Paper short abstract:

This paper examines differing degrees of "simultaneity" in three case studies from the Ruhr region, which examine the use of artistic games modeled on real-life structures as tools of critical pedagogy and generators of "non-places."

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines differing degrees of "simultaneity" in three case studies from the Ruhr region, which examine the use of artistic games modeled on real-life structures as tools of critical pedagogy and generators of "non-places."

The first non-place is the floor of a stock exchange in which people exchange utopic visions written by regular by-standers previously solicited in the street. Within such a scheme, a competition between individuals also serves as an agora where personal wishes and dreams become visible, public, and circulated. The model of the stock exchange thus becomes a means for a kind of "deliberative" democracy where ideas for city improvement acquire differentiating value and legitimation through the trading of shares. The second case study examines the role of simultaneity in a six-month project Investment Zone in which "players" invest real money into an empty plot of land under the rubric of game. The third case study focuses on Rimini Protokoll's Situation Rooms, which adapts the technology of Ipads to address the various roles people play that support and enable globalized weapons trade. Over the course of ninety minutes, participants cycle through ten different characters and play their role in various dialogical situations and scenarios, thereby experiencing different sets of emotions and differing degrees of culpability.

Overall, this comparison raises issues regarding how differing degrees of identification/non-identification impact the aesthetic experience of play and sense of responsibility, as well as the possibility for real-world effects (i.e. blurring between frames of fantasy and reality)

Paper short abstract:

the ethnography of the climbing wall shows how late-modern sporting transformations of play help generalise 'from below' the habitus of a distinctively post-sovereign instrumental modernity

Paper long abstract:

Risking frivolity, the ethnography of a climbing wall nonetheless suggests theoretic reward. This is because the climbing wall enfolds mechanisms that crystallise a set of simultaneities of key contemporary significance, namely (i) the simultaneity of play and the threat of death; (ii) the simultaneity of artifice and the cosmic equalisation of copy and reality; and (iii) the carnivalesque simultaneity of playful body-practice and the convergence of sporting bodies upon emergent structures of power. Whilst, in varying degrees, these three simultaneities typify all modern sporting transformations of play and explain why sport is germane to the durability of modern regimes of power, the ethnography of the climbing wall shows how late-modern sporting transformations of play help precipitate and generalise 'from below' the habitus of a distinctively post-sovereign instrumental modernity

Paper short abstract:

In this paper I explore how inhabitants of the online world MovieStarPlanet deal with the always imminent threat of being "hacked" by strangers and friends. I argue that avatars are key sites of playful posthuman self-formation, yet always volatile and potentially subject to social exclusion.

Paper long abstract:

Children in Norway increasingly inhabit online worlds, where they craft avatars and hang out and play games with friends. In this paper I draw on ethnographic fieldwork among 8- and 9-year-olds to explore the fragility of avatars in an online world called MovieStarPlanet. I show how avatars constitute key sites of playful self-formation, and how the simultaneity of present and future selves contributes to the close bonds users develop towards their avatars. The children's attachment to their avatars is often accompanied, however, by the always imminent threat of being "hacked", or having one's user account taken over by others. Users of MovieStarPlanet can never be certain who is in control of other avatars, and trust therefore has to be continuously negotiated among friends as well as strangers. I show how certain in-world mechanisms, such as the opportunity to "block" and "report" users who do not conform to the rules, indicate an egalitarian value system based on the ideal that all users should have equal opportunities to participate. These values are often undermined in practice, however, as children use "block" and "report" buttons in subversive ways to exclude others, regardless of whether they have in fact broken any rules. Although the emergence of online worlds appears in some ways to fulfil the promise of an egalitarian utopia, I argue that online sociality also entails the creation of new forms of social exclusion.

Paper short abstract:

In this presentation I will discuss about the utopic goal to experiencing freedom in the paradoxal act of "playing yourself" in the hyper-visibility, during the postcolonial mundane carnival of Trinidad-and-Tobago.

Paper long abstract:

The Trinidad-and-Tobago masquerade carnival is designed as a place of temporary, utopic, interracial communion that allows the simultaneous representation of 'self' and 'other' in the image of the marching person. The etymological origin of the word person - personare in Latin - means to masquerade. It indicates a performance of a temporary character "in becoming" which counteracts the visible desires to belong to a specific social status, and, conversely, it portrays an invisible mask through postures. In its contemporary form, however, carnival is characterized by the absence of masks. Its motto to "play yourself" is directly connected with the desire to "loosen up" through the act of playing in the parade. The paradox of persons marching in a masquerade without using masks allows for the embodiment of an invisible facade made of organic imaginary that superficially reflects ordinary identities. This entails a multi-layered experience of simultaneity in the globalized condition of the Trinidadian mundane society, popularly known as the post-colonial Caribbean 'happy nation'. The unseen mask exhibits the participants in their recognisable hyper-visibility and questions the reproducibility of social imaginations. Playing 'freedom' creates a liminal space, which puts players in a simultaneous between position with identity, confirmation-conformation and imagination. I argue that due to the elimination of masks popular interracial and inter-subjective ideals are both portrayed and challenged in a hyper visibility that enhances the public negotiation of class and racial categories in contemporary Trinidad-and-Tobago.

Paper short abstract:

Since a measure of concealment is inherent in jealousy and seduction, both these play-forms, render 'invisible' those actions that challenge conventional moral injunctions.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I examine ordinary ethical practices that underpin intimate relations in the Brazilian state of Maranhão. I focus ethnographically on jealousy and seduction as complementary forms of play, which simultaneously affirm and challenge such aspects of emotional relatedness as trust and love. I argue that since a measure of concealment is inherent in both these play-forms, they render 'invisible' those actions that challenge conventional moral injunctions, such as sexual infidelity. I consequently offer an ethnographic theory of 'invisibility' by which opacity, uncertainty and paradox become intrinsic to the emergence of intimate relations as ethical practices in their own right.