Play and Culture

Dit boek beschrijft een methode waarmee studenten, met
behulp van gameprincipes en filosofie, meer eigenaar kunnen
worden van hun studie. Het is geschreven voor docenten en
studenten. Deel I gaat over eigenaarschap, spelen en ontwerpen,
en in deel II worden voorbeelden van games, tools en
regelsets behandeld.
Dit boek gaat uit van de grondvisie van Johan Huizinga dat
we spelende mensen zijn, Homo Ludens, en dat alle kunst
en cultuur ontspruit uit spelen. Huizinga legt spel uit als een
magische cirkel, een werkelijkheid binnen een werkelijkheid,
waardoor spel dichter bij de werkelijkheid kan komen dan de
werkelijkheid zelf.
De methode  kwam mede tot stand dankzij een subsidie uit het Comeniusprogramma van het ministerie van OCW en het Nationaal Regieorgaan Onderwijzonderzoek (NRO), projectnummer 405.18865.180.

Online computer games are increasingly seen by game studies and industry as `more than games', i.e., places where players form and maintain relationships by playing together. However, currently, these practices of playing together and their roles for gameplay and the relationships of the players are not presented and explained in an integrated manner. In this context, my research focused on exploring social aspects within and around two online games, World of Warcraft and Star Kingdoms. Specifically, I investigated the emerging practices of playing together with fellow players, friends, family and romantic partners and their functions in an integrated fashion. To achieve this aim, an ethnographic study was conducted (using participant observation and semi-structured interviews) and the data were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively through a ritualisation framework inspired by a multidisciplinary perspective on secular ritual (coming from anthropology, communication and media studies and social psychology). Within this framework, ritual and ritualized play (but also ritualization as a process) were defined as referring to practices through which the game is enriched with new meanings that go beyond the game being `just a game'. These new meanings include those centered on relationships/social interactions and identity. Thus, many gamers play computer games not only for their gameplay, but also for the relationships/interactions established and/or maintained through them. In addition to their value for anthropology, social psychology and communication studies, these findings are particularly useful for game developers and UX designers, who have to find ways to accommodate and support these relationships/interactions via game design, alternative media or marketing strategies.

Productivity, to some extent, is a by-product of all video games: game players are constantly forced to be productive with their avatars, making the best of in-game resources. Productive play also often comes from games such as Wii Fit and Brain Age: these are video games that offer real world productivity in exchange for play. Additionally, other researchers (some on this panel) have examined how productivity is often a byproduct of player communities, with projects such as game modding, skinning, and machinima. In this paper, though, I am focusing on an entirely different kind of productive play which I refer to as Simulated Productive Play: play that mimics real world productivity both in the game narrative and mechanics.

The 16th century in Italy saw the emergence of a new social class, with an ideology regarding the relationship between men and women distinct from those of the post-classical (medieval) aristocracy. The games which emerged in this time and place frequently involved memory, visual imagination, wit and literacy in virtuoso displays of cultural competence. These games  were played by women and men together in parlour rooms and game rooms and helped shape the rhetorics and politics of gender roles in the emerging middle class of central and northern Italy.  Moreover, the medium through which theories of games and play and descriptions of play practices were often detailed – the highly regulated genre of the dialogo – was itself conceived as inherently playful, an intellectual exercise that required technical mastery and aesthetic discipline.

This book, written for both teachers and students, describes a method for helping students gain ownership of their studies. The method, a combination of game principles and philosophy, is based on Johan Huizinga’s concept of Homo Ludens which sees humans as intrinsically ‘playing’ beings.

By combining philosophy and game design in a narrative for studying, students will become aware that reality is ambiguous and constructed by concepts. The method offers students insight into the various functions and positions in society and will help them, in a playful manner, to find their own voice and continue to develop themselves.

The interface of play and conflict has been well reflected upon in artworks as well as theory (Flanagan 2009:105, Hammonds in Williams 2011:39).1 Huizinga’s discussion of war and play in ‘Homo Ludens’, traces the origins of both, which he argues have been intertwined as human activities, back to the Middle Ages. Play
like contests and chivalry according to Huizinga are cultural mechanisms designed to manage and take control of situations. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman (2003) defined games as ‘a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in quantifiable outcomes.’ (Salen and Zimmerman 2003:80). The distinction between play and games in this paper will follow
Flanagan’s who refers to games as ‘more or less constructed play scenarios’. This means that games are regarded as part of the more broadly defined play, are bound by strict rules and are specifically embodied.

My paper will examine two of my recent artworks ‘Hegemonopoly’ (2006) and ‘Seven Walks in a Holy City’ (2011), which relate specifically to the contested landscape of Israel Palestine. In both artworks I will discuss, game devices were strategically used to create an embodied interaction, either between the audience
and the issues at stake (‘Hegemonopoly’) or between the artist and the landscape (‘Seven Walks in a Holy City’). I will argue that although the two artworks operate on a different scale and are seemingly paradoxical, when set within and reflecting upon the context of the conflict, the use of game devices in the two works, allow the audience’s senses to ‘play‘ with and ‘profane’ (Agamben 2007) the contested terrain, offering what Kaprow has called ‘experienced insight’ (Kaprow 1992).

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) produce dynamic socio-ludic worlds that nurture both culture and gameplay to shape experiences. Despite the persistent nature of these games, however, the virtual spaces that anchor these worlds may not always be able to exist in perpetuity. Encouraging a community to migrate from one space to another is a challenge now facing some game developers. This paper examines the case of Guild Wars® and its “Hall of Monuments”, a feature that bridges the accomplishments of players from the current game to the forthcoming sequel. Two factor analyses describe the perspectives of 105 and 187 self-selected participants. The results reveal four factors affecting attitudes towards the feature, but they do not strongly correlate with existing motivational frameworks, and significant differences were found between different cultures within the game. This informs a discussion about the implications and facilitation of such transitions, investigating themes of capital, value perception and assumptive worlds. It is concluded that the way subcultures produce meaning needs to be considered when attempting to preserve the socio-cultural landscape.

Every Friday four adult actors entered a K-1 classroom and performed another scene from Lewis's novel, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Every Monday the students in this class found a few of the words from the book, words concerning the novel's imaginary world of Narnia, on the floor of their classroom—“trees,”“cave,”“beaver dam,”“castle,”“table,”“sewing machine,”“cage”—and created these set pieces or props out of cardboard and paint over the course of the week. As the weeks went by, the classroom became covered in the ...

Every Friday four adult actors entered a K-1 classroom and performed another scene from Lewis's novel, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Every Monday the students in this class found a few of the words from the book, words concerning the novel's imaginary world of Narnia, on the floor of their classroom—“trees,”“cave,”“beaver dam,”“castle,”“table,”“sewing machine,”“cage”—and created these set pieces or props out of cardboard and paint over the course of the week. As the weeks went by, the classroom became covered in the ...

The popularity of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) has created a unique, heavily populated virtual reality wherein player characters are explicitly differentiated by the physical characteristics of their avatars. To investigate the way real-life race perceptions influence these adopted player-character identities, we invited MMO players to participate in an online survey. In this study, we are particularly interested in overlap, or deviation, between real-life racial perceptions and the perception of fictional fantastic races (elves, dwarves). On the basis of the data collected, we found that whether players consciously associate themselves with their avatars or consciously dissociate themselves from their avatars, real-life racial tendencies unconsciously manifest through players' choices of their avatars and in their interactions with other players within the game environment.

A growing amount of content is published worldwide every day by millions of social media users. Most of this content is public, permanent, and searchable. At the same time, the number of studies proposing different techniques and methodologies to exploit this content as data for researchers in different disciplines is also growing. This article presents an up-to-date literature review that frames available studies using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube as data sources, in the perspective of traditional approaches for social scientists: ...

Every Friday four adult actors entered a K-1 classroom and performed another scene from Lewis's novel, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Every Monday the students in this class found a few of the words from the book, words concerning the novel's imaginary world of Narnia, on the floor of their classroom—“trees,”“cave,”“beaver dam,”“castle,”“table,”“sewing machine,”“cage”—and created these set pieces or props out of cardboard and paint over the course of the week. As the weeks went by, the classroom became covered in the ...

Performance and play with our material world are ubiquitous to the human experience from childhood and throughout our adult lives.  This chapter explores how matter is made sacred, giving theopoetic witness to and transfiguring our bond with the dead in the aftermath of communal violence.  “Theopoetics,” “performance,” and “play” are less often drawn upon categories in practical theology for understanding the interdependence of human being with our material world across cultures.  This paper draws upon a case study of a Boston-based lay-led ministry that works with survivors of homicide for illustration.  When attended to, such practices of material play speak to resilience in the face of trauma and reshape the foundations of our constructive and practical theologies of trauma.  When witnessed in the public square, such practices demonstrate the power to transfigure our wounded world, particularly when public theologians of trauma take the intercultural dimension of material play seriously.

This paper examines the strategies and theories involved in the creation of a virtual habitat; the island Syncretia located in the virtual world of Second Life®. The island is comprised of a series of narrative/play installations, which can also be considered as "artistic environments". Syncretia should be seen as an endeavor for providing a context for play, storytelling and metaphor; involving an examination of virtual geographies, cyberpsychology/Presence studies, ludology and their relationship to objets trouvé or ready-made art/architectural objects which have been utilized to a substantial degree in the structuring of the visual/narrative language of Syncretia.