Designing Playful Systems

Play is a common, yet elusive phenomenon. Many definitions of play and explanations for its existence have been brought forward in various disciplines such as psychology, anthropology, ethology and in the humanities. As an activity apparently serving no other purpose than itself, play can be simply considered a pleasant pastime. Yet its equation with fun has been challenged by artists and scholars alike. Being in a playful state does not warrant extrinsic motivation or being conscious of an external purpose. However, play creates meaning, and scientists are pursuing functional explanations for it. These conflicting observations are contributing to the ambiguity of play and they raise questions about the limits of complexity that present discourses are able to reflect. This thesis presents a comprehensive, transdisciplinary approach to describe and understand play, based on systems-theory, constructivism, cybernetics and practical exploration. Observing play in this way involves theoretical analysis, reflection and critique as well as the practice of design, development and artistic exposition. By constructing, re-contextualising and discussing eight of my own projects, I explore the distinction between theory and practice through which playful systems emerge. Central to my methodology is the concept of distinctions as a fundamental method of observation. It is introduced itself as a distinction and then applied throughout, in order to describe and discuss phenomena of play from a wide range of different perspectives. This includes paradoxical, first-person and conflicting accounts and it enables discourses that cross disciplinary boundaries. In summary, the three interrelated contributions to knowledge in my research project are: I contribute to the emerging field of game studies through a comprehensive systems-theoretical description on play. I also provide a methodology in which theory and practice inform each other through mutual observation, construction, reflection and critical evaluation. Finally, I present eight projects, including a playful system developed in a speculative approach that I call anthroponeutral design. These results represent a novel transdisciplinary perspective on play that offers new opportunities for further research

Theatre, Performance and Digital Tools: Modelling New Modes of Political Engagement

This dissertation investigates how theatre and performance artists use new media tools to facilitate political engagement. The chapters cover a diverse range of performancesfrom interventions in video games to mobile phone walking tours to theatre productions that use social media. In contrast to the dominant narrative of intermedial theatre and performance studies, when analyzing these examples I consider intermediality as a political rather than solely aesthetic mode. By explicitly connecting intermedial approaches to political performanceand acknowledging how these two concepts are already always conjoinedthis dissertation works to expand how we might think about intermediality as a lens that covers digital practices as both form and content. I also consider the value, challenges and dangers of asking spectators to interact with performers and digital tools in order to model new modes of political engagement, and question how various artistic choices impact the ways that audiences are activated through these new technologies. As the examples range in form, content and location, this dissertation traverses numerous intermedial modes and political topicsa multitude of approaches that challenge any singular or simple understanding of how intermediality functions in contemporary theatre and performance. Although there is wariness about overstating the role of new media in creating concrete political change, examples such as the Occupy movement reveal how political discourse is now intricately linked to the digital. In this dissertation, rather than simply reinforcing cyberutopian or cyberpessismistic views regarding the political impact of digital communication, I investigate socio-political contexts and analyze the motivations and receptions of specific projects. I consider a number of questions, including: How are new media performances influenced by the potentially democratizing nature of digital interactions? How do performances integrate with digital media to investigate the ways we connector fail to connectas publics? How does performance also address exclusions related to the digital? Who is the we in the intersubjective relations produced by intermedial performance

Electronic Literature as Digital Humanities

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Electronic Literature as Digital Humanities: Contexts, Forms & Practices is a volume of essays that provides a detailed account of born-digital literature by artists and scholars who have contributed to its birth and evolution. Rather than offering a prescriptive definition of electronic literature, this book takes an ontological approach through descriptive exploration, treating electronic literature from the perspective of the digital humanities (DH)––that is, as an area of scholarship and practice that exists at the juncture between the literary and the algorithmic. The domain of DH is typically segmented into the two seemingly disparate strands of criticism and building, with scholars either studying the synthesis between cultural expression and screens or the use of technology to make artifacts in themselves. This book regards electronic literature as fundamentally DH in that it synthesizes these two constituents. Electronic Literature as Digital Humanities provides a context for the development of the field, informed by the forms and practices that have emerged throughout the DH moment, and finally, offers resources for others interested in learning more about electronic literature