Games People Play

Constanze Bausch
Lecture and Exercises
Module 2

Abstract

- theories on game + play 
- interaction and cooperation

To play is to open up spaces: of ecstasy, of competition, of connecting ideas. Play transgresses borders, relates worlds and creates visions. At the same time games are ordered, they follow patterns of orientation and action. How these two levels, of order and the breaking down of borders, of patterns and transgressions, can be thought through traditional and current play and game theories in the realm of new media will be "played out" on this day.

Course Outline

play and culture                   10 a. m. - 1 p. m.

The first part of the day will consist of an playful overview of play theory focusing on play and culture, for a better understanding of the activity of play as the creative space of human development in social communities.

play and cult                          2 p. m. - 6 p. m.

In the afternoon we will be about play with pictures: empirical material about embodied and subverted images and television genres created by kids: video performances between every day life and television. Following we will focus on games in designed virtual realities, connecting the ideas of play and culture with the themes of the homo ludens electronicus: games and the internet, virtual realities, the body and game communities. Even the afternoon will be pretty practically.