To engage in the practice of playing is to relieve stress and have fun, enjoy ourselves, as the premise goes, the opposite of work and school. I would go further and say that this is a time and space in which a lot of learning takes place because, within parameters or rules, we exercise other things and, we do sort of "work and produce". We exercise our imagination, our ability to negotiate skills, mental or physical. This is a platform where we can develop relationships with others and ourselves; it renders productivity of another kind, development of self and community as we learn to depend on others reciprocally.
If we look at what Bogost says, adopting a definition of play from Salen and Zimmerman, "play is the free space of movement within a more rigid structure." to which, Bogost goes on to say: "Understood in this sense, play refers to the "possibility space" created by constraints of all kinds." (page 120). This is critical because it brings to mind an openness and, a kind of permission to discover yourself and, give yourself the permission to be the newly discovered self, after all, it is play. The "sky is the limit" with this "possibility space".
Transforming this energy into the digital sense, we see there is no limit to what the imagination can do to produce video game after video game, producing its own culture along the way. The video culture is the playground platform, or "possibility space" for taking the practice of play to another dimension, for people of all ages, check out Bogost's website: www.bogost.com.
If we look at what Bogost says, adopting a definition of play from Salen and Zimmerman, "play is the free space of movement within a more rigid structure." to which, Bogost goes on to say: "Understood in this sense, play refers to the "possibility space" created by constraints of all kinds." (page 120). This is critical because it brings to mind an openness and, a kind of permission to discover yourself and, give yourself the permission to be the newly discovered self, after all, it is play. The "sky is the limit" with this "possibility space".
Transforming this energy into the digital sense, we see there is no limit to what the imagination can do to produce video game after video game, producing its own culture along the way. The video culture is the playground platform, or "possibility space" for taking the practice of play to another dimension, for people of all ages, check out Bogost's website: www.bogost.com.
Blanca, thanks for tackling the broader concept of play (raised by historical game scholars like Huizinga and Caillois but also contemporary artists and thinkers like Brian Sutton-Smith and Mary Flanagan). I'm glad you referenced Bogost's term "possibility space" and the accompanying definition, because I think it points to the seeming paradox at the heart of gameplay--namely, that something rule-based or constraint-driven can (though not always) enable freedom of exploration, creation, and performance. This might remind you of discussions we had in Professor Bates's Rhetoric 10 on modern reason, regarding the nature of insight, intuition, and creativity in humans and machines.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Alenda; yes, it does remind me of my first Rhetoric class, making that paradigm shift into the creative and producing self.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of Play, on a deeper level, it brings me to realize that it provides for a safe-haven for freedom of expression and permission to create, to let that fountain of creativity flow without repercussions; and what is usually reserved for children and young adults, is not so much fostered for the human stage after the experience of childhood. If we, as adults, can continue "playing" as we did as children, letting the child in us come out, we open the possibility of fulfillment through enjoyment as we did when we were kids. Personally, I have not played in a long time, perhaps since my daughter left her toddler years. For me, it has been work, taking care of others and stressing out, I feel my creativity is sort of "stunted" that, sometimes, I feel I have been like a machine, a human machine--I look forward to breaking through that box using the practice of playing more often when I finally go on to make that paradigm shift. I think this "possibility space" is critical because there are parameters that allow for flexibility and, then, there are others that do not for example the word "space", it implies openness, but a limited openness; a limit that has endless possibilities, weird? Is this because we humans need structure?
Lovely sentiments, Blanca. Indeed, much of the stigma attached to adult gamers has to do with the connotations of play (wasteful, unproductive, childish), but as studies have shown, play is something necessary to our psyches and development all through life (see this piece in The New York Times).
ReplyDeleteHi Alenda,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reply. I did not get the piece in The New York Times ... did you attach it? Thanks,
Blanca
Just click on the word "piece" in my comment above... it's a link to the article.
ReplyDelete