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Guido Alvarez
Ph.D. Committee
Qualifying Exams Part Two.
April 04, 2010
Question Three:
What is the role of "play" in the various systems you are exploring, from the preColumbian to the recent hypermedia ones? Does the "ludic" element (as Huizinga calls it) enhance creativity? Or is play finally subordinated to the interests of systemmaking?
Pretending to Play One Very Serious Simulation.
It’s the fourth quarter and Staples Center has not a single empty seat. Twenty
thousand pairs of eyes are intermittently focusing on a single spherical fast moving
object and a set of numbers that are quickly counting down to zero. The game is tied,
one second to go, the 250 pounds of pure muscle evenly distributed along two
hundred and three centimeters called LeBron James are propelled upward. The
body is airborne; everything seems to be happening in slow motion. Maybe it is slow
motion; it is hard to tell anymore the level of noise inside this temple is unbearable.
The orange rubber sphere leaves his gigantic hands just an instant before the buzzer
goes off. The ball travels forming a beautiful parable, I mean parabola, that seems to
last forever. The ball goes it, nothing but net! The crowd stands in complete silence.
Only what seem to be a few patches on the gigantic fabric of flesh are jumping up
and down. The game is over and there is a winning team, and irremediably, a losing
one. What comes after is what everybody had been waiting for months with great
expectation. LeBron James walks to the center of the court and the principal –and
eldest‐ officiating priest congratulates him and wishes him well. LeBron is as happy
as could be, he is sweating and his smile is radiant and his eyes are filled with glee.
The old and wise priest asks LeBron to kneel and he obeys with no hesitation. The
priest takes a deep breath before proceeding, with a precise and swift movement
severs LeBron’s head with a sharp obsidian knife. Immediately after the crowd goes
wild in joy. Everybody is satisfied. Everybody but the captain of the losing team, that
is, who will have to wait another year to have another opportunity to transcend
through play.
This short fiction narrative attempts to create a temporal bridge between two
distant realities: ours in America today, and a Mayan ball game in Chichen‐Itza
about 25 hundred years ago. A ball game for the Mayas around 600BCE and an NBA
game for us today in 2010 was, according to Dutch historian, cultural theorist, and
professor Johan Huizinga, not play. According to Huizinga in order to classify an
activity as play it must be performed at free will, not as an obligation. He would
further his observation by stating “It [play] is never imposed by physical necessity
or moral duty. It is never a task” (1950:8). This drastic distinction provides a
framework to better understand the role of play in today society. This is particularly
important when this concept is analyzed under the hyper‐magnifying glass of
scholarly critical thinking. In his book Homo Ludens or Man the Player (1950)
Huizinga identifies five characteristics, or principles, that constitute his concept of
play, namely:
1. Play is free, as in fact freedom.
2. Play is not ordinary or real life.
3. Play happens in a restricted environment pertaining time and space and
while it is in progress all is movement, change, alteration, succession,
association, and separation.
4. Play creates order it is order. Play demands order absolute and supreme.
5. Play is extra‐ordinary and as such it promotes the formation of social
groupings.
Going back to the initial example the reason why NBA basketball --or the Mayan
Ball Game for that matter— may not fit this set of characteristics is because of their
ritualistic nature and more specifically their social duty in terms of symbolic
representation. “It [Play] is never a task.” Huizinga says, “It is done at leisure, during
“free time.” Only when play is a recognized cultural function –a rite, a ceremony—is it
bound up with notions of obligation and duty” (1950:8), he concludes.
Based on these observations playing basketball in a public park, or variations
of this sport such as H‐O‐A‐R‐S‐E or Twenty‐one are valid form of play. Obviously,
an attempt to classify what is play and what it is not could incite a philosophical
debate, which ‐‐by the way‐‐ could be defined as play. When there principles are
applied to the theory I have chosen to conduct research on the discourse becomes
quite interesting.
Based on these five fundamental constituents of play it could be argued that
fiction narrative is play. However, what happens when the goal of that narrative is
to persuade and alter the construction of reality, say in a myth for instance?
Huizinga explains the relationship between myth and play in these terms:
In myth, primitive man seeks to account for the world of phenomena by
grounding it in the Divine. In all the wild imaginings of mythology a fanciful
spirit is playing on the border-line between jest and earnest… …Now in myth and
ritual the great instinctive forces of civilized life have their origin; law and order,
commerce and profit, craft and art, poetry, wisdom and science. All are rooted in
the primaeval soil of play (1950:5).
Huizinga makes the latter observation for he considers that play precede the
development of rational thinking as it is present in animals in one way or another.
Play is inherent to being a living creature, as it constitutes one of the most
fundamental tools for effective learning; it is an undeniable attribute of humanity.
“You can deny seriousness,” Huizinga says, “but not play.”
He reinforces this idea by concluding that “[w]e play and know that we play, so we
must be more than merely rational beings, for play is irrational” (1950:4).
One could argue that the act of play requires a narrative genre of its own
because the moment a narrative is forced upon it play ceases to be. However, play is
a pretend game for it is only through the acceptance of the simulation that society is
willing to concede special considerations that break free from the social order. For
example the rules of driving in America are fixed and enforced but driving is so
enticing as it belongs to the order of the hyperreal that men had to invent a form of
play based on this human‐made activity. One could argue that NASCAR® stock car
racing, arguably the most viewed professional sport in terms of television ratings in
the United States along with Football, is an elaborate form of play when it is aligned
with Baudrillard’s theory of Simulation. Where is the simulation you may ask? It is
not for the NASCAR® driver nor is it for the fans who religiously fill the seats in the
car racing arena. The simulation based on play theory is present in the driver who
decorates his or her car or truck to replicate (symbolically) NASCAR® stock racing
cars. When this observation is applied to contemporary society one could find
innumerable examples of its effective application.
It could also be argued that play is a form of narrative that is found across
media moving in and out because of the temporary empowerment it provides to the
average human who is, according to Foucault, subject of constant control and
vigilance both, externally and internally. It is through play that humanity finds a way
to breathe freely from the constraints of the physical world and the intellectual
constructs that civilizations have designed to establish –and impose‐ a sense of
order. The rules of the game of life are too numerous and too demanding; they far
exceed the need of humans to express freely, if that chimera is tamable at all, and
they are certainly impossible to name. However, for the benefit of establishing a
point in this paper, a universal example may validate the idea of attaining
momentary freedom through the act of play. Consider the written language, for
instance; it is a system of symbols that has been in constant evolution for millennia.
Even though there are not organized bodies of control to enforce an appropriate use
of it one could argue that language has found a form of play that is not only accepted
by praised throughout history and particularly now. That form of play is poetry.
Poetry as explained by Huizinga gradually detached from other forms of
communication that were classified as serious, he explains this idea in these terms:
…while in the more highly organized forms of society religion, science, law, war
and politics gradually lose touch with play, so prominent in the earlier phases, the
function of the poet still remains fixed in the play-sphere where it was born.
Poiesis, in fact, is a play-function. It proceeds within the play-ground of the mind,
in a world of its own which the mind creates for it (1950:119).
On the other hand, according to McLuhan, the invention and imposition of
written languages incarcerated the construction of intellectual thoughts to the
visual constrains of the letters of the alphabet and their rigid regulations to secure a
certain degree of universal communication poetry found a way to allow humanity to
go back to its roots by playing with words and finding therefore a temporary mental
construct where time and space where optional. What about myth, I would ask
again, isn’t it myth nothing more than a form of poetry? Story telling based in a
narrative that allows play? For Huizinga myth is the “appropriate vehicle for
primitive man’s ideas about the cosmos,” in it, he continues, “the line between the
barely conceivable and the flatly impossible has not yet been drawn with any
sharpness” (1950:129). According to Huizinga there is a breaking point when
poetry/myth leave the play‐sphere, he explains in these words:
Living myth knows no distinction between play and seriousness. Only when myth
has become mythology, that is, literature, borne along as traditional lore by a
culture which has in the meantime more or less outgrown the primitive
imagination, only then wil the contrast between play and seriousness apply to
myth—to its detriment (1950:131).
When we begin to move to other forms of media ‐‐and particularly to New
Media—as alternative forms of representation where one could theorize the
influence of Play theory. This additional form of representation refers to genre of
Fiction. Fiction narrative is another form of literary construction that allows, within
the boundaries of language and the author’s imagination, an ample degree of
freedom and exercise of Play. Understanding this form of narrative construction as
it moves from media to media is of great important for my project because it offers
the possibility of analyzing different forms of symbolic representation in
contemporary technology of communication that could be defined as ‐‐borrowing
Marie‐Laure Ryan’s term: transmedial.
For Ryan, when the narrative moves away from its original textual construction
it must be differentiated. She calls this particular transforming narrative Story and
makes an important differentiation between Narrative and Story. The latter, she
says has the capacity to move from medium to medium while forms of narrative do
not limit it. It is not only defined in terms of verbal texts or narratorial speech acts
but, in the same fashion of poetry and myth, is a combination of forms. She further
explains this idea in these terms:
Story, like narrative discourse, is a representation, but unlike discourse it is not a
representation encoded in material signs. Story is a mental image, a cognitive
construct that concerns certain types of entities and relations between these
entities. Narrative [in New Media] may be a combination of story and discourse,
but it is its ability to evoke stories to the mind that distinguishes narrative
discourse from other text types (2006:7)
In an oversimplified way, when these principles are put into the perspective
of Baudrillard’s simulation theory, one could argue that simulation is possible
because it proposes a form of Play that by definition implies a certain degree of
liberation from the constraints of semiotics. The marriage between the original and
the simulation is no longer at stake, or even questionable. Simulating an
environment entails, consequentially, the exercise of play therefore freedom.
As we move this light discourse to state of the art forms of representation of
play, accepted by society at large, one could find many principles and intersections
of these theories, hidden in the subtexts of contemporary cultural production. Could
Huizinga’s five principles of Play be observed in any artistic representations today?
Take for example Char Davies’ work on immersive virtual reality. A platform that in
spite of the progress in imaging technology continues to be elusive to the monsters
of mass production due to its high costs. Davies presented her first fully immersive
installation called Osmose in 1995 followed, three years later, by Ephémère. Both
artistic installations required the mediation of technology to be perceivable. In
Davies’s words she describes her artistic intentions in these terms: “I see it [Osmose]
as a means of return, i.e., of facilitating a temporary release from our habitual perceptions
and culturally-biased assumptions about being in the world, to enable us, however
momentarily, to perceive ourselves and the world around us freshly
(http://www.immersence.com). Her work one could argue is a pure manifestation of
Huizinga’s concept of Play (see figures 01-04). Osmose and Ephémère were not
conceived or constructed as part of her job. Of course this point could be arguable not in
its individuality but in a more complex cultural debate about the function of art in today’s
society. However, for the good sake of the construction of this paper I will venture to
concede that both installations were as an exercise of freedom through creativity. Both
installations are –by far—not real life but a simulation of space. They may not comply
with Baudrillard’s hyperreal but they are –with no doubt—part of the realm of the
simulation. An observation that I find interesting to note is that Davies’ installations were
an artistic representation of an artistic representation. This process may arguably assist in
the classification of them as member of the order of the hyperreal. Whether that is
relevant or not is out of the question. The third principle of Play that requires the act to
happen in a restricted environment is substantial and, as a matter of fact, literal (see
figure 03). Davies’ installations are observable only through the mediation of technology.
This mediation facilitates the body detachment from constrains imposed by the
phenomenological world. The fourth principle comes naturally in her installations, as
they function thanks to an invisible layer of mathematical computations performed by
machines that impose a certain unbreakable order for the apprehension of her work of art.
The final characteristic of Huizinga’s play may not be evident in the installation itself but
they take place afterwards. This act is quite interesting on itself since it breaks free from
the limitations of a single medium creating a mental story that is “shareable” as a virtual
experience. The story has the potential of transposing from medium to medium. One
could arguably conclude that both installations are not only part of the realm of the
Simulation but also elaborate forms of play.
Even though it has been fifteen years ever since Davies presented her
immersive virtual installation to the world not much progress had been made in
that particular field. By not much progress I mean –I must clarify‐ in terms of mass
production. The equipment necessary to produce an installation of such scale eludes
most pockets, especially those of new media artist emerging into the art scene. What
has compensated that apparent lack of interest in the subject of immersive virtual
reality is the empowerment of an industry with revenues that challenge those of
Hollywood; it is the Video Game industry with a rough estimate of ten billion dollars
per year. When we talk about video games the discourse on Simulation takes a very
interesting shift. Video games –most people may argue‐ are not simulations as they
don’t pretend to be something real. They are just that, video games. They do not
pretend to be something else, or do they? The restrictions of this paper will not
allow a full analysis on this subject therefore I will attempt a “tsantsa” approach for
it. [A tsantsa, by the way, was a technique developed by the indigenous peoples of
the Amazon basin in Ecuador to shrink the heads of their enemies as part of their
ritualistic practices. The Jivaroans peoples –as they are known today‐ believed that
by shrinking the heads of their enemies they possessed their spirits and by doing so
they could prevent the spirits from avenging their death.] When looking video
games through the looking glass of Baudrillard’s Simulation we can find that there
are distinctive stages we can use to test his theory. The very early forms of video
games can be traced back to a patent granted as early as 1947 to Thomas T.
Goldsmith, professor of Physics at Furman University (figure 05). This early video
game was inspired by a radar display tech and allowed the user to control a vector‐
drawn dot on the screen to simulate a missile fired at targets. It wasn’t until a
decade later than that very first video game evolved into TennisforTwo which –
using a similar‐ interface created an interface where people could actually engage in
a form of play that complies with Huizinga’s five principles. The difference between
these two first attempts, from the perspective of Simulation theory, is rather
obvious. The first one is indeed a simulation for it replaces a previous sign/symbol
and transforms its original meaning. The second one may or may not be a
simulation. It depends on the level of scrutiny that the analysis attempts. One could
argue that it is a simulation of the first one therefore it belongs to the order of the
hyperreal. Conversely, it could also be argued that it is not a simulation for it does
not provide a possible sensorial equivalent to the experience of playing tennis as the
video game claimed to do. As you can see, a distinction should be introduced at this
stage of the discourse, does simulation require a physical manifestation to be
consider as such or, could a simulation be mostly powered by the imagination?
This subtle yet very important difference becomes quite important when we
deal with hypermedia and cyberspace today. From those to early versions of video
games to Second Life®, Spore®, or PS3®’s EyePet®, there is a gigantic step in terms of
technology development. However the intellectual discourse has not changed much
it has only proven Baudrillard’s theories as valid. The invasion of electronic
technology into our daily lives is evident and capable of a full phenomenological
experience. We find electronic technology in toothbrushes, garden hoses, and
invisible fences for misbehaving dogs, bird feeders, let alone communication
technology. However, in terms of the particular realm of the video game genre,
which is completely dependant on electricity to function –for the time being‐ the
narrative regarding technology is more complex. According to Castronova, one of
the foremost leading scholar in the subject of virtual worlds today, describes the
current state of technology, compared with the natural world, in these terms:
The scope of human physical development covers millions of years, advanced
cultural development some tens of thousands. Here in just 150 years we have
invented and deployed a series of tools that allow creators to render whole
environments almost as richly detailed and animated as reality itself (2007:26).
As we merge Huizinga’s observations on play with the theory of Simulation
by Baudrillar one could observe that the world today –thanks to technology‐ is
moving towards the play‐sphere very fast and very effectively. The representation
of reality that technology is capable of delivering today has not provided enough
time for the brain to discern the difference between what is real and what is not.
This lack of tools, so to speak, to tell the difference between reality and what is
represented in TV or computer monitors is beautifully captured by Uruguayan poet
Mario Benedetti like this:
Movement is not a theory
I watched the documentary
about how people on television
cannot hear or see you.
Castranova uses Annie Lang’s research to support his claim that there is no
difference between these two modes of representation in these terms:
…the brain evolved in the millions of years before media existed, so none of its
core structures understand the difference between a real tiger and one of TV. The
distinction has to be developed as an abstract pattern of thinking (2007:27).
Moreover, the video game industry has grown so much as has gained so
much power that it is spreading through every possible element of our daily lives
empowered, and motivated, by the economic lure of financial success without much
consideration on the casualties its path is causing along the way. The reason why
video games are so enticing may be found in the words of Huizinga. Game as he
explains provides this void –a representation‐ of a world where the rules and
regulations that would be normally enforced in reality are controlled by the user,
the gamer, or the player. Video games then do not only simulate reality itself but
they pretend to be an utopian dimension where freedom is obtained. Not even dead
is a fixed concept in video games since players always have the option of rebooting
the system.
What is most interesting to me for the development of my proposed
dissertation project is to analyze the next step of video games. When video games
reach Baudrillard’s order of the hyperreal the discourse challenges the notions of
reality as simulation, the image in the mirror can no longer be trusted as it is much
richer, better, faster, and enduring than before. When video games lose their quality
of “play” and are reinvented to comply with the order of the hyperreal they become
life itself. This is possible thanks to a medium transforming into the content of
another medium as McLuhan would suggest. When video games use an environment
that is ludic by nature –cyberspace‐ the resulting overlapping of simulations render
hyperreality, or perhaps even the next phase of it, if there is one to be found. Such is
the case of Second Life®, a virtual environment that could be described as synthetic
world. In Castranova’s words:
Thus digital games, once online, immediately became hosts to genuine
societies. This is why a term like synthetic worlds makes sense. These online game
worlds are built to look very much like the real world, with tress and oceans and
mountains, food and water, and creatures wandering around. They persist just like
the real world does. And one encounters other people in them, people whom you
meet as often as you meet with your neighbor (indeed more often, given the
isolation that characterizes the real world today). Online games are very much like
our world, except that they are built, crafted, like a copy or model 2007:35).
The problematic discourse for society, as I see it, begins when the differences
between what is real and what is simulation are no longer there. Humanity is
forcefully invited to play this gargantuan game we call cyberspace. Do we have a
choice to opt out? This “exodus to the virtual world” as Castranova names it should
not be a problem if Baudrillard theory wouldn’t be so evident. Life during the last
three thousands years, but with an aggressive expansion in the last two hundred, is
becoming a meta simulation of itself. Some areas have already gained the status of
the second order. HD TV is one, blue ray discs is another, both are hypermedia
machines that are no longer comparable to life, as they have gone beyond the limits
of it by providing a richer, safer, and more well‐rounded experience that our limited
sensorium is incapable of providing.
On the other hand, what remains a constant factor in the development of this
whole discourse is that the narrative of the Story –transmedial or not‐‐ is still tied to
the human ability to create myths and accept them as possible realities. That is
where my interests intersect Pre‐Columbian cultures. They seemed to have found a
way to recreate the exact same intellectual discourse but without the electronic
technology we have at the reach of our hands today. From being a regular citizen of
the civilization we all –suddenly‐ found ourselves standing in the privileged position
of the priest. Commanding the symbols through mice, wiimotes, or cellphones. That
position is unique, unheard of in history. What we do it such a grandiose power is
yet to be seen. I could comfortably argue that cyberspace has become our shared
play‐sphere. As it grows exponentially and its tentacles invade other forms of
representation, other forms of new media, the world as we remembered it would be
only that, a memory of an environment that used to have too many restrictions.
Good flavors, yes, granted, but way too many dangers to be inviting to stay. It offers,
after all, only one life per game.
As we can see the world we are constructing today is moving towards a Borgian
state of mind where the magician (technology) is dreaming us, humans, while we
the dreamed dreamers are desperate to find ways to break free from the sticky web.
The more we move the more entangled we get into this computer dream. Is there a
way out? Why would we want one when we may have a chance to live in a perennial
state of play? ∞
Figure 01. Member of the audience experiencing Osmose (http://www.immersence.com).
Figure 02. Screen Capture. Detail of installation Osmose (http://www.immersence.com).
Figure 03. Screen Capture. Detail of installation Ephémère (http://www.immersence.com).
Figure 04. Screen Capture. Detail of installation Ephémère (http://www.immersence.com).
Figure 05. Digital Image of First Video Game 1947.
Works Cited
Abbot, Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2002
Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan P,
1994.
Baudrillard, Jean. The System of Objects. US: Verso, 2006.
Castranova, Edward. Exodus to the Virtual World. NY: Palgrave Mcmillan, 2007.
Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens. A Study of the Play Element in Culture. London:
Beacon Press, 1955.
Kubler, George. The Shape of Time. US: Yale University. 1962.
Ryan, Marie‐Laure. Avatars of History. US: University of Minnesota, 2006.