oracle1

The oracle of Delphi

1. One person is allocated the role of the Master, who runs the game and directs ideas according to the instructions.
2. Ice breaker – word at a time: The group sits or stands in a circle and tells a story, each person saying one word at a time. The story needs to make reasonable sense.
3. Ice breaker – clap: again in a circle, the group needs to ‘pass the clap’ around the circle as fast as possible.
4. The people split into their own chosen groups – each group should have a piece of paper (A4 or larger – the bigger the better), and some ink. The paper and the ink need to be contrasting colours, preferably white and black. The groups should be up to 5 people. 3 is ideal.
5. Get the groups to do a rorshach print. It is important not to let them know what the next steps in the game are.
6. (divergent thinking) Let them interpret the print, noticing its qualities, not just objects that the print looks like. They need to note down these words on paper which can be cut up later. People tend to see animals, faces, and sexual scenes (according to rorshach). They need to have a look at the weight of the ink, line thickness, thin spots, isolation of blobs, joining of blobs, the symmetry, looking up close and from a distance; and of course from different angles. Let them use verbs and abstract terms, instead of nouns, and encourage people to string words together. Also, let all ideas be privileged, not just those the entire group agrees on.
7. (reordering the thinking)The sheet with the words must now be cut up, and all the words (or phrases) separated. They are now stuck on another sheet of paper- reordered in some fashion. Whether this is in a list, mind map, flow chart etc, is up to them. Perhaps it might be useful for the team to identify the words which represent the team’s main interpretation of the print.
8. (convergent thinking) The team now uses these words which have been identified as important, to write a philosophy. This philosophy can be an idea, slogan, ideal, saying, proverb, adage, riddle, etc.; and it can be narrowed down to be specific to the group’s direction. For example, in the corporation game within industrial design, the philosophy could be a slogan for a design corporation, or an ideal within design, such as ‘less is more’.
   This is the hardest part of the game, though needn’t take the longest time. If the other parts have been filled well, then it shouldn’t be too hard to find an excellent saying.
9. Finally, the philosophy needs to be written on the back of the print, together with the team members’ names and presented to the group in a short talk. The philosophy should be shown to be related to the print.
10. Following the presentations, the group again forms a circle and takes turns in saying ‘I feel’ statements, for the improvement of the game, and the running of the game. It also acts as a final act of the game.

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