Vanitas is a 3-day, 20-player, slice-of-life larp about artistic creation, connection, and the societal barriers—such as competition, commodification, and late-stage capitalism—that hinder us from both.
The story is set at the start of an annual artist’s retreat deep in the Georgia wilderness, which only the highest-achieving students at GCAD are invited to attend. The retreat was established to offer students the time, space, and resources to devote themselves to the creation of a great work of art. However, the retreat’s original mission has warped over the years under the limited supervision and tyrannical guidance of the faculty, eventually morphing into a high-stakes competition to evaluate a student’s long-term artistic viability and potential.
Upon arrival, students are provided with a prompt for the project they must create. How each student answers the prompt will determine not only how well they do at the Georgia College of Art & Design, but in the art world at large: being awarded a coveted industry referrals—or even simply impressing their impossible-to-please professors—can guarantee a young artist success in their career post-graduation.
Meanwhile, failing to fulfill the prompt or meet the soul-crushing expectations of the faculty can have the opposite effect, resulting in the worst fate imaginable to any aspiring artist: a first-class ticket to a pencil-pushing desk job. Or, more likely, Baristaville.
This year, the students will discover an unexpected twist in the requirements: in order to qualify for the competition, each student must submit a work of art outside of their trained art form. While a project may utilize skills or elements of the individual’s preferred art form, it must consist largely of the elements and instruments of an art form they have never previously explored. The art forms of their peers and competitors, of course.
This larp is diegetic, meaning minimal meta techniques will be used and what you see is what you get. We aim to be as fully immersive as possible by limiting off-game breaks and utilizing opt-out mechanics to communicate boundaries and comfort levels while remaining in character. The game will run continuously over two days with no designated off-game time, and players will be expected to eat, sleep, and embody their characters for the full duration.
Disclaimer: the use of AI for any manner or aspect of artistic creation is strictly banned at this larp. Violations of this policy will result in a ban from all future Secret Garden Studios events and larps.
Is This Larp for Me?
This larp is for you if you like the idea of:
- spending two full days fully immersed in a character.
- experimenting with a new art form, as well as with the physical bounds of visual art itself.
- facing the moral quandaries of a young artist agonizing over how to profit from their art without relinquishing their soul to the “system.”
- experiencing the benefits or disadvantages of your character’s level of Privilege, and the impact privilege can have upon one’s ability to create art.
- navigating the complicated feelings of competition, self-comparison, and rivalry that society breeds between artists.
- contending with the financial privilege required to be a full-time artist.
- seeking connection, collaboration, and intimacy with your fellow artists.
- questioning the cost of creation in a world that seeks to commodify creativity.
- losing your entire fucking mind in the woods attempting to capture the ephemera that is art and beauty.
This larp is not for you if you:
- don’t like art or the idea of making art.
- are not comfortable with the prospect of experimenting with art and possibly creating things that are bad. Failure is an inevitable—possibly unavoidable—aspect of this larp (as well as art and life in general).
- don’t enjoy long, slow freeform games largely guided by character exploration, fraught interpersonal dynamics, and a single shared yet deeply personal mission.
- need a lot of action or plot in your games.
- secretly hate me.
- require calibration before each scene and/or action in order to feel comfortable engaging in intimacy with your co-players.
- need to win.
- While the retreat competition will certainly have winners and losers, no positive outcome is guaranteed to any participant.
- Outcome preferences will be gathered and taken into account, but a positive result cannot be promised as it will hinge largely on your in-game performance in the competition. If you want to “win,” you will have to meet the expectations set by the professors, same as you would in-character.
- Negative outcomes, on the other hand, are easy to ensure.