Three games by Nano and Johannes Bergmark

Participation to The Second LONDON INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF SURREALISM, Monday 16th - Sunday 29th July 2007, initiated by the Surrealist London Action Group (SLAG).

1. The Travel Agency

A spoken game between two persons. One person describes a place where he wishes to go. In the description he has to include two elements from the real surroundings. The description is not prepared in any way but made up on the spot immediately after the decision to play it. In this way it can be played at any time and place. The other player immediately responds with a description of what the agency has to offer, in detail, including two elements from the surroundings. She always has a trip to propose that fits the customer's demands! Meanwhile they can also discuss, ask and talk to each other to reinforce the process.

Example (written down from memory an hour later):

Customer: I'd like to go to a place with a lot of stones and salt [the elements], with music boxes and with a wide view.

Travel Agent: Can it be a very wet place?

C: Yes!

TA: OK. but this is a very dangerous place. We have a trip to a place with mountains that stick out of the water and a large crack in one of them. There are local legends of how this crack appeared but we don't know for sure. Most of them from the 19th century about a shipwreck deep down the track that's supposed to contain a big treasure. Many ships afterwards have come to look for the treasure but they all have gone down. The mountain kills all the people that come there. It drowns them but their hands have to go on sticking up through the water as a punishment. Some carry salt to cleanse themselves from their greed, some carry stones to make it heavier for them. Some have music boxes, all playing the same melody for ever.

C: This is to annoy them?

TA: Yes. We have trips that go there with very strong ships guarded by armies, for example the US army. The ship can take you close enough to take pictures.

C: Isn't it dangerous?

TA: Yes, but we have special metal machines that the visitors will put their hands in to protect them during the visit.

C: For all the time?

TA: Yes. But you also get nice manicure and hand massage included in the price. Does it sound ok for you?

C: Yes, I'll take it!

2. The Rimini Game.

On a trip one person decides a word or verbal image corresponding to every significant place where the trip makes a stop for a visit. After the trip the list of words is given to another player who portrays them in one picture (painting, collage etc). The list of words are also used in a poem written by the same person that made the original list.

Example:

1. Ústí nad Labem: glass (the material)
2. Hlubok nad Vltavou: chalk
3. Near Pazin: stop at garage workshop: relief-printed paper
4. Pula: newspaper
5. Fazana: colourful pumpkin
6. Vodnjan: trumpet
7. Baska: tap
8. Krk: steps (stairs)
9. Malinska: short summer dress

(No. 3 & 4 were later decided to be taken away to limit the task a little bit.)

Poem:

glass midgets brush chalk on each other's backs
their ears become relief-printed paper and their clothes are newspapers glued onto their bodies
they balance on colourful pumpkins and try to play the trumpet at the same time
as they are flushed out through the tap under the steps looking up under the short summer dresses of passers-by

Collage:

3. Theatre of Alien Trash.

Two or more players that have different language backgrounds. We did like this:

We both very quickly wrote short plays on one page each, with four characters in each play.

A (who has polish as native language) wrote in swedish, J (who has swedish as native language) wrote in polish (dictionary was allowed). We gave our plays to each other but didn't read yet.

We then chose two different spots in Stockholm, one for each person, by random and spent there one hour. When we arrived, we read the play we got and then walked around to find objects to play the characters in the play.

At home, we performed the plays for each other, with a home-made curtain.

To the contents.

This page was updated on September 10th, 2008.