The CounterPlay Festival 2017 is only five weeks away! To celebrate this, we have a created a number of small challenges to honour ‘The Power of Play.’
Each week we will post a new challenge for you to participate in. All challenges will invite you to incorporate playfulness in your everyday life. All you need is a camera, your creativity and playfulness. Feel free to elaborate on the idea behind the picture you post.
Use the hashtags #playchallenge17 and #cplay17 when you post your photos or videos to your chosen social media platform (Instagram, Facebook or Twitter).
THIS WEEK’S PLAY CHALLENGE! (1)
This week we would like to see your interpretation of the popular game “The Floor Is Made of Lava”. Play with your colleagues at work, your family at home, your friends in the park, your study mates at a lecture or create something fun with the theme yourself – anything will do, the sky (or floor) is the limit!
We hope that you will join us and start the fun before the festival kicks off! Let the fun begin!!
[This post is taken from the introduction to the book we’re making, “The Power of Play – Voices from the Play Community]
Our ambitions are high, but we also realize that this book is but a very small contribution to a very big field, where practitioners and scholars have been trying to understand the joyful nature of play for hundreds, thousands of years. This is neither the beginning of the journey, nor the end, but rather somewhere in between. We wish to approach the topic with respect and humility, well aware that we can, at most, help take a small step forward, but small steps are all we can ever take.
As long as we take them together, they will matter.
That brings us back to the play community. This is key, really. Cultivating a diverse play community where people are actively participating to explore and spread play is probably our best bet to foster a strong movement towards a more playful world. When we know for certain that we are not alone that other people feel the same urge to be playful, then we can easier muster the courage that is necessary to challenge the non-playful structures around us.
“But we are a play community, and playing the way we do, for fun, for everyone’s fun, in public – our fun little community becomes something else. “To those who want to be seen as people who embrace life, embrace each other, embrace spontaneity, freedom, laughter; we are an alternative. An invitation. We play as if the game isn’t important. The rules aren’t important. As if the only really important thing is each other” (DeKoven, 2016)
It is only loosely held together, the ties are invisible, and like the magic circle, there are no rigid borders or boundaries around the play community. Nobody owns it and no one ever can, as it belongs solely to the participants as a shared resource. This play community we’re speaking of here exists on a global scale, but it’s made up of many, many smaller communities.
It’s fragile, in a way, and it will only thrive, evolve and grow if it is cared for and nurtured. If we leave it alone, without love and attention, it will wither away. This community is not driven by or particularly interested in external rewards or markers, but by finding and creating meaning, challenges, resistance, adventures, smiles and joy. It is exactly like play, fueled by an inner “continuation desire”:
“We desire to keep doing it, and the pleasure of the experience drives that desire. We find ways to keep it going. If something threatens to stop the fun, we improvise new rules or conditions so that the play doesn’t have to end. And when it is over, we want to do it again” (Brown, 2009)
The people in the play community play with each other, of course, but it is also a space for reflection and conversation. Conversations between people, sure, but also between ideas, thoughts, things that are written and things that are spoken; Exchanges, interactions, meetings of minds, ambitions and dreams.
Seeing the play community as a whole is relevant, as it transcends the limitations of any one person or organization, who can only do so much to improve the conditions for play to thrive in society. As a global community, on the other hand, we have the potential and power to utterly transform the role of play in the world.
Like the people in this book have come together, guided by their passion for play, let us do more to cultivate the global play community. It welcomes researchers and practitioners , people who work with play and people who are merely curious, even people who don’t consider themselves playful. If you think yourself of the latter category beware, play might change your life. It already has for many of us.
Play is immensely powerful when it creates deep connections between people, even strangers. We have probably all experienced this, and we know the feeling of barriers suddenly falling away. When we play, we share the responsibility, and we need to be present in the moment, right here, right now. You are open to the world, aware, listening, anticipating, embracing what the other person brings. This is rarely more visible than in the eyes of people playing with each other. The way they shine, the pure joy, this is as close to magic as it gets. In this sense, play becomes a demonstration of empathy, an exploration of being together in ways that respect us all. Play is a lesson in humanity, a gentle reminder of all the things we have in common across age groups, nationalities, religions, socio-cultural backgrounds and other differences that usually keep us apart.
Let’s rise to the occasion, and do what play does best: let’s connect deeply, let’s see across the barriers and differences, let’s step into each other’s lives to join forces in the fight for a more playful world.
I’m not an expert in brevity, to say the least, but here I’ll try to clarify one little thing without too many detours and without going deep into the (important and fascinating) available literature: the purpose of play.
Easy, right?
There’s this constant discussion and distinction in the field of play: play for the sake of play, or play for the sake of something outside of play. Either you think play is important because you think play is important, or you see play as valuable because it can lead to other perceived benefits.
Both are entirely legitimate positions, often overlapping and intertwined in less clear-cut ways, and I’m aware framing it as a dichotomy ignores a lot of nuances. For the sake of the argument, stay with me.
Over the years, I have found myself veering increasingly towards the former: play for the sake of play.
Why is that?
Well, for one thing, play is, by nature, an autotelic activity; “having a purpose in and not apart from itself“. Play only ever really works as play when it is all about the here and the now, the playful moment. If you focus on something outside play, you dismiss the true purpose of play: play itself. If you direct and control it too much, it will lose it’s potential, the magic will disappear and it will become something else entirely. When you see play only or primarily as an instrument for learning, for instance, and you know where the process of play should lead, you will inevitably squeeze the life out of play.
At the same time, I agree that for play to be considered as important as it should be, for all the work being carried out to have meaning (and for me personally to spend this much time on the subject), we have to explore and show the value of play. We need a better language, a deeper understanding, a greater sensitivity to all the nuances and complexities inherent to play.
The tricky thing is to demonstrate this value without pointing to something outside of play. It feels like a gordic knot, an impossible situation. Even writing “the value of play” rubs me the wrong way, like I’m already too far down a very slippery slope that is almost bound to end too far away from play.
The path I have followed for a while is to try to frame and see play as a means and an end, the process and the goal, the journey and the destination. Instead of considering play an instrument, instead of looking to “harness the potential of play”, I believe we should play, quite simply, to live, and to live playfully.
Yes, when you play, you participate, you have agency, you open up to people and the world, you exercise your empathy, you embrace the unknown and unpredictable, you no longer fear contradictions or dissonance, you nurture your imagination and creativity, you experiment with identities, all of that – and more, so much more. Both research and practice provide many, quite compelling arguments that should be paid due attention.
…but those are merely side effects of living a playful life, of cultivating a playful personality and culture. Focus too much on these side effects, and you risk losing sight of the thing that matters, the catalyst of it all.
The best reason for playing, I believe, is that you get better at it, and you connect more deeply with your playful self. That’s the purpose, that’s the reward, that’s what we should be pursuing.
[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] [su_box title=”Comments” box_color=”#014341″ title_color=”#ffffff” radius=”5″]What do you think about this issue? Let me know in the comments below![/su_box] [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]
På den ene side virker det som om dannelse har fået en renæssance, hvor begrebet dukker op i alle mulige sammenhænge. Mange taler om dannelse, og det er som udgangspunkt glædeligt, for dannelse er på flere måder en forudsætning for gode liv i stærke fællesskaber.
På den anden side frygter jeg, at det i et vist omfang blot er en overfladisk interesse; noget man siger, fordi det lyder godt, og giver indtryk af at det man taler om har dybe rødder. Det minder i den forstand ikke så lidt om den lige så udbredte begejstring for leg. Det er nok snarere reglen end undtagelsen at både leg og dannelse opfattes som et middel til noget andet eller som noget meget konkret, der måske reelt set snarere er færdigheder og kompetencer (tag nu bare diskussionen om “digital dannelse” eller den gamle sang om “leg og læring”).
Dannelse er ikke og kan ikke være en tjekliste, eller noget vi kan styre, forudsige og måle på linje med andre læringsmål. Det er ikke noget, der kun foregår når vi er under uddannelse, og absolut ikke kun for børn. Det er en livslang proces, der former og formes af livet i en fortsat vekselvirkning. Ingen er nogensinde “dannet” i endegyldig forstand. Det er ganske vist populært at være mere optaget af destinationen end vejen derhen, men dannelse er nu engang mere proces end mål, mere det at blive til nogen end blive til noget. Nu er jeg jo ikke specielt velbevandret udi dannelsens idéhistorie, langt fra, men her er nogle brudstykker fra mit syn på dannelse:
Det (ufærdige) dannede menneske er altid under forandring, og accepterer dette som et grundvilkår. Man må derfor bevare en åbenhed overfor verden, holde nysgerrigheden i live, og opdyrke evnen og modet til at tvivle: på sig selv og på det, man møder. Et dannet menneske er kritisk, tør modsætte sig det etablerede, og stiller spørgsmål, men er også indstillet på at lytte og skabe ny mening i samspil med andre. Ofte vil et dannet menneske også være et vidende menneske som konsekvens af nysgerrigheden, men dannelse er ikke det at vide noget i sig selv, snarere det at ville vide. Dannelse er at forholde sig etisk og moralsk reflekteret til sin egen rolle i fællesskaberne, at undersøge hvad det vil sige at være menneske, og hvordan man former livet og sine omgivelser med respekt og forståelse for andre. Fordi dannelsen udspringer af det fundamentalt menneskelige, udvider den hele tiden vores forståelse af, hvordan mennesker kan se ud, tænke og leve, også når de ikke ligner os selv.
Det er blot en skitse, men her er mange fællestræk med legen, så lad os se på nogle af dem.
Den amerikanske sociolog og legeforsker Thomas S. Henricks har i bogen med den sigende titel “Play and the Human Condition” undersøgt netop relationen mellem legen og det menneskelige:
“How do we discover who we are? How do we determine the character of the world in which we live? And how do we decide what we can do in a world so configured? Such questions, each connected to our lifelong quest for self-realization, are central to this book. Its thesis is that we learn about ourselves and the world— and about the intersection of these two realms— through acts of play”
Disse perspektiver går igen hos mange legeforskere, som her hos Miguel Sicart i “Play Matters“:
“To play is to be in the world. Playing is a form of understanding what surrounds us and who we are, and a way of engaging with others. Play is a mode of being human.”
Det er jo et helt centralt dannelsesspørgsmål: hvad vil det sige at være menneske? Hvordan skal vi forstå verden? Og hvordan skal vi leve i den?
Vi forstår verden ved at deltage i den, og netop deltagelse er et fundamentalt træk ved legen: når vi leger, så er vi aktive deltagere:
“play events capitalize on people’s capacities for creativity, or externalization. Nothing exists— at least, nothing that is playful in character— until the participants decide to invest the moment with this quality. When they withdraw that energy and enthusiasm, the moment dies. Play makes people aware of their capacities for social agency.” (Hendricks, 2015) (my emphasis)
Når vi taler om deltagelse, så taler vi uundgåeligt også om magt (se også dette indlæg), for hvis ikke deltagerne har magt, ““participation simply stops being participation” (Carpentier, 2011). Leg kræver en omfordeling af magten, så alle har indflydelse på legens udformning og udvikling, og ingen bestemmer det hele. Dermed skaber legen et rum, hvor vi kan udfordre reglerne, overskride forventningerne og skabe nye erkendelser. Vi er aktive deltagere i legen, og dermed også i den verden, hvor legen foregår. Leg rummer derfor også et stort og ofte overset demokratisk potentiale.
Leg er ikke altid, men ofte en social aktivitet. Når vi leger sammen er vi nødt til at respektere hinanden, og vi indgår i gensidige forhandlinger af legens roller, regler og formål. Det kræver en veludviklet empatisk sans at være en god legekammerat, men man kan netop også afprøve andre roller og identiteter for at se, hvad der fungerer. Legen rummer et “continuation desire” (Brown, 2009): legen vil fortsætte så længe som muligt. I legen søger vi ikke en ligevægtstilstand, men derimod dynamikken, der holder liv i legen. Vi omfavner det paradoksale og tilsyneladende modsætningsfyldte som legens drivkraft. At lege med andre gør det nemmere at “fastholde legestemningerne i længere tid, end hvis man leger alene” (Skovbjerg Karoff, 2013), netop fordi flere “legere” gør situationen mere uforudsigelig og flertydig:
“I legens stemninger er man særligt åben over for, hvad der skal ske, hvad der kan ske, og man er indstillet på og håber på andres åbenhed […] I legens stemninger må man sige ja til meget, og man er indstillet på, at meget kan lade sig gøre. Den fordring gælder både en selv og andre i legen stemning” (Skovbjerg, 2016).
Eller med andre ord: en leg er kun rigtig god, hvis man er nærværende, sætter sig selv på spil, hvis man lytter og respekterer de andre, hvis man tager hensyn, og hvis man finder en måde at være sammen på, som giver alle en god oplevelse. Lidt lige som så mange andre aspekter af livet, kan man tilføje.
Det er selvfølgelig en meget overfladisk gennemgang af både leg og dannelse, men forhåbentlig er det tydeligt, at de to fænomener hænger tæt sammen, og begge er direkte koblet til det mest basalt menneskelige.
Jeg vil derfor ganske enkelt foreslå, at vi i højere grad betragter “det legende menneske” som et aktuelt dannelsesideal.
Vent lige et øjeblik.
Ovenfor har jeg talt om leg som aktivitet, og nu taler jeg om “det legende” (på engelsk: “playfulness”), som er noget andet:
“Playfulness is a physical, psychological, and emotional attitude toward things, people, and situations. It is a way of engaging with the world derived from our capacity to play but lacking some of the characteristics of play” (Sicart, 2014)
Det er netop “det legende” som en attitude, et mindset og en tilgang til livet og verden, der har min største opmærksomhed. Jeg er overbevist om, at legende mennesker er godt rustet til at leve gode liv og være aktive medborgere i en kompleks og kaotisk verden. Det helt afgørende er, at “det legende menneske” ikke bliver til en destination eller et slutmål, men en tilgang til livet, en måde at være til på. Det legende menneske er ikke et “afkast” af snævert målstyrede læringsprocesser, det kan ikke kontrolleres, men er resultatet af et levet liv i al dets uoverskuelige kompleksitet:
“It’s wrong to think of playing as the interruption of ordinary life. Consider instead playing as the underlying, always-there continuum of experience” (Richard Schechner)
Hvis det legende menneske således også er et dannet menneske, så er spørgsmålet selvfølgelig, hvordan man bliver legende?
Jeg tror (et dannet menneske er som nævnt også et tvivlende menneske) at legen som aktivitet kan skabe rum, hvor vi, alene og i fællesskab, kan udforske, hvad det vil sige at være legende. Når vi leger, øver vi os i at være legende, og vi minder os selv om, at den måde at være til på også kan finde sted uden for legen. Det er, som en sidebemærkning, det rum vi forsøger at skabe med CounterPlay festivalen:
“What inspired me most was the camaraderie, the ease of conversation and exchange as if we had all known each other for decades, the lack of pretension anywhere”
Leg (eller, mere præcist, “play”) er blevet beskrevet som “free movement within a more rigid structure” (Salen & Zimmerman, 2003), og det er godt at huske på. Vil man legen, så skal man give den plads og rum til at udfolde sig. Her ligger den måske største udfordring i dag: vi frygter friheden, det ukontrollerede og uforudsigelige så meget, at vi hele tiden prøver at udgrænse det. Det er imidlertid legens brændstof, og dermed præcis den udfordring, vi skal tage fat på, hvis vi vil realisere leg som dannelsesideal.
Lad mig slutte med et citat fra legeforsker Helle Marie Skovbjergs bog, “Perspektiver på leg” som en fælles opdfordring til, med Helles ord, at tage legen alvorligt:
“Vi skal støtte legen ved at skabe plads til, at legen kan foregå mange steder, på mange tidspunkter, og det vil sige ved at omfavne de lege og legesituationer, som vi oplever virker – for deltagerne. At tage legen alvorligt vil præcis sige, at deltagernes meningsproduktion tillægges en værdi, betragtes som noget, der er centralt for det liv, som de lever. Her fortæller de, hvem de er, og kommer med bud på, hvad det vil sige at være et menneske. At tage legen alvorligt er at tage alt det menneskelige alvorligt.”
[su_box title=”Lad os snakke sammen!” box_color=”#014341″ title_color=”#ffffff” radius=”5″]Hvad tænker du “det legende menneske” som dannelsesideal? Lad mig høre fra dig i kommentarfeltet herunder![/su_box]
[toc]I am writing this post in response to the call issued by Mathias in his blog post, to “collect and share bits and pieces that demonstrate the power of play to play with power.” I agree that we live at an interesting moment, when it is worth considering whether and what kind of potential lies in games to inspire a challenging of power, and a critique of power structures. I have been involved with a number of projects that have specifically set out to play with power, or to critique power in playful ways, and this post is an opportunity to connect together the dots of those projects. I’ll start with a little bit of relevant theory and then move on to some examples from games and from my own research.
Turning a lens on how power is enacted
Ian Bogost makes an argument in his book, “Persuasive Games: the expressive power of videogames,” that the unique experiential characteristic of game playing, the one that is not available with other media, is the requirement of the player to carry out procedures. For example, in a truck driving game, such as Euro Truck Simulator, you’re not simply told about a truck driver, you act as a truck driver making decisions under the constraints that a truck driver typically operates under. You take orders for deliveries, collect trailers full of food and other goods, and drive those goods to far away parts of Europe, following a GPS system, obeying traffic laws and earning money for on-time delivery. Interestingly, sometimes, when you are running low on funds, you find that you need to break the speed limit in order to make the delivery in time.
According to Bogost, a game can make a powerful argument by requiring your participation in a task, upon which you can later reflect. Instead of being told that truck drivers operate in circumstances that encourage dangerous driving, we experience that pressure ourselves, and understand the importance and power of economic concerns in the day to day decisions of truck drivers. Playing a game makes us act out the argument that it is trying to communicate. It makes us complicit in that argument. In this way, games can make arguments that are very subtle. They can help us understand why people make decisions that initially may seem to be lazy, or dangerous, or against their own interest. The player is placed in a difficult situation, where in order to manage their resources in a strategic manner, they are forced to make decisions of which they would otherwise disprove.
There are some very good examples of games that make these types of procedural arguments. Papers, Please places the player in the role of a border official, who must check the documents of immigrants:
As the game progresses, government rules over documentation change regularly and the border official must approve more and more documents per day in order to support the needs of their family. We understand better after playing the game, how these officials make errors, but also why they are often open to bribery. In effect, this game makes an argument about power – instead of blaming the corrupt and stupid border officials, we learn to blame the difficult circumstances that they have been placed under. In the game 3rd World Farmer we are forced to make decisions such as whether to accept toxic waste to be dumped on our land in order to pay for medicine for a sick child. We realise that, given the pressures faced and the resources we have, that there is essentially no solution, or winning condition to this game.
This section shows how games can make very subtle arguments about the way in which power is enacted. It can turn our attention away from blaming individual human errors, and onto understanding and criticising systemic pressures that those people experience in their lives.
Blowtooth is a game developed by Ben Kirman in collaboration with myself and Shaun Lawson, when we all worked together at the University of Lincoln. It is a location-based game that asks players to smuggle virtual drugs through real airport security. The intention of the game, unlike those discussed above, is not to engender empathy in the player for real drug smugglers, but rather to direct attention on the security apparatus of the international airport.
As we write in the paper:
Blowtooth is specifically designed to exploit the affordances of international airports: environments in which people are subject to particularly high levels of intrusive surveillance and security monitoring.
Airports have been described as constituting the most authoritarian facility designed for the use of free civilians, an authoritative structure rivalled only by army bases and maximum security prisons. Kellerman describes the movement of passengers through the various security checks imposed by airport authorities in great detail [8] and discusses the impact of these checks on the experience of the international traveller. Throughout this analysis he draws attention to the ubiquitous presence and power of authority figures and the effect of causing tension and anxiety amongst travellers, staff and officials alike (see also [18]). Indeed, airports are places in which oppressive control technologies are implemented and people’s expectations of privacy are altered. Authorities have extra powers to search and detain individuals and there are different expectations on travellers’ behaviour than would be expected outside of this context.
Thus, through asking the player to act as a drug smuggler, Blowtooth invites the player to more closely examine the security and power structures of the airport – something that most travelers have come to take for granted. Indeed, a quick study demonstrated that Blowtooth provoked participants to think more critically about both the nature of airports, and the idea of playing games in high security environments,
FearSquare is a website / hack / game developed by Andy Garbett, along with Ben, Shaun and myself, and was later the source of much interesting discussion with Jamie Wardman, and expert in risk communication. FearSquare was developed in response to the decision by the UK government to release crime statistics monthly, at a street-by-street level of detail, as both an interactive map and an easy-to-use API. The release of this map was advertised as a move towards improving transparency in public services. However, as academics, we were very concerned about the social and psychological effects of generating an easily searchable map of all crimes in the UK. For example, what does this information do to those people who find themselves in a “red” zone? What about their house prices and their public services? What about the decisions of people making journeys – will they avoid red zones? Essentially, we were worried that this crime map would become a force that would encourage ghettoisation. It has the potential to further inequality. Thus, we created a playful response in the form of FearSquare.
FearSquare is an application which allows FourSquare users in the UK to easily see the official crime statistics for the places where you ‘check-in’. The intention is to give you a uniquely individual look at the levels and types of crimes you are exposed to in your daily life. Fearsquare provides users with personally contextualized risk information drawn from UK government ‘open data’ crime maps cross-referenced with check-ins from the location-based social network Foursquare.
Apart from providing crime statistics information for the places that you visit, FearSquare uses some simple game mechanics in an attempt to invert the rhetoric of the UK Crime Map. Players are given a score based on the “danger” level of their check-ins. Leaderboards are created, which reward players with more consistently “dangerous” check-ins. The intention here was to subvert the argument of the map (i.e., that some places are dangerous and should be avoided) by offering rewards for visiting those places, and through doing so undermining the power of those statistics.
Fearsquare was successful in engaging users for a variety of reasons, including, humour and novelty as well as provoking reflection on important societal issues regarding ethical, social and psychological questions underlying interaction with technology and open government data. Our observations of tweets of this, more critically engaged, nature demonstrated that some users were prompted to think and reflect more deeply and concertedly about the wider issues resulting from use of Fearsquare, digital crime maps and CMC-R (Computer Mediated Communication of Risk).
Leaderboards were also created for the most dangerous check-in locations. Hilariously, a police station was consistently the most dangerous place in the UK, due to a quirk in how some crimes are reported.
This post is probably long enough at the moment, but before finishing I will just point to another few projects that involved some form of playing with power, which readers may find interesting.
The paper “Games Against Health” critiques the many recent examples of “games for health” – suggesting that this trend is an essentially neo-liberal one, where government places personal responsibility for healthy living on the citizen in place of providing health care services.
I’ll finish with another quote from Mathias’ blog post: “play is powerful because it invites us to play with power.” I’m very interested to read further examples of people playing with power.
Bogost, I. (2007). Persuasive games: The expressive power of videogames. MIT Press.
Linehan, C., Kirman, B., Lawson, S., & Doughty, M. (2010). Blowtooth: pervasive gaming in unique and challenging environments. In CHI’10 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2695-2704). ACM.
Garbett, A., Wardman, J., Kirman, B., Linehan, C., & Lawson, S. (2014). Fearsquare: hacking open crime data to critique, jam and subvert the ‘aesthetic of danger’. In Proceedings of Korean HCI conference 2014.
Linehan, C., Harrer, S., Kirman, B., Lawson, S., & Carter, M. (2015). Games against health: a player-centered design philosophy. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 589-600). ACM.
Kirman, B., Lineham, C., & Lawson, S. (2012). Exploring mischief and mayhem in social computing or: how we learned to stop worrying and love the trolls. In CHI’12 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 121-130). ACM.
Kirman, B., Linehan, C., Lawson, S., & O’Hara, D. (2013). CHI and the future robot enslavement of humankind: a retrospective. In CHI’13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2199-2208). ACM.
[Image text: Alex is a friendly guy, but what if he was not? How could this pose be a demonstration of power?]
The theme for CounterPlay ’17 is “The Power of Play“, and I urge you to not solely understand it in the “usual” sense. I believe the phrase is commonly used to point towards, well, “the power of play”, the way play is powerful and holds transformative potential in a wide range of situations throughout our lives.
I obviously agree that play is massively powerful, and I think this is, in part, due to the participatory nature of play, which again means play is powerful because it invites us to play with power:
This is to say that if there is not a shift of power, if those expected to participate are not powerful (to a never precisely defined extent), “at some point participation simply stops being participation”. Participation, then, should not be used as a glossy term to hide the fact that often, there is no real power for the socalled participants. Exactly the same can be said about play and playfulness. Do you want to cultivate a playful culture in the workplace? Well, it can’t be sugarcoating (like ping-pong tables or other gimmicks), it needs to be embedded in the fabric, and it requires actual power and decision making to be put in the hands of those you expect to play along.
I reiterated this in my discussion of “playwashing“:
play is only real if it entails real participation and participation is only real if it entails a redistribution of power among the participants. Consequently, an organization is not playful if there is not a connection between the proclaimed presence of play in the organization and the distribution of power.
Do the opportunities to play (if they are at all there) come with real agency and influence? Are employees frequently engaging in negotiations of rules and purpose of the work they’re doing? Is there a real sense of ownership and a shared responsibility?
This way of framing or understanding play, as inherently participatory, subversive, rebellious even, is rapidly becoming more important as politicians all around the world are increasingly ignoring or downright limiting our opportunities for civic participation and, eventually, our freedom. As Bernie DeKoven has told us time and again, “play is freedom” and games are metaphors that allow us to “imagine freedom“. Clay Mazing shows it. Miguel Sicart writes about it:
Play is like language— a way of being in the world, of making sense of it. It takes place in a context as a balance between creation and destruction, between adherence to a structure and the pleasures of destruction. Playing is freedom.
Playfulness frees us from the dictates of purpose through the carnivalesque inheritance of play. Through playful appropriation, we bring freedom to a context.
If play has a central quality, it is that this behavior (as action, interaction, and activity), first of all, celebrates people’s abilities to craft their own responses to circumstances free from interference. That distinctive process of making and interpreting, what I have called ascending meaning, is connected intimately to the project of human freedom.
I’m convinced that playful people are better equipped to play with power, to challenge power, and to insist on freedom, but I also believe we need to explore this in more breadth and depth. Following our logic of cross-pollination and deploying a kaleidoscopic view on play is what leads me to the “invitation” part of this (already too long) post:
Let’s collect and share bits and pieces that demonstrate the power of play to play with power.
I’m thinking we could do a series of blog posts right here, but as always, I’m open to any suggestion that will make us, as a community, more knowledgeable on the power of play. Who knows, maybe it can lead to real, powerful and playful activism?
Do you want to play along? Will you share your experiences, insights and ideas?
We insist that the process of organizing CounterPlay must be as open, inclusive and explorative as (we hope) the festival is. This also makes it slightly more unpredictable and chaotic, and just like when we’re playing, we don’t know exactly where we end up. This is not a bug, but a feature; it is entirely by design (also when we sometimes lose control, how can we make anything playful if we control everything?).
We have, once again, had an overwhelming response to our call for proposals with so many wonderful people suggesting the most amazing and playful activities for CounterPlay ’17. We strive to design a program that mirrors the diversity of play, cultivating a diverse community in the process. We are also moving towards ever more playful formats to create an atmosphere, where everybody feels safe enough to risk not being taken seriously when they interact playfully with each other.
In addition to the amazing proposals, we are working with many good people to design activities specifically for the festival, not least for our special focus on playful cities / playful citizens“, where we will host a range of workshops, play sessions and open debate. There will also be a big, open creative space (the cardboard area from CounterPlay ’16). We are inspired by things like “Stupid Hackathon” and “Hebocon crappy robot contest”, so here you can make stupid, silly, useless things out of everything from digital technologies over wood and cardboard to broken toys.
While the schedule is not yet ready, the structure will be similar to that of CounterPlay ’16, so take a look at that program. This means that there will be “plenary sessions” where we all get together, many parallel tracks with workshops and play sessions, dinner on Thursday evening, and Saturday, April 1st, will once more be organized like an “unconference” for discussion and contemplation. Apart from the things we schedule, the festival wants to be hacked, so we expect numerous playful interventions we won’t know about.
For now, take a look at this list of all the activities and people we have confirmed for the festival – with (much) more to come in the beginning of 2017!
On Wednesday, December 7, we discussed “play in public spaces”, and wow, what an amazing conversation!
This is the third chat, and it’s been wonderful to see how “new” people keep joining the community. Twitter is particularly good for this because it is so open, and people can just drop in at any time, when they notice that something is going on – like Iain here did:
awwwww… forgive me. I accidentally wondered into it, but it’s been awesome! When’s the next one?
While we’re not so interested in the size of the community as such, we’re very interested in the diversity and the range of perspectives represented. There were so many valuable points being made about the nature and importance of play in public spaces, as well as the challenges we are facing and possible (very creative!) solutions:
A2: there is a shared vulnerability in public play. In acknowledging this, is where a wonderful social cohesion starts perhaps #cplaydk
“It’s greenwashing when a company or organization spends more time and money claiming to be “green” through advertising and marketing than actually implementing business practices that minimize environmental impact. It’s whitewashing, but with a green brush” – Greenwashing Index
Inspired by the fairly well known concept “greenwashing”, I have coined a similar phrase that has proven useful to me:
Playwashing
So far, I have only used it casually in conversations, but building on the description of greenwashing above, I suggest the following working definition:’
“Playwashing describes the situation where a company or organization spends more time and money claiming to be “playful” through advertising and marketing than actually implementing strategies and business practices that cultivate a playful culture in said organization”
With this initial definition (which very much is up for debate), I consider it playwashing when a company conveys the image of allowing its employees to engage in work that share central characteristics with play without living up to this promise. You may be allowed to play a game at work, but this often happens in confined spaces and disconnected from the actual work. The popular foosball table is a good example of this, as it signifies play, but how often does the activity of playing this game have deeper ties to company culture?
Like greenwashing, playwashing paints an inaccurate or downright false picture of the organization in question. This is a dishonest practice and hence a problem in itself. It is used in many forms of branding, including that which is directed at potential future employees – “employer branding”. Many people might want to work in a playful organization, but will likely be disappointed if this amounts to no more than a ping-pong table or video games to be played during breaks.
In the best case, these games provide people with a much needed break, whereas in the worst case it is used to disguise or sweeten what could perhaps most accurately be described as exploitation; Mere sugarcoating on an otherwise unacceptable proposal, a means of coercion to make people work harder and more. Yes, the games can be a first step in a more playful direction, and they can certainly be part of an ambitious playful strategy (I recall the notion of “the necessary hypocrisy” from organization studies: you say something that is not yet aligned with your actions, but you say it to guide you in that direction). If they exist in isolation, however, disconnected from management decisions, company culture and daily work practices, it is probably playwashing.
Playwashing is not illegal, of course, but it doesn’t have much to do with the primary purpose of CounterPlay: to cultivate playful communities, and, in turn, contribute to a more playful world. I suspect that most forms of playwashing doesn’t do much to help us achieve that goal. It is common and tempting to hope for easy solutions to complex problems, and many seem to believe that games or technologies will work wonders if simply dropped into whichever context (be it work, education or life in general). In most situations, it won’t. It will only lead to disappointment and frustration if there is no willingness to address the underlying problems and pursue real transformation.
Do you want to cultivate a playful culture in the workplace? Well, it can’t be sugarcoating (like ping-pong tables or other gimmicks), it needs to be embedded in the fabric, and it requires actual power and decision making to be put in the hands of those you expect to play along.
As I have argued elsewhere, play is only real if it entails real participation and participation is only real if it entails a redistribution of power among the participants. Consequently, an organization is not playful if there is not a connection between the proclaimed presence of play in the organization and the distribution of power. In fact, the foosball table might be a more appropriate metaphor than I first imagined, since the players are all fixed in one place, without any real maneuverability or agency, they can only go round and round in circles, while controlled by someone else.
Do the opportunities to play (if they are at all there) come with real agency and influence? Are employees frequently engaging in negotiations of rules and purpose of the work they’re doing? Is there a real sense of ownership and a shared responsibility?
There are many other characteristics of play to look for, of course, that we can use to determine if playwashing is taking place in any given organization. Does a culture of fear permeate the organization? Do employees dare to experiment, take risks and suggest new solutions? Is there room for creativity and serendipity? Is silliness allowed?
We experience a growing interest in play these years, which is mostly good, but I find reason to question how much of it is sincere and founded in a deeper understanding of and respect for play. Maybe the notion of “playwashing” can be a useful tool to examine the depth of engagement with play; is it real or only skin deep, a decoy, a simple tool to avoid asking the hard questions and making more complex changes?
The people in the play community play with each other, of course, but it is also a space for reflection and conversation. Conversations between people, sure, but also between ideas, thoughts, things that are written and things that are spoken; Exchanges, interactions, meetings of minds, ambitions and dreams.
At the same time, I agree that for play to be considered as important as it should be, for all the work being carried out to have meaning (and for me personally to spend this much time on the subject), we have to explore and show the value of play. We need a better language, a deeper understanding, a greater sensitivity to all the nuances and complexities inherent to play.
På den anden side frygter jeg, at det i et vist omfang blot er en overfladisk interesse; noget man siger, fordi det lyder godt, og giver indtryk af at det man taler om har dybe rødder. Det minder i den forstand ikke så lidt om den lige så udbredte begejstring for leg. Det er nok snarere reglen end undtagelsen at både leg og dannelse opfattes som et middel til noget andet eller som noget meget konkret, der måske reelt set snarere er færdigheder og kompetencer (tag nu bare diskussionen om “digital dannelse” eller den gamle sang om “leg og læring”).
Når vi taler om deltagelse, så taler vi uundgåeligt også om magt (
FearSquare 
In the best case, these games provide people with a much needed break, whereas in the worst case it is used to disguise or sweeten what could perhaps most accurately be described as exploitation; Mere sugarcoating on an otherwise unacceptable proposal, a means of coercion to make people work harder and more. Yes, the games can be a first step in a more playful direction, and they can certainly be part of an ambitious playful strategy (I recall the notion of “.jpg){kind=link}