Creating worlds by singing

Use

We kindly advise to play this game in the continuity of the Axial method for creating worlds (p. ), which will have been completed by the Question Jar (p. ) in order to specify the worlds. This exercise allows you to slide into a new stage of world building, by starting to make characters appear within each world. It also allows you to give a color to each world you have scripted, to deliver a first "vision" staged in a rather lively and spontaneous way.

Protocol

Each group will have to create a spontaneous music band linked to each world, which will be in charge of creating a kind of live anthem to transmit to each other group a certain image of the world in which they have been transported.

Step 1. Record the imagined worlds

Materials: sheets and paper. While creating the worlds (see Axis Method), one person (the leader or someone nominated by the group) takes notes that help summarize the different aspects of the world created. To help make the song, short notes, pieces of sentences, or even words will be taken instead.

For example

The world smells garlic all around
The monetary system is based on the exchange of nuts
People only wear pink clothes
Kids leave outside, adults inside
Graphic designers are also mushroom pickers
Etc.

Step 2. Prepare to report the worlds in song

Materials: notes taken during the creation of the worlds, instruments, possibly costumes. Explain to each group that they will now create a music group in the world they are in. Each group goes to a separate space. Each group member is randomly assigned a role: "beat maker," "looped phrase," "choreographer," "group introduction," etc. You can have fun creating more or less complex roles depending on the situation. This will help each person to take a place, which can then be exchanged with another person in the group. Everyone then chooses a costume, or exchanges clothes, and an instrument if they wish. Then the group collectively "writes" and "composes" a song in a hurry. What register, what atmosphere, is it a duet, a choir, etc? We will try to make sure that the writing of the piece will allow a succinct description of the world. We choose a name for the group. The eventual leader of the exercise ensures the sharing of roles and of the floor.

Step 3. The concert

Each group will be able to present its "singing report" to the other groups, in turn, by introducing "We are the XXX group of the XXX World". The degree of performativity involved depends on the group. One will rather want to avoid a priori an atmosphere too "company party" which could make the experience traumatic for those in search of quiet anonymity. But, if you are comfortable, you can wallow in the theatricality and enjoy yourself in spectacular terms because some people will be happy to take advantage of the opportunity to expose their musical talents and have a good time. The entertainment dimension of the exercise can be welcome in a context where one wants to gather and please. We notice that the creation of songs is done rather quickly.

Testimonies

This exercise was tested at the BudaKunstencentrum in Kortrijk in May 2022 during a futurology night with a group of about 40 people divided in subgroups of 10 people.

Here are the music bands that emerged from the worlds divided between welcoming/filtering and repairing/destroying axes:

In the World of "Welcoming and Destruction", a world where you can never build anything because everything is very shaky or half broken, where contempt for finished things has almost become the main value, a world where sabotage is permanent and where the cathartic rituals consist in the group "La Roue Voilée" presents a cover of Brigitte Fontaine and Areski 'C'est normal' where a part of the members of the group are in charge of shouting over the voices which sing to sabotage the melody, which by the way is sung in an approximate language with slang not very well mastered.

In the World of Hazelnut, everyone tinkers and everyone welcomes. You are always welcome at your neighbor's house. When you are hungry, you go to your neighbor's house, there is always someone to welcome you. Besides the trade is based on the welcoming. Everything is air bnb! There are no borders, everyone can travel because everything is welcoming. We learn very young to repair everything. We spend a lot of time repairing things, objects. Ceremonies are organized for everything, for each thing repaired, for each new object welcomed, for each new person who enters a new house, and of course all the animals and insects are welcome in the houses, they are celebrated at each arrival, we are used to living with rats, bedbugs, plants of all kinds. Instead of trying to get rid of the bedbugs, we eventually invite other animals to eat them. The arrival of any new bed bugs is celebrated with a big ceremony with the traveling band "The bed bug". The bed bug is a polyphonic choir that sings about the love of repair and travels from house to house. That said, everyone is part of a choir. These choirs are welcomed everywhere, touring and celebrating all that can be celebrated. We have developed a system of exchange based on the hazelnut but it has nothing to do with a local currency, it is simply an informal exchange, a communicative system. The problem is the "hyper or too-much welcoming people", who always want us to stay and eat at their place, to sleep, etc. Those people live together in a space These people live together in a space reserved for them, a little outside the rest of society because they are too stifling. The love relationships are very welcoming, there is no more couples entity because we sleep at each other's place, it is very open. At the work level, either we tinker or we welcome There are a lot of tools. Toolboxes everywhere. We repair, we repair. And we sing about repair.

In the world of 'Destruction and repairing' the main musical register is the metal made from broken objects, which we play in silence.

Mathilde M.

Credits

Invented, written and proposed by Mathilde M. in Riga during a test night of futurology in small committee.