The subject of this article is games as a form and mode of being considered through the prism of transgression. Contemporary individuals lose themselves in a ludic mode of being, shifting the boundaries of the discourse so that the original meaning is replaced, dissolving in the confluence of multiple positions and ways of existence, thus allowing a person to transgress the law and the foundation without abolishing the traditional norm. Individual transgression becomes a way of satisfying unattainable desires, an act and a form of self-realization and self-presentation

Novikova, O. N.

Новикова, О. Н.

Electronic archive of the Ural State Forest Engineering University

 Facets of Culture in the Age of Social TransitionProceedings of the All-Russian Research Conference withInternational ParticipationVolume 2018Conference PaperLudic Transgression of Being ina Postmodern CultureO. N. NovikovaUral State Forest Engineering University, Yekaterinburg, RussiaAbstractThe subject of this article is games as a form and mode of being considered throughthe prism of transgression. Contemporary individuals lose themselves in a ludic modeof being, shifting the boundaries of the discourse so that the original meaning isreplaced, dissolving in the conﬂuence of multiple positions and ways of existence,thus allowing a person to transgress the law and the foundation without abolishing thetraditional norm. Individual transgression becomes a way of satisfying unattainabledesires, an act and a form of self-realization and self-presentation.Keywords: game, game practices, transgression, being, postmodern culture1. IntroductionPostmodernism’s foundational ideas not only redeﬁne space, time, phenomenality andpotential of game practices – they highlight an act of transgression (crossing the borderbetween the possible and the impossible) as an act that most readily conforms to theeveryday mode of being.Transgression (Greek trans – through; gress – movement) as a “fact of transcendingthe limits” (M.Foulcault, G.Bataille, G.Deleuze and others) allows our contemporaryto transform the world by constructing their own supra-natural worlds [1–3]. Secularrational culture does not invent a supra-natural world – it strives to present the realworld as changed, differing from the present. Fantasy and irreality encourage humansto explore the forbidden tabooed topics; they allow to disregard rules and procedures,norms and values. By exploring moments of irreality, we become aware of the realworld and master the familiar and the ordinary through the strangeness, the ‘other’that replaces our reality. Transgression allows us to come in touch with our fearsand desires, creating a worldview where supernatural is playing with the tradition,opposing or changing it. It commands a person to be something they are not.How to cite this article: O. N. Novikova, (2018), “Ludic Transgression of Being in a Postmodern Culture” in Facets of Culture in theAge of Social Transition: Proceedings of the All-Russian Research Conference with International Participation, KnE Engineering, pages 160–164.DOI 10.18502/keg.v3i8.3627Page 160Corresponding Author:O. N. NovikovaReceived: 22 November 2018Accepted: 29 November 2018Published: 23 December 2018Publishing services provided byKnowledge EO. N. Novikova. This article isdistributed under the terms ofthe Creative CommonsAttribution License, whichpermits unrestricted use andredistribution provided that theoriginal author and source arecredited.Selection and Peer-reviewunder the responsibility of theFacets of Culture in the Age ofSocial Transition ConferenceCommittee. Facets of Culture in the Age of Social TransitionEvery culture reveals itself through a unique human activity: a search for meaning.Modern game practices become the form and the tool through which the humansdiscover and explain the meaning of the world – ﬁrst for themselves, and then in theirexchange with ‘the other’. This is the subject of our research.2. Game Practices in the Modern WorldBy creating a resilient model, a gamemakes it possible to re-use this model repeatedlyadjusting it to the current situation and modifying it indeﬁnitely. Game ontology showsthat a game is an eternal return, where all achievements and results are only a stageor a temporary stop, but never a ﬁnal goal. Based on the internal transgression ofthe discourse space, game practices allow to shift the borders of discourse from oneperspective to another, thereby not erasing the original meaning, but replacing it,dissolving it in a conﬂuence of multiple meanings, positions and modes of existence,where the truth or unequivocal certainty are impossible to achieve. Ludic transgressionbecomes a mode of life that allows people to break the law or foundation withoutabolishing the traditional norms. Often a person would take a risk, bluff or break ataboo for the purpose of experiencing a thrill, anxiety, drive and tension by overcominghim/herself.Games of chance are rooted in a desire to understand the ﬁrst causes of all existingobjects and phenomena. Gambling thrill, like intoxication, switches off the conscious-ness creating a belief in irrational forces and superpowers. Our contemporaries ﬁnd thenew ways and means by which they think to imbue their life with meaning, sense orfacticity. In crisis periods of life or during the destabilizing shifts in society, an individualis drawn to risk; they are tempted to try their fortune, fate, even life itself. This is whatdetermines the popularity of ludic practices: virtual games, gaming machines, casinos,bookmakers, poker, lotteries, where our contemporaries ﬁnd the emotions they crave– the emotions associated with the success that provide motivation to try anothergame. These pursuits may also bringmaterial rewards, allowing to receive prizemoneywithout hard work. An illusion of ‘easy money’ also motivates our contemporariesto participate in these organized transgressions. An experience of ludic transgres-sion helps our contemporaries to endure the burden of social necessity. Transgressiveprinciple can be provisionally divided into an organized transgression and an individ-ual transgression. For example, historically, transgressive principle has been alwayspresent in all ritual festivals, sacriﬁces and warfare, which were traditionally supportedby ludic practices.DOI 10.18502/keg.v3i8.3627 Page 161 Facets of Culture in the Age of Social TransitionIndividual transgression occurs when an individual allows him/herself to satisfy hisor her desires as they want, disregarding ethical norms. Most of the time this trans-gression occurs in youth, when modern young people explore, master and transformthe sociocultural space.Game, which is a primary form of human activity and a factor of human onto- andphylogenesis, is perceived as a natural process, even though it is organized around anartiﬁcial procedure. It is acted out in reality and easily transplants an individual into thenon-existent ephemeral worlds. Often our contemporaries plan their life strategies byusing astrology, divination, or magical practices, thereby utilizing a ludic choice as aguidance, instead of taking personal responsibility and rational approach.The reality of action is transformed into a procession of concrete acts committedin real time; however, life problems are solved in game practices through a certainconvention, an irrationality based on fantasy and an illusory world. The result is asituation which is actualized through a conventional action – that is, a transgressionof being. Our contemporaries create an illusionary world meant for a real life; in thisworld, people compensate for their inability to act in reality by ludically imitating everypossible solution to life crises.Postmodern individual constantly searches and creates actual transgressive situ-ations, where destruction and creation, violence and seduction produce an internalharmony. This is exempliﬁed by the activities popular among the young people –parcour, drift, rooﬁng, digging, stalking, survivalism, quest, etc. – where risk, gambleand danger create a new system of meaning and a new frame of reference.3. Characteristics of the Social Game IndustrySimilar factors underpin the social games industry that promotes not only overcomingof obstacles and positive emotions, but also a negative experience, even revulsion.Factor strakha (‘Fear factor’), Posledniy geroy (‘The Last Hero’), Bitva titanov (‘Clashof the Titans’), Ostat’sya v zhivykh (‘Lost’), Gonka geroyev (‘Hero Race’) and others:these are just a few of the sociocultural games where people compete with eachother, erasing the borders between what is possible and what is not, using the pre-arranged rules, transgressing norms and principles, acting against all standards andethical coordinates. The players often agree to experience humiliations, deprivationsand hardships for the sake of a large monetary award that would be acquired not bydiligent labor but as a payment for a role well performed.DOI 10.18502/keg.v3i8.3627 Page 162 Facets of Culture in the Age of Social TransitionHaving lost a steady sociocultural guidance, contemporary individual strives to buildhis/her personal interactions based on the templates and pre-existing clichés; theirlife-story is played out according to a scenario or a pre-arranged storyline. Being itselfbecomes a simulacrum, a game emulating the real and the valuable, by striving toexist according to the pre-set standards and canons of mass culture based on creativityand substitution of real characters with the screen images (imitation of stars, famousartists, politicians, TV personalities, etc.). People try to ﬁt into the images forced uponthem by the advertisement industry; they try to conform with the pre-set visual sym-bols, constantly emulating them and creating artiﬁcial selves. The search for a novelself is limited by the consumerist approach to goods and services, by the desire for thenew experiences, feelings and emotions devoid of the transcendent content.Our contemporaries become used to playing somebody else’s life. Ideal models ofsuch life are presented by the TV shows (‘Dom 1,2,3...’, ‘Kulinarnyi poedinok’, ‘Edimdoma’, ‘Poka vse doma’, ‘Po domam’, ‘Pust’ ‘govoryat’, etc.). People love to watchthe lives of successful people; their lives become a model and an example to follow.Although at ﬁrst the viewer is aware that these video scenarios are playacted, he orshe cannot and does notwant to separate the real reality from the imagined grotesque,thus slowly introducing some of this playact into his or her life.Everyday reality is increasingly perceived as a TV show or a spectacle, becomingimbued with the atmosphere of an action on screen. Virtual space creates a newvision and a need to construct a different image, or multiple diverse images; it requiresdifferent ways of communication and new technologies of self-representation. Reallife is increasingly perceived by our contemporaries as something unreal, temporary,easily changed. Long-term life strategy planning givesway to the short-term situationsalternating and compiling in real life.Online space, cinema, TV, virtual reality, new life technologies – these are just a fewof the multiple tools available to create a personal alternative reality.The world seduces individuals with the opportunities inherent in an abundance ofgoods and services. The reality of living on credit (whether ﬁnancial, social or anthro-pological) creates a desire for satisfaction which will never be fulﬁlled, because ofthe special effect inﬂuence of the cinema, TV, advertising posters, new speeds ofmovement and of life, an abundance of different simultaneously presented meaningsof human existence.The ‘transpositional’ character of modern society has not so much abolished theoppositions, but rather created an artiﬁcial world where the ‘male–female’, ‘beautiful–ugly’, ‘great–small’, ‘black–white’, etc. borders are erased. The majority of the peopleDOI 10.18502/keg.v3i8.3627 Page 163 Facets of Culture in the Age of Social Transition‘improve’ their nature by realizing themselves in the transvestite, bodybuilding, tatoo,piercing and other cultures. They are the means to construct self-identity, reveal indi-vidual unfulﬁlled needs and desires to the world and transcend the limits of personalpossibilities and dreams.4. ConclusionsIn conclusion, we would like to note that contemporary individuals reside in an imag-inary world governed by the success of the virtual space, easy changes in personalimage, abundance of sketch shows, and overwhelming irony regarding the self andothers. Human life space doubles as a game space, where reality is intertwined withthe irreal moments (virtual communication, a network of multiple image-selves withinone day, the carnival character of informational environment, etc.). Game becomes atool or a technology used by our contemporaries to bring order to their existence byharmonizing its spatio-temporal characteristics and erasing boundaries between whatis possible and what is not. A modern individual constantly switches from one lifeproject to another adjusting to the external realities by using playful aesthetization ofhis or her intellectual and physiological resources, trying to imbue a chaotic reality withmeaning, sense and system. A focus on the self and on one’s own life as a kind ofmodelof postmodern game is driven by the search for self-limit, a personal transgressionbeyond the rational explanation.References[1] Foucault, M. (1994). O transgressii, in Tanatografiya Erosa: Georges Bataille ifrantsuzskaya mysl’ serediny XX veka, pp. 111–131. Saint-Petersburg: Mifril.[2] Bataille, G. Zapret i transgressiya. Retrieved from http://vispir.narod.ru/bataj2.htm(accessed on June 06, 2017).[3] Deleuze, G. (1998). Razlichiye i povtoreniye (Difference and Repetition). Saint-Petersburg: Petropolis.DOI 10.18502/keg.v3i8.3627 Page 164

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