From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
The Healing Spiral (Participatory LARP)
This article is about a participatory LARP experience. See Immersive works and Beach Surgery for related installations.
The Healing Spiral is a 36-hour immersive LARP experience structured as a fictional "convocation of the wounded" where participants embody broken or injured people arriving at a communal healing space.
The LARP is built on two core mechanics: the **First Loop** (12 hours, day 1) in which participants collaborate to construct a shared environment (the makeshift surgery, a rocket cart, leather armour, and a central meditation chamber), tenderly treating each other's symbolic injuries. The **Second Loop** (24 hours, night + day 2) begins identically—participants wake to find themselves back at the start, with the same injuries, and full memory of the previous day. They must choose whether to rebuild the space again, to deviate from the previous loop's actions, or to refuse participation entirely.
Character assignments
Upon arrival, each participant is assigned a specific limitation:
- **The Three Threshold Injuries**: Three players bear the three injuries symbolically—one is blindfolded throughout, one wears weighted leg-braces, one wears a "cardiac device" (a small pulsing object they must monitor and hand-off to a "technician" every 30 minutes)
- **The Healers & Engineers**: ~10 players are cast as collaborators—they can see and walk freely, and they spend the loops building, caring, and facilitating
- **The Witness**: One participant is assigned to observe and document everything without participating in construction; on day 2, they become a "messenger" from outside the loop
Narrative arc
**Day 1 (First Loop)**: The group builds a ritual space. There is gentle, understated conflict—not combat, but disagreement about method, meaning, purpose. The injured players are cared for; there are moments of humor and tenderness. A communal meal. By nightfall, they've constructed something.
A Witness (approaching the blindfolded player): Can you see anything now?— Can you hear them building?
The Blindfolded: I can hear. That's enough. But I don't know if they're building toward something or just building to keep their hands busy.
**Night & Morning**: Participants sleep. They wake to find the constructed space has been deliberately "reset" by facilitators overnight (objects moved, stones re-stacked, the meditation chamber's door turned around). The blind player's bandages are fresh. The cardiac device is running again.
**Day 2 (Second Loop)**: Chaos. Some players immediately try to rebuild identically, as if repetition will "fix" the loop. Others refuse and attempt to deviate radically (leaving the space entirely, destroying what was built, demanding to "speak to the organizers"). Facilitators—present but largely silent—only intervene to prevent physical harm. By midway through day 2, the group is fractured: some are performing the ritual a second time with grim determination, some are sitting outside the space refusing to participate, some are trying to integrate the "Witness" player's knowledge into a new plan.
The LARP has no predetermined ending. Depending on the group's choices, it concludes with: - A successful second ritual (sense of acceptance or resignation) - A collective decision to "refuse the cycle" and leave the space (sense of liberation, but also confusion about what happens next) - A meta-moment where facilitators reveal themselves as part of a system (sense of violation, or dark understanding)
The final moment, regardless: all participants (willing or not) are walked a full circle around the space, returning to where they began.
Reception and variations
The experience has been documented in ██████ symposia as exemplifying "participatory refusal"—the idea that a LARP's value lies not in narrative coherence but in collective decision-making under duress. Some participants have reported lasting impacts—one documented case of a player who attended two separate runs and, on the second run, refused to participate on day 1, directly preempting the loop from occurring (though facilitators simply allowed the group to split into "looping" and "refusing" factions).
See Participatory art and Beach Surgery for broader context.