Kromosomer - an experience in shared creative work and expression

Abstract

This article is a reflection on the Kromosomer project, a storytelling performance held in both physical and virtual worlds, which was implemented and disseminated through digital, virtual and social media. The aim of the whole project was to search for an expression that could combine physical experience with virtual world. The project was also looking at how to deal with social inclusion.

The motto for this enterprise was the traditional Norwegian legend characters who represent “the other,” the “not-normal,” as a pretext to address the question of alterity. These legends’ characters were re-created as avatars in the metaverse, where they were also freely distributed in virtual installations as unfinished artifacts, open to mutation. In the Second Life virtual world, participants could pick up avatars and create their own stories through snapshots, machinima, etc. The physical performance later used these participants/produsers’ interpretations and narratives of the avatars in stage design and in the storytelling performance itself.

We describe and analyse the main work method used for this project — a shared creative process of collective and distributed creativity. The project encompasses different forms of expression therefore we will also focus on how metaphors constitute themselves as paramount to our way of working