Felix Rose Kawitzky

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PORTAL: THE DISAPPEARANCE OF FRANCIS LAIN

On the 1st of September 2016, the day of the Solar Eclipse, paranormal research enthusiast Francis Lain mysteriously vanished.

Their comrades from the anarchist, portal-hunting collective, The Warp Demons, have mobilised to try and locate their missing friend.

The Warp Demons suspect that Francis may have found the portal they’ve all been searching for.

Perhaps in finding their friend, they’ll end up stumbling into another dimension…

Meet Flamo, Zethu, Radar Jones, Farron, Cosmos the Traveller, Titus the dog, Shredder Orpheus and Josh Stan as they search for an interdimensional gateway, and begin to discover what lies beyond.

[Portal: The Disappearance of Francis Lain is a fictional documentary co-written and directed by Felix Rose Kawitzky and Marianne Thesen Law] WATCH THE FULL MOVIE AT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfqC3z92TVk&feature=youtu.be

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WITNESS

This work consists of the memories and experiences of two people (Constance Neeser and Matthew King), who have, since early 2012, acted as witnesses to all of my process-based art works. Witness is a project that uses raw perspective and memory to relay the more involved or ephemeral aspects of live, participatory or durational art works, many of which are resistant to conventional modes of documentation.

Connie and Matthew are available to share their particular experiences when called upon to do so. The viewer is free to ask the witnesses any questions they like.

‘If you’re unsure what to ask us, or how to approach these works, think of how you would attempt to interact with a work when all that you have is a friend’s description of it. Can someone’s description of something interest you, repel you, excite you? What would you need to ask to find out how you would have reacted to the work itself?’

Excerpt from Constance Neeser’s Witness Statement

‘Don’t rush through the work. Take the time to read the material – there is a lot of it. Feel free to ask either Constance or myself, or the both of us together, any questions about the work that may occur to you. You can also ask us to talk about our experience of the various works, and we will do so. We are as much a documentation of [Felix]’s various projects as any text or photograph.’

Excerpt from Matthew King’s Witness Statement

For any experiences, opinions or memories you are interested in, or any other Witness-specific questions you would like to ask, Connie and Matthew can be contacted at: [[email protected]]

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GHOSTWRITTEN

This is a novella based on a set of events and experiences I recorded over the course of one year (2012). These experiences have been relayed to Liam Kruger, the author, who has used them as material for a tenuously related work of fiction.

“I have some vague performance anxiety about this,” says the narrator. “I mean, it’s big. And it’s art. And it’s your life.” [Felix] leans forward, maybe to put the narrator at ease, or maybe to toy more effectively with the hair on the back of [their] nape. “Yeah, it is – sort of big. But there will be material to work from, and I mean a lot of this is to do with giving up agency. It would be good if I liked what you write, but it’s not super crucial.”

Excerpt from Ghost Written by Liam Kruger

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THREE SPHERES, TWO CITIES, ONE CRANIUM

(in collaboration with Constance Neeser)

The night is bright, all the astronomical spheres have crested the horizon, bright enough to dim the stars. The air is harsh, acidic — better to stay indoors until it passes. Thankfully, the Pub Between is just here. Its reputation is as good as any place so far from civilised living can be, although you've heard that lately the band of mystics known as the Mudtongue Cult have been frequenting the place. But then, isn't that why you yourself are here?

Three Spheres, Two Cities, One Cranium is a New Weird LARP for 13 people, set amongst the remnants of past civilisations. Society has been changing: the School of Mediums has merged with the Church, the Autarch’s barrenness threatens the dissolution of the Royal Line, and powerful corporations seek to shape and modernise the social, sexual, domestic and economic lives of their citizenries.

However, even as Halfaxan life becomes more regulated and rationalised, the Sanatoriums are getting crowded, and the Old Ways — with their fantastical, macabre practices — are creeping up again, igniting superstitions and fears long thought past.

Three Spheres is influenced by the works of Ursula K. Le Guin, China Miéville, Lisa Tuttle, Mervyn Peake, NK Jemisin, Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood, and the music of Grimes.

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THE HARROWING

With Chesney Hawkes’ 1991 hit I am the One and Only blaring in the background, I design a character after my own likeness in the fantasy computer game Dragon Age: Origins. Using this avatar, I must complete the final test required to become a fully fledged Mage: The Harrowing

“Your magic is a gift, but it’s also a curse, for demons of the Fade are drawn to you, and seek to use you, as a gateway to this world. This is why the Harrowing exists. The ritual sends you into the Fade, and there you will face a demon, armed with only your will.”

“If you fail, apprentice,” Greagoir warned, “the demon will turn you into an abomination, and the templars will be forced to slay you.”

(EA Games: Dragon Age: Origins, Mage Origin)

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CLOAKS

Cloaks is a Live Action Role Play and storytelling game in which players are assigned characters and asked to interact with a series of magical/mystical/metaphysical challenges as they attempt to escape the underworld. Each game group of three players has a Game Master who guides and facilitates their journey.

Audience members don hooded black cloaks and move amongst the players as the game progresses, witnessing their various stories take shape.

Cloaks was narrated by Ameera Conrad, pictured in purple above.

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JOURNEY FROM THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH

After dying in a tragic accident, characters and one-time-acquaintances ‘Mentalist’, ‘Ventriloquist’ and ‘Spiritualist’ find themselves to be stranded on a small island in the middle of a lake made of ectoplasm.

Will they solve the challenges that await, reclaim their corporeal bodies and escape the dark recesses of the underworld? Who can say!

It’s up to three players to take on these characters and attempt to role-play their way through the afterlife.

Journey From the Centre of the Earth is a game of storytelling and translation.

In a hidden room, three players are participating in a story-generating roleplay game. In a separate venue, a performer listens to the players’ story unfold via a set of headphones, and simultaneously relates their journey to an audience. As they attempt to filter participants’ chaotic play into a cohesive narrative thread, a sound designer and video mixer spontaneously respond to the imagery described.

Performed by Matthew King, with video by Francois Knoetze and sound by Angelo Valerio

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ESCAPE FROM FOOK ISLAND

Welcome to Fook Island, South Africa’s most popular tourist destination (1979-82)! After two decades of cultural isolation, we Fookians have re-opened our borders and tollgates to visitors of all kinds! Come and visit our famed Hatching Fields, peruse our Mammalian Cultural Heritage Centre, or spend a leisurely afternoon indulging in a deluxe albumen facial!

This is a 2 person roleplay module set in 1970s South African artist Walter Battiss’s fictional Fook Island. This imagined, absurdist space (on which he collaborated with many of his peers), acted as a form of creative escapism for a group of artists working during Apartheid (most of whom were white liberals).

In this module, two characters from the present day are sucked into a world of fantastic creatures and surreal landscapes. Using collaborative storytelling, participants are guided through a series of scenarios where they meet and interact with Fookian citizens, exploring both the glistening façade of the island and its questionable back alleys.

As they travel, they begin to realise that not all is well in Fook, and that the longer they spend there, the more ephemeral they become.

Players must try to find a way to pay the toll or leave the island before they vanish altogether…  

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OUROBOROS

A roleplaying game set in the back of a dingy imaginary restaurant. Pairs of players engage in emotionally charged, intimate interactions, taking on characters based on loosely written associative texts/character sheets.

Although all participants unknowingly receive the same ‘character sheet’, each person differentiates their character according to individual wonts and concerns. Having been given a vague context and plotline, the players begin to unwind a story primarily of their own making.

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INBOX (1)

A choose-your-own-adventure game in which the participant plays the role of an artist attempting to conceptualise a proposal for a fictional exhibition. Participants may help the artist focus on their proposal, or intentionally steer them towards distracting activities. Depending on which paths are chosen, and how the artist presents their ideas, the curators respond in various ways; rejecting them from the show, asking them for a revised proposal, or accepting their submission.

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RAPPORT

Rapport is a card game which identifies a number of the tools and tactics used in social interaction, and synthesises them into a uniformly playable structure. Players use the cards to strategically carry out a guided conversation with their counterparts.

‘The purpose of the game is to replicate as closely as possible the rhythm and structure of an unmediated conversation in a way that makes the conversational devices and strategies in use clear to all parties. This is not a competitive game. Cards are meant to be used interpretively. There is no rigid ending, no winners or losers. Players may lose interest and use their cards to slowly extricate themselves from the conversation. The game may come to a natural end in any number of ways.’

Excerpt from Rapport ruleset

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WRITERS’ WORKSHOP: PEER REVUE

A retreat that took place over three days and two nights at an ex-guest house in Piketberg, South Africa, 2012.

It was attended by eight writers, who spent the time completing a series of specially designed exercises and engaging in guided discussions around literary theory.

‘He let go of her hand and reached for a toffee in the crinkly packet. The looping whine of the lawnmower, usually so bucolic, was an off-note in a nature reserve this far up the mountain.’

Excerpt from Brett Petzer’s response to the Character Creation exercise

‘Annika was in her element: “Some of them are this shrivelled pink colour.” The human, clutching strangely onto the edge of the tombolo, was indeed a rather bluish shade of pink.’

Excerpt from Joanna Legutko’s response to the Genre and Atmosphere exercise

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THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST: 

A trivial LARP for serious people

An interactive restaging (or Live Action Role Play) of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest

For 7 players

‘The Manor House at Woolton, 1895

[The drawing room is tastefully furnished, if old-fashioned. It is near dusk. People have begun to arrive]’

Excerpt from A Trivial LARP character sheet

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THIS IS HOW IT STARTS

This is a theatrical monologue written by Genna Gardini, directed by Joanna Evans, and performed by Felix Kawitzky.

‘That’s the structure of how you write a play. It is! How I know it, is that when we did our workshops on dramaturgy Mark Fleishman wrote GENRE TITLE SETTING CHARACTERS DIALOGUE on the board and then he said “This is the structure of how you write a play”, so.’

Excerpt from This is How it Starts by Genna Gardini

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DUNGEONS&DISCOURSE

A LARP (or performance game) designed to facilitate a series of imaginative exchanges between self-identified roleplay gamers and theatre practitioners.

The structure of the game provides a generative space in which participants play against type – role-players assume a character influenced by the world of theatre, and vice versa. Having taken on these unfamiliar roles, participants are then paired up and asked to collaborate, in character and under the auspices of a fictional interdisciplinary workshop (also called Dungeons and Discourse), to create a fictitious performance work together.

‘It’s the afternoon of the workshop. You don’t know each other very well, and haven’t met in person since the Judith Butler talk in 2011. All you could think to bring was a small velvet bag full of 20 sided dice…’

(the title of this work is borrowed from this webcomic)

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SHRINKING VIOLET

An achronological murder mystery roleplaying game for 7 players, critiquing the treatment of women’s bodies in procedural forensic dramas, Noir and thriller fiction.

‘The woman has no known relatives, and no official identification. The press are calling her Cape Town’s own Black Dahlia. A media frenzy bemoaning the horrific murder and demanding that justice be done barely conceals a delight in the scandal and intrigue.

Meanwhile, her body lies in the autopsy chamber while specialists puzzle over it. Preliminary notes have been made detailing her condition, but no in-depth analysis has yet been performed.’

Excerpt from Shrinking Violet character sheets