Tom K Kemp

Tom K Kemp (United Kingdom/Netherlands) uses roleplaying game design, improvised filmmaking and animation to construct semi-autonomous fictions where knowledge sharing and collaborative storytelling are combined into a deviated method of complexity modelling. At Rupert, he will be continuing the development of a prototype tabletop RPG, “After the Maestro”, where players take on the role of cellular workers living in an anthropomorphised depiction of human anatomy. The game’s narrative takes place during the aftermath of a successful labour emancipation within the inner body, and participants must devise new structures of anatomical organisation and interdependence in the sudden absence of established biological hierarchies. Played with a series of different participants from the fields of somatics, biology and decentralised computing, each session of the game generates a distinct narrative with its own “body-politic” metaphor, worldbuilding and political challenges.

Image credits: Tom K Kemp, Styleframe for After the Maestro, 2020