INFINITE SEATS OF POWER

2021 - Museet for Samtidskunst, Roskilde, Denmark

“...How can a great civilization have destroyed itself so completely?”
“Perhaps,” said Apollo, “by being materially great and materially wise and nothing else.”

- Walter M. Miller, A Canticle for Liebowitz

All photos by David Sternholm or Lena Bergendahl

Infinite Seats of Power was a participatory installation created by Francis Patrick Brady and Mark Durkan from the artist network Union Group. The installation investigates contemporary Larp and Art practices through the frame of a fictional future looking backwards in time at our current present. We are faced with the relics and fragments of dormant participation, unrealised roleplay and untold worlds out of the regulations of a pandemic present.

Created and organised by Francis Patrick Brady and Mark Durkan from the artist network Union Group, the Infinite Seats of Power installation, ancillary events, and Publication was made possible by contributions from artists Nina Runa Essendrop, Sarah Jury, Una Hamilton Helle, Áron Birtalan and the Live Action Roleplay organisations Rollespilsfabrikken, Wonderland Studios and Roskilde Rollespillaug.

Infinite Seats of Power was an installation that posits our present circumstance as a misunderstood past in a post-pandemic fictional future. The installation investigates contemporary Larp and Art practices through the frame of an imagined future looking backwards in time at our present. We are faced with the relics and fragments of dormant participation, unrealised roleplay and untold worlds. Lamenting a lost era of intimacy and collecting fragments from a lost social age, the installation draws on untapped collective wisdom to tackle the insistence of narrative and the power politics of participation. Encompassing a variety of engagement protocols, Infinite Seats of Power is an invitation to imagine different social survival strategies whilst simultaneously roleplaying within the restrictions of our time. Offering you an alternate perspective and another seat at the table.

INFINITE SEATS OF POWER

“...How can a great civilization have destroyed itself so completely?” “Perhaps,” said Apollo, “by being materially great and materially wise and nothing else.” - Walter M. Miller, A Canticle for Liebowitz

All photos by David Sternholm or Lena Bergendahl

Una Hamilton Helle - All Flesh is Grass - Artwork in one of the rooms as part of Infinite Seats of Power

“...How can a great civilization have destroyed itself so completely?”
“Perhaps,” said Apollo, “by being materially great and materially wise and nothing else.”

- Walter M. Miller, A Canticle for Liebowitz