((in)ter)dependence/Play

It is always interesting to observe how play is interpreted in humans in a practical sense while in animals as an instinctual response.

We can talk about the little miniature kitchens, baby dolls to take care of, coloured plastic carpenter sets, these toys reflect a child's exploration of their future roles within society, mimicking adult behaviours. To train oneself to be the grown-ups, to behave like the grown-ups, it is normal for that to happen, to reject that and to try to distort the game itself as just manipulation goes to failing to analyse the very heart of what it actually means to play, to what might be its real utility, which always turns out to be only social. Play is always social, and when a person plays alone it always goes to recreate situations of artificial sociality. A child who plays with a doll imagine it as alive, a man who inserts a coin into the slot machine relishes the idea that by becoming rich he will inevitably improve his life, and except in rare cases it is always about improving one's life in the eyes of others and to improve one's relationship with others. It all sounds trivial to say, in the end as social creatures we are inclined to be like that, loneliness leads the game to become a distraction overcoming that conception of didacticism. To waste time, not to think.

> Here there is a friction between viewing play as social, and viewing play as a phenomenon that just exists for itself. The writer of this patch sees the parallel play as another social game, and argues that each game has a role and a societal purpose.

>> 'He found his four-year-old son sitting at the front of a row of chairs, playing "trains". As he hugged him the boy said: "Don't kiss the engine, Daddy, or the carriages won't think it's real."' In Huizinga's Homo Ludens, the second characteristic of play is that play is not 'ordinary' or 'real life'. The adult gambling their way to fortune is curious, as the implications of this 'play' are hoped to be carried over to 'real life'. Arguably, this example also doesn't satisfy Huizinga's first characteristic: all play is a volunatry activity. In a world ever increasing in complex and interwoven social dynamics, we can wonder if we need to reconsider our idea of play: not just as a voluntary act, but as a necessity to cope with and traverse these dynamics. And, maybe, something we need a ((in)voluntary) break from from time to time.

Reflecting on my own understanding of playing with dolls, at 23 years old, I don't think I will play with them anymore (I would never admit it anyway). My play is pastime, with friends, to exercise sociability to the point of colliding with unsociability, or waste of time, and there I try not to fall into the trap as it is definitely part of a system that constantly reminds you how time is of the essence, it's all about money, money is important, I don't need I guess to say more, we're all in the same stifling situation. Then you try to play and make the game useful, coscently, while at an early age you are not aware of how much your playing affects your personality. I want to improve my knowledge of Dutch, to become a better person, understand people better, I play duolingo. I want to learn programming, I play mime. I create games by myself to force myself to wash dishes, get up in the morning. To block intrusive thoughts I create a thousand different games.

> This speaks to me as well, I often try to gamify my life through a rigid routine, this routine appears to me as levels to come to, battle and overcome. It's stupidly boyish, yet these are the early web games that motivated me into spending time with friends.

>> The gamification of life, in my mind, goes hand in hand with the ongoing trend of the illusory optimization of life. The idea that wellbeing can be min-maxed, that time can be used to 'a full potential', that there is an orderly notion of routines and activities that are ranked in a society's (sub)consious mind. I fall victim to this way of thinking, too. I don't know better and don't know how to live without it.

It is good to see how creativity itself is a coping mechanism. Could it be? Creativity seems intrinsic, we simply cannot escape it. In a world brimming with stimuli and hyperconnectivity, the sense of overwhelm amplifies. There is no end to it, it is an abyss, loneliness expands in such a world, loneliness leads to confusion, boredom. Play is the most straightforward instinctual way to evade the awareness of that abyss.

> 'No one is bored, everything is boring' is what Mark Fischer voiced in his writing . This also connects to the '(Un)availability' patch, the pressure of being 'connected'.

I watched a classic MrBeast's video where he locked himself in a room for a week without any stimulation from the outside world and resolved, after losing track of time, to count the grains of rice on his plate, and then at some point he stopped. There is no more utility in the game the moment there is no more stimulation to deal with. Right now I'm reading this book, I'm reading it because I like to read, I love to analyse things, talking about it with a fellow editorial team member makes the game more interesting, I'm putting myself out there trying then to describe what I've figured out, asking for their opinion, meanwhile another layer of the game is added, we're creating this messaging platform with wiki pages, I'm reading to not think, to block out the realisation maybe that this doesn't make sense anyway, all the result of a combined obsession between my and my fellow editorial team member's personality. Would I be reading this book without this game? No, I would be playing other games. You never play alone even when you claim to be.

> If it has been said that  'method is a way to survive experience'  can the same not be said of games? Games could merely be a method to survive stimuli and facilitate sociality. Although I do not know whether I would agree that all games are inherently social.

>> Same for me. Ultimately, this essay seems bleak and cynical to me, and it leaves me saddened. I am not ready to give up on the merit of play.

Sorry fellow editorial member for making you saddened (づᴗ _ᴗ)づ

Terminal Games

Kanishka Goonewardena's entry for space in Keywords for Radicals makes a case for the spatiality of politics, the social and politcal power that a space has, and the undeniable, inevitable connection between them.

A terminal interface is the portal to many a communal technology, in particular many servers. It is a space much like any physical space, and thus, holds a power just like any such physical space. As a result, there are implicit social dynamics at play. For example: not everyone might be as familiar, comfortable and confident with the way one typically interacts with the space of a terminal interface.

The zine The Map is the Territory is a webgame that served as our introduction into thinking about making a terminal a more accessible, inviting and inclusive space. This led us to explore games as a medium more.

Electrifying

Screenshot of Electrifying gameplay

A terminal game created as an escape room, in which you have to find a way out of a server room in which you, and sleeping server (chopchop), are located in. You navigate only using the terminal command 'cat', which is normally used to print out the content of a file. In this game, files are comprised of ASCII art that builds each wall of the room you're trying to escape out of. Instead of typing cat, you use the alias for 'look' for it (typing look left, look right, look up...). With each each look you are given breadcrumbs, clues of what you can do to not only free yourself, but wake up a sleeping server from it's 'undesirable' slumber.

At the end the player is stuck with a question about whether they should take the server with them, which would require them to cut its life force (unplug it) or leave it to remain in the claustrophobic server room.

Digital Quilting

A terminal game, you weave a digital quilt with ASCII art characters and emojis. You can use fabric and scissors, fabric creates the patterns and that become a quilt, while scissors cut it in half. The digital quilting game was a first step in thinking how all of this different information, elements of texts that have had an influence on us, can start to unravel a narrative together. The idea is that when you finish a quilt in the terminal, you could print it out and get a physical outcome, a patchwork of quotes, decorations and cut outs.