Oyun araştırmaları üzerine çalışan birçok kişi, Hollandalı kültür tarihçisi Johan Huizinga'nın ünlü Homo Ludens eserinde yer alan "Oyun, Kültür'den daha eskidir" tümcesini çok özel bulurlar. Bu tümcenin ne söylemeye çalıştığını tam kavramasalar da, onda büyülü bir bilgelik görmek hoşlarına gider. Muhtemelen birçok oyun araştırmacısı,  ciddiyetten uzak bir şey olarak düşünülen oyunlara saygınlık kazandıran bir deyiş gibi görüyor bu cümleyi. Birisi size "Oyun mu? Büyüseniz ya Siz artık, kuzum" dediğinde, "Bir kere oyun, kültürden daha eski, tamam mı?" diye bir cevap yapıştırabilirsiniz o densize.

Hemen söylemek gerekir ki, tümceyi yukarıdaki şekillerde yorumlamak, her halükarda yazarın bu tümce ile söylemek istediği şeyin uzağında kalacaktır. Bunlar, zaman zaman yüreğimize ne kadar su serpseler de, "yanlış" yorumlardır. Bu tümce ancak Huizinga'nin bu çalışmasının dayandırıldiği kültür kavrayışı göz önünde tutulursa doğru biçimde anlaşılabilir. Bu da tümcedeki ağırlığın aslında oyun sözcüğünde değil, kültür sözcüğünde olduğunu görmeyi gerektirir. Çünkü Homo Ludens, oyunlardan önce kültür üzerine bir kitaptır. Huizinga'nın anlayışı Kültür'ü, Richard Rorty'n günümüzdeki çalışmalarında sıkça ele aldığı bir "olumsallık" anlayışı çerçevesinde, inşa halinde ve kalıcılığı da garanti olmayan bir görüngü olarak, özünde maddeci bir açıdan ele alıyor. Onun kültüre yaklaşımı, "Kültür, insanlık kadar eski" ("ve oyunlar ondan da eski") sözüyle onu daha baştan 'doğal' bir şeymiş gibi gösterip sonra da çabucak ideal olanının hangisi olduğunu tartışmaya geçmiyor; bunun yerine, "Allah Allah, bu kültür de nereden çıktı şimdi, bu daha önce yoktu" deyip, "bu şey çıkalı biz ne yapıyoruz kendimize, şart mı bunu böyle yapmak, yapmasak ne olur?" gibi bir sorgulama seyrine giriyor.

Olumsal ve maddeci bu anlayışın aksi yönünde bu tümce idealist ve ilerlemeci bir tarih felsefesine dayanarak yorumlandığındaysa, oyun olgusu birden "ezeli" ve "ebedi" gibi iki kutup içine yerleştirilmiş oluyor ve şu anlamı kazanıyor: "Oyun o kadar eski ki, kültür'den bile önce geliyor", "Sen neymişsin be Oyun!" vs... Diğer bir deyişle, böyle bir yorumla, tarihin en üst aşamasını "bugün"de gören evrimci-gelişmeci bir düşünce tarzı kendine bir tür "big bang" yaratmış oluyor sadece. Böylece de bu tümcenin esas konuya -günümüze!- gelmeden önce baştansavma bir giriş olarak kullanılma olasılığı da artmış oluyor. Bu tür bir yaklaşımın çok önem veriyormuş gibi göründüğü tarihe ne kadar yüzeysel baktığını göstermek için dayandığı mantıksal kalıbı gözler önüne seren şu totolojik tümceye bakmak yeterli olacaktır: "İnsanlık en az insanlık kadar eskidir."

Huizinga'nın yaklaşımı bundan çok uzakta. O, temelde "Uygarlık nedir?" sorusunu sormakla kalmıyor, bunun ötesinde, bu "icadın" insanı nasıl etkilediği sorusunu soruyor.  Biz kendi halimizde canlılar olarak yaşayıp bugün "oyun" denen davranışları da ara ara sergilerken, nasıl kültür ve uygarlık denen "sürekli yapılar" içinde bulduk kendimizi?  Huizinga'nin analitik tasarımında oyun-kültür ikiliği, kültür'e olağandışı birşey olarak, eleştirel bir mesafeyle  bakabilmenin bir aracı olarak var, yoksa gücünü kronolojik sırasından alan bir hiyerarşiyi dillendirmiyor bu kavram ikilisi. "Oyun kültürden daha eskidir" sözü, bu anlamda herşeyden önce Huizinga'nın yaklaşım ve metodunu özetler; bu söz onun epistemesinin mottosudur.

Kuşkusuz bunda "uygarlığın ideolojisi" sayılabilecek "süreklilik yanılsaması"nı sorgulayan bir yan da var. Fransız tarihçi Fernand Braudel'in de dediği gibi, "uygarlıklar sürekliliklerdir"; deneyimlere ilişkin birikimler, onları içselleştiren ve ölümlü olan kişilerle birlikte yok olmadığı için; bu birikimler çeşitli dil ve gösterge sistemleri içinde bir şekilde saklanabildiği ve sonradan gelenlerin erişimine hazır tutulabildiği için... Böylece süreklilik, ancak sürekliliğin kurumları ile birlikte vardır. Ancak şimdiye kadar sağlanan sürekliliğin kısalığı, bu süreklilik yanılsamasının üzerimizde ne kadar etkili olabildiğini de gözler önüne seriyor. Hep vardık, hep varolacağız sanıyoruz. Oysa bu her zaman şüpheli bir durumdur: Insanların uygarlıkla sonuçlanan süreklilik sağlayıcı kurumlarını sürekli kılabildikleri süre,  tarihin bütünü karşısında bir göz kırpma süresine bile eşit değildir: Insan ve insansıların varolduğu 5 milyon yıla karşılık, uygarlıklar dediğimiz özgül kültürel biçimler ancak 5000 yıllık bir geçmişe sahip. Üstelik 1940'lardan bu yana da bu sürekliliğine bir anda son verip kendisiyle birlikte herşeyi unutuşa gömme gücüne de "kavuştu" bu "Kültür": Şu an kullanıma hazır tutulan nükleer silahların sayısının dünyayı 100 kere yok etmeye "yetebileceği" tahmin ediliyor. Diğer bir deyişle, soy gibi, "kültür" de tükenebilir. En "uygar" dediğimiz anlarımızda bile her zaman için Yeşil Karıncaların Düş Gördüğü Yer'in kıyılarında [1] geziniyoruz.

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Notlar:

[1] "Orman"da "keşfedilen", "Uygarlık"tan bihaber, yazı ya da başka bir kayıt sistemi olmayan bir kabilenin, üzerilerinde araştırma yapılması için onları "şehre" götüren uçağın düşmesi sonucunda, ardında kültürlerini belgeleyebilecek hiçbir kayıt bırakmadan yok oluşunu anlatan bir öykü.

Volume will publish in December its fourth issue of this year entitled ‘After Zero’ and the Van Abbemuseum is opening on 4 October the ‘Heartland’ exhibition. There are clear ideological links between these projects. The institutes share an interdisciplinary research approach plus both teams attempt to understand social, cultural and environmental sustainability in a manner, which is disconnected from development discourse and market driven practice.

The discussion was started by a presentation by Marjectica Potrc and then after Andrew Herscher.

Potrc linked the disillusionment with state structures to a disillusionment with modernist architecture. She illustrated this with imagery of decaying social housing and school buildings in New Orleans. Post capitalism, she argued, can be understood as entering a stage of survival. According to Potrc one can see in Albania’s capital Tirana how a societal agreement by citizens who go against modernism works out. She referred to the painting project of Edi Rama. Potrc also mentioned that societies which came into being in a situation of post capitalism do sustainable design in a local way: more autonomous, with vernacular methods and focused on self-sustainability. As an example she presented the Shot Gun house. As such, post-capitalism implied for her to a degree also a sort of post nationalism, which could be seen in the arising of city-networks in former Yugoslavia. A theme she research in her Lost Highway project.

Herscher, who discussed a project, entitled the Detroit Unreal Estate Agency, argued that Detroit in the normal economic, political and cultural narrative is characterized as a city of the urban sublime, the shrinking city (empty spaces), ruins, a forgotten city or a city of loss (in terms of population, economic and urbanity). The city transforms because of these narratives into something invisible. The city slipped kind of trough the literal economy. Yet, Herscher pleas that we might as well consider it a transformation with what it gains other values, namely in terms of the dream or the desire, the non-existent according to capitalism. As such, the city becomes the site of creativity instead of the site of inefficiency, danger and inflation. Herscher claims focusing unreal estate is not an attempt to discard the suffering and violence in Detroit, which capitalism normalizes, but it’s an immediate pressure on our concept sustainability and our view on the urban condition.

The discussion, which followed could be summarized by the statement that sustainability is in many ways the next stage in a class war. To really understand what is happening in a city in terms of sustainable development over time, we need not only to zoom out spatially but also temporally. A practice of the post capitalist city which might enhance a different kind of sustainability could be brought about by the practice of play of try-outs, in other words the practice of the homo ludens. A practice of play would most likely challenge boundaries of the private and the public. During a short voIP conversation with Design 99, an artist couple in Detroit on their practice and living in Detroit, we attempted to understand in which ways a local art practice which promotes a certain kind of sustainable living, could transform local official policy

Then after the workshop group split up to work on a glossary of the post capitalist city.

Contribution by Marjetica Potrc, Andrew Herscher, Mireille Roddier and Stephanie Smith will be included in the VOLUME issue.

Some pictures of the meeting

My favorite type of game is a sim. I remember one called Lords of the Realm from the 90s. They probably have newer versions. I'm just using what I remember from a long time ago. Medieval barons managing their serfdoms and vanquishing rivals. Sounds familiar, right? Maybe this isn't far from what's going on.

As naive serfs, surf's up, we're not supposed to know much about the "nature" of stock markets and derivatives, and I for one really don't want to hear some formal treatise about it, or wait for a piece of the pie at the end. I'm just looking at it from the perspective of a sim game. It really looks like one. The snobby rich are to me antiquated beings. Nothing more.

The problem is the media-infected, consumer zombies. Think about it. Who owns the media? Not you! The result is a consensus trance. And zombies just aren't playful. Props to George Romero, but ever since 1985's Return of the Living Dead, they have wanted "More brains!!" Any authority stiffens them. Education stiffens them up, too. And if they serve the ruling class and its interests, they can shove it. Anyways, a zombie's good for Halloween, but you shouldn't play one all year round.

Are we under compulsion to play? No, not at all. Close the rule books. A new attitude is all it takes, and you never have to be serious. As the awesomely bad speller Gonz says- get it strait, ride krooked. And here is the lesson no "life coach" will ever give you. Watch as the great Alan Watts explains the game-

1,  2,  3

Footnote

*The new Joker movie-"Why so serious?" Oh well. It's an archetype, the fool, right? And it's not owned by Hollywood blockbusters. But I do have a problem with overly serious people. They seem like ideologues and always ready to tell you what to think. They're stubborn sons of, too. I'm more like a Pele or a cat. I can play the game, but most of the time I don't care. To each his own.

egy jellemző kép.

De há muito que o ser humano joga. Nem vou repetir as ideias de Huizinga e o facto de ser(mos) homo ludens. Do tempo dos RPG (Role Playing Games) resta pouco hoje.

Estamos nos tempos dos MMOG (Massive Multiplayer Online Game). De entre as centenas de possibilidades e das dezenas de jogos de estratégia, escolhi, pela mão do meu filho mais velho, o Travian - jogo de estratégia medieval, jogado no web browser. Com estatuto de novata.

O que é que o Travian tem de especial? É um jogo de opções desde o início - da tribo a que se pertence (romanos, gauleses e teutões) -, no desenvolvimento (o principal objectivo do joagdor é aumentar os recursos da sua aldeia para construir edificios, treinar soldados, etc), a de escolhas para o uso dos recursos, de estratégia. Em tempo real. Portanto, a ter de dar tempo para acontecer, como na vida.

végigjátszottam gyorsan a half-life 2 episode one-t és two-t, belekóstoltam a gears of war-ba, de a többire nem volt már időm (oblivion, halo pl).
jó móka egyébként, ekkora tévén pláne, nagyon szépek a játékok, és hát csábító ugye, hogy nem kell állandóan fejleszteni.
ha lenne rá keret, akkor szenvednék azzal, hogy ps3 vagy xbox legyen-e, de mivel nincs, így ez a probléma megoldódott.

Marea durere şi extrema depresie apar în momentul când fiecare joc trebuie să îşi aleagă învingătorii! De ce mereu cineva trebuie să piardă? De ce jocurile nu se pot termina mereu la egalitate? Victoria unuia, înseamnă înfrângerea altuia; bucuria victoriei înseamnă în acelaşi timp lacrimile înfrângerii! Atât învingătorul cât şi învinsul tot oameni sunt. De ce învingătorii nu oferă mereu remiza din compasiune pentru cei care pierd, de multe ori din motive extrinsece lor? De ce spiritul de competiţie îi face pe câştigători atât de dornici de a vedea durerea înfrângerii în ceilalţi. Cum se poate bucura un învingător, când lângă el un suflet plânge amarnic? Cum poate plânge un învins când un suflet lângă el exultă de bucurie? Dualităţi, mereu dualităţi, iar noi toţi nu suntem altceva decât nişte sărmani peregrini între aceste două extreme. Remiza se acceptă doar când jocul nu are miză prea mare!

Os dejo un video del trabajo de J.O , impresionante.

The fever of the UEFA Cup 2008 has got me! -  I watch the (Russian) matches, take photos in the Fanzone of Vienna and read all the analytical articles on football :) And, typical of me, these actions make me think of the deeper sense of this phenomenon - a play.

The most fascinating and profound studies on play I found by the Dutch lingusit and historian Johan Huizinga (1872-1945). He was one of the founders of modern cultural history, started out as a student of Comparative linguistics, gaining a good command of Sanskrit. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the role of the jester in Indian drama. Huizinga had an aesthetic approach to history, where art and spectacle played an important part. His most famous work is The Autumn of the Middle Ages (a.k.a. The Waning of the Middle Ages). Intrstingly, he reinterprets the later Middle Ages as a period of pessimism and decadence rather than rebirth.

In his book Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture Huizinga argues that play is one of fundamental drivers of human life, and is at the root of poetry, music, philosophy - even jurisprudence and war. "The spirit of playful competition is, as a social impulse, older than culture itself and pervades all life like a veritable ferment. Ritual grew up in sacred play; poetry was born in play and nourished on play; music and dancing were pure play....We have to conclude, therefore, that civilization is, in its earliest phases, played. It does not come from play...it arises in and as play, and never leaves it."

Huizinga wrote his book on Homo Ludens (playful human) being a prisoner of Nazis. However the concept of Homo Ludens is completely different of the Uebermensch of the Facists. Huizinga predicted that Homo Sapiens would soon be replaced by machines and robots. Then there would be nothing left for humans but their feeling, their imagination and creativity. All the rest would be done better by computers. (and it is happening!)

Unfortunately there is no much information on this brilliant theory available in English (I found more in Dutch, German and Russian).

Here are the main conditions of a play by Johan Huizinga:

1. The play takes place out of the real world ("within the regulated time and space"). It should be a place and time period where no other activity is possible (stadium, casino, theater, golf place)
2. The regulating rules should be strict but willingly agreed upon. In the competitive games, where people tend to use the rules for their favour, there should be a judge.
3. No other goals than the win should be aimed. The game is not there to create the material values (like backing bread, fixing cars, exploring the cosmos). The football player wants to make a goal, the casino player- to win a million and they are not interested in other things.
4. And, finally - THE PLAY IS THERE TO BE ENJOYED! The play should be accompanied by the feelings of tension + relief -> enjoyment, as well as the feeling of "being in another world", other than the regular life. This condition can not be forced, however any game will die out if there will be no such feelings.

In my own life, I somehow had a difficulty with understanding a play since my childhood. I disliked theater because it was "not real". I surely played some games, but always had a strong feeling of being in a game and not willing to take it seriously (which is a necessary condition for playing!). I even thought I have a problem of not being able to play. Until one trainer said that this happens to people who simply need high goals and vision to be lead by. Otherwise they quit. That explained to me a lot :)

What I understand now:

• Life is indeed a play - a play, consiting of millions of other plays
• It is the matter of knowing the rules of the game!

P.S. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture, from the back cover: “[The writer] assembles and interprets one of the most fundamental elements of human culture: the instinct for play. Reading this volume, one suddenly discovers how profoundly the achievements in law, science, poverty, war, philosophy, and in the arts, are nourished by the instinct of play.”

LOVE, axinia

"Guys get home, have dinner, and play a computer game. It's much higher up the list of priorities. To put it bluntly, girls have got better things to do."

James Scalpello, wireless director at THQ (q. by Computer and Video Games)

This reminds me of this review for Burnout Paradise over at the Escapist Magazine: it's just a game where you crash and destroy and watch your car go vroom over yards of tarmac. It's not for people who want to spend hours and hours in front of their console, but just those that are looking for a brainless game they can pick up at any time because they're too busy having so much sex in their ordinary lives. Pretty damn sweet if you're a guy, it relieves frustration while most women would rather cry instead of doing something to relieve stress according to some magazines. I'm a fan of that saying, if you want something to keep on a leash, get a dog, not a man! I'm not a fan of crying to get rid of stress either but whatever works for people.

On some level I agree with James, there's probably something in the back of our heads that says "If I don't clean up the house no one will do it for me," so yes, we will have gone through a lot of other things we could (or sometimes would) rather be doing than playing a game. Simply put, I live alone, you get to that point where if you don't want to wash your own dishes and just keep using up the clean ones, you run out of clean cutlery and crockery etc. so you should be doing washing and not playing a video game.

While some of us are highly "independent, individualistic" (think there's a category of independent women in that Microtrends book and my course work I think), we need advertising that caters to our lifestyle and not just your average promises and words in vain. But looking at my sister who is now about 9 and buttoning her ponies and whatever else on the DS, I can see her get bored of it when she turns, um, the right age to become mildly more interested in make-up and boys. It's when you put down your console and think 'F*ck this s*it.'Excuse my language but that's the feeling you get when you have a personal epiphany. I could see other women buying handhelds, games and such because they're just plain, good old fun and it's why people get on miniclip when stuck at work or in front of a PC they'd rather have nothing to do with. Cause, to quote someone wiser than me, a guy that wrote a book on the value of games in people's lives (Homo Ludens)- we live to play games!

And that's why, regardless of what women would rather be doing than playing a game, from someone that works for a gaming company you should be interested in asking yourself why is it that they don't play games then? And what can we do to get them to play? Because, you know, it's possibly why you get paid! Of course there could be no game 'just for girls' but look at Yorkie and other products advertised as exclusively "not for girls" and you'll see more women are buying them just because they're supposedly not for them.

Yeah...I'd rather spend my time doing my hair. Cause my Steam rating won't get me a better paid job. Not that only hair would, but it certainly helps! So I get more money to play video games. What a winner.

]]> http://conversamos.wordpress.com/?p=2023 Thu, 08 May 2008 01:08:04 +0000 LN http://conversamos.pt.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/ludens/

La origine, in greaca veche, "anarhism" inseamna fara stapani. Sensul termenului nu s-a schimbat nici astazi. Adevaratii anarhisti, si nu dezorientatii pe care ii vedem noi la televizor, sustin ca statul este cel mai mare asupritor si exploatator al oamenilor. In consecinta, doar disparitia statului ne-ar face liberi cu adevarat.

Trecand de la teorie la practica, ajungem in zilele noastre. Bucuresti, 3 aprilie 2008. Un grup de nu stiu cate zeci de persoane, presa si autoritatile nu au cazut inca de acord asupra numarului lor exact, au fost retinute. Si eliberate pe rand. In functie de gradul de anarhism pe care cagulatii l-au putut depista si neutraliza.

Trebuie sa banuim ca intelesul de astazi al notiunii de anarhist s-a diluat. Esti considerat astfel si daca nu esti de acord cu summitul unui organizatii internationale. Degringolada este totala. Nimeni nu mai stie cum sa ii numeasca pe cei care nu se inclina in fata culoarlui unic al NATO. Am putea sa ii suspectam astfel si pe maidanezii care traverseaza prin fata coloanelor oficiale ale autoritatilor ca fiind niste pui de anarhisti. Sau, cel putin, lasandu-se manipulati de adevaratii anarhisti.

A remarcat insa cineva cat de anarhist, in sensul asta modern de dezorientat, este guvernul nostru? Cum a modificat el pentru a treia oara taxa auto! Cum a suplimentat el deodata bugetul pensionarilor si le-a marit acestora chenzinele inainte de tremenul planificat! Da, s-a remarcat. Dar ei si-au dat seama? Cu siguranta. Dar ei detin puterea si fac ce vor cu ea IMPOTRIVA noastra.

In conditiile astea suntem obligati sa le dam dreptate anarhistilor. Adevaratilor anarhisti.