2010 - 2016 · Played at Berlin Biennale, AND Festival Liverpool, San Jose Zero1 Biennial, Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
Live action role playing (LARP) that investigated the ideological legacy of controversial large group self-actualization seminars from the 1970s in America.
A live role-playing game that investigates the ideological legacy of controversial large group self-actualization semi- nars from 1970s America. Taking place over a weekend, Level Five invites participants, led by a trained seminar leader and assistants, to arrive in character and immerse themselves in an intensive program organized by the artist comprising of lectures, physical processes and rites of sharing.
The original seminars were large, emotionally intense sessions that attracted thousands of participants, who hoped to unlearn societal constraints and achieve personal transformation. Instead of achieving social progress through group and social (de)organization – as filmmaker Adam Curtis has written – the unwitting result was the belief that happiness could be achieved without others, that “society was irrelevant.”
Only players were allowed in the seminar space, while the 3 channel video was mixed live and analog streamed for the public to the nearby theater during scheduled hours of the event.
