I gave a talk titled Playful Smoothness: The Other Side of Science in the City at the CCi conference as I mentioned before. One of the questions came from Jason Potts, who’s been working on the economic side of things within a broad domain of Creative Industries at CCi - I find his research very interesting (see some of his writings here) though I usually try to stay away from writing about economy and politics (i’m sure they can be very exciting but right now there are many, many, and many other things that are more interesting and appealing to me to write about).
His question was whether we could have systematic approach to ‘play’ - in other words, could we provoke an occurrence of play in a systematic manner? I responded with the acknowledgement that it is actually impossible for us to grasp the notion of play with our existing conceptual framework so ’systematizing’ play or rather bringing play into play may not be a productive thing - it’s simply impossible. And our attempt at that process should be considered as a ‘game’ not play in its entirety. In that respect, my answer was no, it’s not play (it’s a part of it - conceptually subordinate to play). What I didn’t mention was Caillois’s notion of the ludus and paidia continuum; a game, as a form of play that involves operative rules (governing system) it’s a ludic form of play and yes, in that respect, we can in fact systematise the process of play. Furthermore, in order to nurture creativity, and particularly innovation, the interplay of ludic and paidic play is crucial. As I argued, the space where we play is in the seam of fantasy and reality: the folding of re/deterritorialization. And that’s exactly where the space for creativity can be found. On a pragmatic level - designing such a system or control mechanism - what’s accentuated here is the need for an idling space (as Yeun Bae Kim - at Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology - mentioned as the most crucial element to provoke ‘fun’ in HCI during my interview with him; and also seen in the case of play activities such as parkour, which can be perceived as a userled spatial reproduction).
Humans, by default - for ontological security as I argued in the paper - look for ways to create an idling space, a playground where creativity can flourish. Such a place is built, sustained, and destoryed then rebuilt with creativity itself. To better support this human aspect we must avoid a monopolic configuration, which is something hard to achieve today, so on a more practical level, we should avoid an oligopolic system when it comes to creative industries. In this respect, I support what can be called a micronodal system - a dynamic network economy of micronodes (such as SMEs and individuals). And I’ve been long excited by microeconomic developments and a firm believer in the notion of ‘patient capital’ (see Jacqueline Novogratz’s article here).
Network technologies speed things up. No doubt about that. However, making a transformation, not a trend or a quick wave, takes patience as it involves an en masse of individual conceptual and action inputs. The majority rule still prevails today for a collective change but the size of the majority gets bigger in a network society as people have means to continue debating and even hindering the transactional channels of the action node/s for the change. And of course, we see a greater potential in creating positive transformations for the world. Therefore we need access to more creative minds and share ideas to move forward together. I believe in Bataille’s notion of economy that on a macro-level we as humanity have an inherent ‘excess’ and therefore must share/obliterate it for a peaceful continuation of humanity.
So then what can we do to create not an impossible smooth utopia but a stimulating playground for us? Here I suggest a term playpolis to loosely refer to an ideal form of urban environment: a seductive, sustainable, and creative city of integrative techno-social networks. A systematic approach - politics most importantly in this context - should ensure that small nodes can actively be connected in the bigger network and that there is an idling space in the place of interaction (localised contexutalisation and entrepreneurality of informal economy for example) while very importantly, ensuring the environmental sustainability. We know that environment vs economy is a stupid comparison. Writing this on a beach of Lesvos, I can’t feel more strongly about this.
The activity of play, according to Huizinga, ‘proceeds with its own boundaries of time and space’ (ibid p.13). This creates what is commonly known as the magic circle, which, as with any combination of time and space, takes account of other such combinations, or realities, germane to the player’s current context. With the rapid advancement of media and communication technologies in contemporary society, such layering of realities transpires more quickly, evidently, and variously than ever before. Today, the notion of playground appears to resonate closely with mediaspace, ‘a dialectical concept encompassing both the kinds of spaces created by media and the effects that existing spatial arrangements have on media forms as they materialise in everyday life’ (Couldry & McCarthy, 2004, p.2). Therefore, any play activity needs to be perceived as a multifarious phenomenon, and thus requires considerations to techno-social contexts of the player and of the time and space in which the activity takes place. Here, new media technologies function as toys with and through which the inter-relations between micro- and macro-realities are constantly (re)constructed.
This paper presents a unique case of Seoul: one of the most connected, densely populated, and quickly transforming metropolises in the world. More specifically, the paper looks at the realisation of and desire for play of Seoul residents who are neither children nor adults, but are socially placed in between these two realms, and the role new media technologies play as a coordinator in this process: everyday play culture of trans-youths in Seoul and new media technologies as toys.
This paper investigates intersections of play, technology, and ontological security within the contemporary East Asian city, based on reflections and observations of play from my fieldwork in 2007– 8 with ‘trans-youth’ in Seoul. Trans-youth are those who are neither children nor adults; In the Korean context, they are those between the ages of 18 and 24, situated on the delicate border zone between digital natives and immigrants in Prensky’s (2000) term. Taking the ontological position, it would seem that given the opportunity, most people would choose to live a pleasurable life over one lacking it. Although ‘pleasure’ is non-universal — for instance, this necessitates certain fundamental material requirements — desiring pleasure has been common across geographical and cultural boundaries throughout human history. Similarly, most people would prefer the next moment to be a more pleasurable one than the contrary. Pleasure in this sense is inherently interrelated with possibility and pressure, together which create a phenomenon of play, a fertile soil for creativity that could bring about transformations necessary for the development of human history. Therefore, change and pleasure are ontological necessity for each other. In this respect, Bataille’s (1986) argument – though essentially confined to the domain of eroticism, which, nevertheless, he perceives as a fundamental element of humanity – that ultimate joy ensues the (unsustainable and thus illusory) overcoming of discontinuity has some validity.
How does this notion translate in the present era of capitalism, rapid urbanisation and networks? One way of answering this question would be to examine the rules of the current ‘economy of desire’ (Petrescu, 2005, p. 46), which encompasses not only financial but also emotional and socio-cultural domains. How then do we conceive the intersections of play, technology, and ontological security in this context? My research suggests that the embeddedness of change in ontological security has increasingly become more manifest with the embeddedness of mobile technologies in everyday life. Here, network technology provides a flexible means for reterritorialisation in the techno-social ecology.
Huizinga (1955) sees play as a pleasure provoking phenomenon and the primordial soil for human civilisation, rather than ‘the other’ of the ’serious’ human life. This paper shares his view and reflects on the concept of ‘urban play’ (or play in the everyday urban context), with particular considerations to ubiquitous technology, an increasing fixture of contemporary cities. Taking Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) notion of the smooth/striated space, it is argued that as an essential fabric of everyday life, urban play allows users of the city to (re)create smooth spaces in conceptually striated urban space. This thus accentuates a need for interdisciplinary approach that combines macro- and microscopic perspectives to understand the value context of the city, which can inform the design and development of desirable and sustainable urban communities.
… 그 가운데서도 압권은 진도의 다시래기 놀이가 아닐까 한다. 이 놀이는 장례식 때 발인 전날 하는 빈 상여 놀이의 일종인데, 놀이 전체가 파격적인 익살로 가득 차 있는 것으로 유명하다. 이 놀이는 상가에서 벌어지니 매우 경건하고 근엄해야 할 터인데 그 시작부터가 영 ‘삐딱’ 하다. 놀이 패거리들이 상가를 휘젓고 다니면서 제상에 차려 놓은 음식을 마구 집어 먹는가 하면, 상주에게 “방안에서 밥만 축내고 있던 당신 아버지가 죽었으니 얼마나 얼씨구 절씨구 할일이요”라고 하는 따위의, 그야말로 블랙 코미디를 연출한다. 그런가 하면 다른 패거리들은 승려와 장님 거사와 거사의 부인 등으로 분하여 남녀의 삼각 관계를 연출하고 부정하게 임신한 아이를 낳는 모습을 재연한다. 그리고 그 아이를 자기 것이라고 서로 우기면서 매우 원색적인 사설을 주고받는데, 사정이 이쯤 되면 부모의 상을 당해 침울했던 상주도 웃음을 터뜨리게 된다. 여흥 때가 되면 잡가나 민요를 부르고 병신춤 같은 것을 추어 비탄에 잠긴 상가 분위기를 즐거운 놀이판으로 바꾸어 버린다.
— 최준식, 한국인은 왜 틀을 거부하는가? 난장과 파격의 미학을 찾아서
… of those the best one is probably Jindo’s Dashiregi. This is an ‘empty bier’ play that takes place a night before the coffin gets carried out from the house, known for its extreme shock humour. Naturally one would expect it to be holy and serious - it’s part of the funeral - but right from the beginning it brings some really holyshitness rather than holyness into the scene. The crew (of Jindo Dshiregi) roam around the house like gate crashers, randomly picking up food from jesang (sacrificial table) and even go further to say to sangju (usually the first son or the father of the dead - chief mourner) things like “you must be la la elated now that your useless father who’s just been eating away all holed up in your house’s finally gone” bringing in spices of black humour. It doesn’t stop there - another group casually put on a performance about a love triangle involving a Buddhist monk, a blind devotee, and his wife who later gives birth to an illegitimate child. Then these three start having a loud and lewd fight over the child, instantly replacing sangju’s sadness with laughter. Another moment of entertainment brings in vulga and folk songs as well as Byungshinchoom (dance of the handicapped), turning the funeral into a fun-filled playground.
– Junshik Choi, Why Koreans Deny Teul (mold/frame/formality): In Search of the Aesthetics of Chaos and Irregularity
just read an article about the recent seminar by justin hall on his concept of “passively multi-play online games.” interesting concept.
Justin has fun online, works online, studies and loves and plays online — and on his phone and his Playstation. Why can’t the whole thing be a game — a social game and a knowledge game? … all calls the notion “Passively Multiplayer Online Games,” and describes it as ” a system for turning user data into ongoing play. Using computer and mobile phone surveillance, a user and their unique history. These resulting avatars can be viewed online, and they interact with other avatars online. Examples of data: web sites visited, email addresses, chat handles, contents of email or messaging, contents of word processed documents, digital images, digital video, video game moves.”
– original post here
when i had a very quick glance at his ideas, i thought we were talking about the same thing. the crucial role of the element of “play” in our lives, amplified particularly by network technologies. we’re living in the “entiretainment” age.
then i had a better read of it and realised that we were actually talking about the opposite ideas within the framework of network play. we’ve got pretty much the same elements of investigation - play, network, mobile etc - but in the simplest sense, he’s looking at ludus while i’m looking at paidia, the opposite end of the continuum (as suggested by caillois) by means of measuring your passive (turned into active) participation - some people might disagree with this idea since strictly speaking, measuring alone wouldn’t make a paidic experience into a ludic one; i suppose here i’m thinking more in lines of (sub)conscious/unconscious accordance to rules. i consider “games” as rule-binding therefore ludic, and subcategorical to the concept of “play”) - i don’t know if i want to be “in game” all the time. the idea just doesn’t appeal to me. i believe in play but i’m not sure if i believe in games.
anyway, it was fascinating to see “the other side” of what i’m trying to do within what “we’re trying to do.”
