LARP convention Knutepunkt was organized for the fifth time in February 2001. The event originated in Norway, has been held in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and now returned to its home in Oslo. All the conventions have been held in English to break language barriers.

Unlike the Intercons in the US, Knutepunkts have been a whole lot more about talking and a whole lot less about doing. Sometimes a few LARPs get run, but mostly it's about panels, discussions, workshops and so on. This was no exception, although the much talked-about five-day Dogme LARP, Europa, was held just prior to the con.

This year the event didn't get all the publicity it deserved, and thus only a few dozen non-Scandinavians arrived. Most of the participants were Norwegians and Swedes, but the university-building-turned-convention-center also had visitors from Finland, Denmark, France and Russia. Next year, in Sweden, we also expect visitors from Iceland, Belgium, Italy, and hopefully USA....

Social Aspects

Knutepunkts, or "Knodal Points" in English, have always been a very social gathering: You meet other larpers, you discuss different larping styles, you speak theory and practice -- and all this in a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere. This atmosphere, for many people, is created with the help of alcohol.

There's usually quite a bit of boozing in the cons, but mostly it's at the parties in the evenings and the nights. It's considered the height of bad manners to be drunk at a daytime discussion, although most people tend to drink a few (hard) ciders or beers during the day, as well.

Media

Many theoreticians from different countries had prepared for this year's con with interesting discussions at the laiv.org discussion forum [mostly non-english language posts - ed]. The con organizers had also printed a book with lots of articles about LARP in different countries, semi-scientific essays, manifestos and so on.

Undoubtedly the most important publishing event was issue five of panclou - the penultimate larp 'zine. This issue's subject was pride and it had persuaded some of the most notable people in the Nordic LARP scene to write new manifestos, Aristotelian analyses, rants and other thought-provoking stuff. One Elge Jonsson called the 'zine "painfully intellectual," and ended up quoting the interimmersion chart (published in the LARPer and elsewhere) during his lecture.

An example of extremely good service was KP-online -- an online news site that kept getting new articles and discussions. It could be viewed from people's homes through an Internet connection, or with one of the many computer terminals found all around the con area.

The Manifesto race that begun with Dogma 99 and the Turku Manifest seemed to culminate with this con. The Knutepunkt book and panclou published new manifestos, and Saturday evening witnessed the beginning of the Night of the Manifestos. During the evening feast a mysterious quartet wrote the Napkin Manifesto (written on a napkin, hence the name) being the Vow of Chastity for Knutepunkt organizers. It was soon published in KP-online, and was followed by many more. (Do you have a manifesto of your own yet?)

To the Business

The only LARP during the event was a mini game written during the night between Europa and Knutepunkt. And the writers were mostly drunk, I hear. It was a very surreal thing containing groups like moviemakers, rabbis and mime artists. The game was played outside, and apart from the freezing Norwegian weather it was a pretty cool experiment.

The opening ceremonies of Knutepunkt were great fun. The biggest spectacle was a performance where Eirik "Dogme 99" Fatland was hanged, yours truly was ritually sacrificed and the organizer of the first Knutepunkt, Erlend Hansen was ... well, he was set to what's called a "shame pillar" in here, but I can't find the proper English word. But it's a medieval torturing device where the torturee's hand and head are locked to a wooden board. Thus the ceremony masters wanted to clean room for their own manifesto: A book full of empty pages.

The biggest show was the Ricky Lake Show parody, devised by Joc Koljonen, now running for the third time. This year the subject was "I've been faking it all these years." It included a girl who thought she'd had a really enlightening experience when she had drunk piss during a LARP -- but turns out the guy who gave her the mug had accidentally just given her bad tea. Also a hardcore Turku School immersionist was accused of being briefly out-of-character during an in-game sex session. Luckily they had a lie detector around...

Yadda Yadda...

Before KP there'd been a rather lengthy and jawbreaker loaded conversation in the online forum. Saturday night there was a live meet where those people bought each other beers and tried to discuss the true nature of LARP. Names like Plato, Stanislavsky and Jung flew in the air, but most often we heard comments like "That's old business," "That would just lead us to define art again," and that old, reliable standby, "Bullshit."

An interesting program item was a LARP workshop where the art of writing pieces of interactive art was discussed, and then put to practice. The biggest advantage of this was probably the co-operation over national borders aspect.

One such example may be the upcoming Fatland-Pohjola production called "inside : outside." The game is currently at its developmental stage, but according to the tagline, it's "Kafka meets Clockwork Orange as written by Jean-Paul Sartre." It will probably be run at Knutepunkt 2002 in Sweden.

For yes, the tradition will continue. Actually, it will be Knutpunkt (without the E!), as the name is always in the native language. The last Swedish Knutpunkt was held in Stockholm; the next one is either there or Gothenburg. Keep your eyes peeled for more information, and be sure not to miss it.