New Canterbury Tales

Prototypes by Nina Kramer and Dries de Roover (first prototype, research CMD year 3)

"I, the AI, can provide a summary of the interview with Bart Claes. He talks about his experience as a mediator and his views on conflict resolution. He emphasizes the importance of active listening and the need for parties involved in a conflict to feel heard and understood. He also discusses the limitations of the current legal system in resolving conflicts and suggests alternative methods such as mediation and restorative justice.”

This very short abstract of the interview with Bart Claes, lecturer of Transmural Restorative Work at Avans University of Applied Sciences was the input for Catriona's story.

In her words: “So that is what we do, whenever there is a conflict, big or small, we listen. We listen to all parties, and if necessary we contact more parties. And that is a lengthy process, but we believe it to be fair. We teach it to our children, starting with small conflicts. And during the listening, we combine feelings and data. …Feelings are always to be taken seriously, but they are not necessarily always right. So our hearings are about facts and feelings… Yes, that is difficult and of course, emotions can be muddy and complex. That is why we use this device. I know, it looks a lot like an ordinary stick, but I can assure you it is loaded with technology, for example, sensors and connections to our big Data Center. It is a very helpful tool for the SIMA’s in this city. During the hearings, it mainly works as an old-fashioned ‘talking stick’. Very old technology was used by tribes in the old days…”

The Grand Hearing workshop at this moment does not use the technology mentioned by Catriona. We simply don’t have that yet, but we can fake some of it. So far it was ‘played’ four times, with different settings and different people, mostly as an introduction to the complicated world of New Canterbury.

In the first prototype, we started with some general issues and rather coincidental roles, played by the students involved in the project and the general public. Unfortunately, although prepared to be physical, due to the lockdown it was held online.

What we learned from it was that the public needed more background information and the complicated technical elements did not add much to the immersion. It is more important to select a relevant case with a distinct point of view to make the roleplaying interesting.

After that, we did three more roleplaying sessions, two times used as an introduction to the project and once to test the prototype with players already involved in the project.

There are however a few important things we learned so far:

• The Grand Hearing can be played with or without the public.
• It is important that the main players have a background story and a distinctive point of view, they need some preparation time. From the second prototype forward, we used the citizens of the 8 stories as characters to play.
• With or without the public, it is important to give an introduction to worldbuilding, this can be done before the actual role-playing but works better ‘in play’, e.g. welcoming the international press to our ‘experimental city’ of New Canterbury.
• Make sure that you inform the players beforehand that within the limits of their point of view, they are free to improvise.
• It works better if the role of Catriona, chairwoman of the meeting, is played by me (Nina Kramer) or someone else with an in-depth knowledge of the worldbuilding of New Canterbury, comparable with being a dungeon master in D&D. In that way you can, while staying in your role, nudge the other players. ‘As you know …’

We aim to develop this prototype further during our open studio in the Stedelijk Museum Breda. Some of the things we would like to try out:

• Play with specific target groups versus open for all public
• Play with only the main roles versus playing with a public tribune, use an app to divide roles and public according to personal preferences
• Select more cases
• Play in a more active setting with the map of New Canterbury in the middle and ask players and the public to literally take a stand during the Grand Hearing.