The artist as player has run its course. As an artist I am sick and tired of the image of the artist as weird instigator of playful strangeness. No! Art is not or no longer about being silly or confronting unsuspecting visitors with your playful non-morality. It is time to take it serious again.

Playfulness has been made harmless due to its non-serious character. It has been absorped by the entertainment industry or commercial businesses as a nice way to approach the public or create a harmless disturbance within an organisation. After which life continues as normal, the participating victims laughing the experience off. Not surprising, since the artist has cultivated an image of the friendly player in a desperate attempt to make art understandable among the general public. A frantic gesture during hard times, where subsidies disappear and the artist and cultural institutions have to fend for themselves. A fall to its knees for public acceptance and forgiveness.

Well, I say ‘Fuck you’ to this.

It is time that we, the artists, rip art out of the hands of the light weight, low treshold entertainment industry and take it back into the personal, unforgiving and sometimes enigmatic realm of the artistic statement. I, the artist, decide what world to create. I, the artist, believe in the choices I’ve made. They may be detailed, they may seem useless, but that does not make them less important. In return for my ‘serious’ and sometimes inaccessible art I give you, the viewer a choice. I won’t confront you or play with you or viral video you or flash mob you. I give you a choice to step into my world and perhaps take something with you on the way out. Inspiration, new ideas, aesthetic pleasure, and with equal chance frustration, guilt, shame, anger etc.. But you will have a choice, you can also choose not to step into my artistically created world. You can simple walk past it, not go into it, don’t think about it. Or perhaps you can look at it and make it harmless by analyzing it in old-fashioned post-modern theories. But then you won’t get anything back from the artwork except another notch on your post-modern relativistic bedpost.

Does this sound familiar? I guess it does. A neo-futuristic crossbred with a neo-romantic artistic mission. The artist as sublime world-creator. Aware of its postmodern heritage, but choosing for an almost naive engagement in a personal world. An aesthetic move where the artist may again engage the viewer on a personal basis, sucking it in the artist’s bubble. Or not at all. But most of all, not ‘mostly harmless’. Too dangerous to use for commercial business. Too serious for entertainment. Too confronting for returning to sleepmode. Too beautiful for existential comfort.

Now there is only one thing left to do, to create it…

I’m sorry for the long pause in posts.

Since my last post I graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. My thesis was an almost undisputed succes. It is tempting to post my entire thesis on this blog. Perhaps I will in due time. But for now you will have to do with this link to my thesis on my personal website.

http://www.anartistcanslicesalamitoo.nl/Thesis.html

In future posts I will continue where I left off. After completing my thesis, I thought I had a decent framework for providing my artistic practices with conceptual content. However, in the last year I noticed that my a lot of the ideas in my thesis are only half finished or they are meagre variations on existing postmodern theories. But all is not lost! Even though there is a distinctive postmodern flavour to  my thesis (not surprising for a Rietveld-student) it is already chaving against its forced postmodern framework. It doesn’t fit completely right. As a result of this growing feeling of badly applicable theory to an ‘interesting’ core of thoughts, I decided to continue my research.

In the past year I have fallen into the famed ‘black hole’ of non-existent inspiration after a 5 year stretch of continuous creativity. During my time in this non-place I read and searched and frustrated over art and philosophy. Now that I am slowly climbing out of the  black hole it is time to structure my findings in this blog and hopefully force myself to continue my travels, over the event horizon and beyond! Like the psycho-sopho-naut I am.

Reflecting on these three seemingly related concepts I think it is better to adopt the nomer ‘attitude’ for my thesis. Attitude as understood by Foucault is:

“a voluntary choice made by certain people; in the end, a way of thinking and feeling; a way, too, of acting and behaving that at one and the same time marks a relation of belonging and presents itself as a task. A bit, no doubt, like what the Greeks called an ethos.”

The element of behaviour and the act is more directly linked in the general mind to attitude. Style might be misinterpreted as just a fashion or some other outwardly aesthetic appearance. As my concept of ‘style’ as earlier described is more than just aesthetics, and is in fact focused very much on ethics as well, I deem the term ‘attitude’ more appropriate.

It is not a coincidence that the origin of the ethical grounds for my thesis coincide more or less with the ideas of Baudelaire and his ideas on ‘dandyism’. Allow me to explain both of these concepts shortly.
The ethical ground that has dictated almost continuously the society of the last two centuries is…(drumroll).. Utilitarianism. This particular ethical standpoint developed by the likes of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill basically judges what is good by the amount of happiness an action generates. It is the utility of an action that can indicate how right an action or object is. The amount of happiness, profit, benefit an action produces is the guiding principle in utilitarianism. This in itself seems quite logical, except that there is a difficulty in defining the exact amount of something if it isn’t quantifyable or the exact production of something. It is for example difficult to judge a genuine friendship on the exact amount of happiness it produces. Bentham and his followers (except for Mill, who was fighting a lost cause to validate the unsubstantial intrinsically good) were quite strict on this and indicated that these insubstatial qualities are of no concern to the utilitarian. If there is no external quantifiable use, it is not of any concern. This extreme standpoint was allowed to flourish due to the fact that this particular ethic fitted the times perfectly when it was developed. It was during the beginning of the industrial revolution, and the industries where very eager to be able to justify their actions by simply measuring the benefit they where spreading around the globe. As long as you make a profit and a product that consumers buy it is obvious you are doing a good thing. So what if some villagers in Africa are poisoned, killed or what not. In the end happiness for the greatest number of people is maximized.
Of course I am oversimplifying the actions of utilitarianists somewhat. But I hope you cannot deny that there must be a grain of truth or at least recognition here. Just check the behaviour of major companies nowadays. Almost 200 years later this ethical approach still seems to be in full swing!
The result of such an ethical standpoint is that the non-quantifyable useful things and actions suddenly seem completely useless. Pleasures to be enjoyed just because they are nice don’t fit well in this ethic. Also the arts are suddenly in a tough spot. What is the use of poetry, fine art? Except maybe to sell and make a profit? In short the path mankind has taken in the last two hundred years have led us to unimagenable riches and production (in the western world) but it made the non-useful but o so important pleasures hard to justify. It is thus no small wonder that all we know to do nowadays is to work. Even our freetime (of which we have more than ever before) is only there by the grace of our work. How to fill up this freetime is also institutionalized, spectacularized or utilized. We’re all running our asses off to theme parks, shows etc. just to tick off the difficult and awkward free-time or we’re building better houses, gardens, cars etc. As long as we don’t have to sit and think, or worse still, to comtemplate and perhaps enjoy something in it’s own right without having to think about the gains.

The gamespace society is the peak of this utilitarian society. It is not about playing just for the sake of playing. It is about playing to win! The digital game is the ultimate example of a form of mind-obliterating distraction with the added bonus that you still seem to ‘win’ something. The action is justified by a form of virtual utilitarianism (in dutch the word ‘winst’ can be used to indicate profit as well as victory or winning).
The computer itself seems to be an invention that was only possible to develop in a culture that is so focused on measurable consequences. The language of computers is after all numerical and very much focused on an if..then… form of reasoning. Even if you think of the computer as a mathematical machine, a machine that is able to easily navigate the ideal world of maths, it still seems to me very much a utilitarian machine. It is not capable of exploring the mathimatical landscape in a chaos or fuzzy logic way, it is always in need of a clear outcome (until perhaps the true AI is invented). It is just doing our mathimatical comtemplation for us, but then in a very right/wrong kind of way. It is almost an insult to the fantastic world  and possibilities of maths.

Of course not everyone stepped into the utilitarian boat so eagerly in the last two centuries. Luckily there are many examples of ideas and movements that operate on an entirely different principle. I’d like to focus on the ideas set forth by for example Baudelaire to cope with the oppression of utility-thinking. I am still in the process of researching his writings. But it seems that his idea of dandyism very much exemplifies the stylistic-approach I defend in this thesis. According to Baudelaire the dandy is a person that does not despise the present, he is someone who tries to see the poetry in history and the gives societal structure. The dandy does not escape reality it acknowledges reality and sees it’s possible alternatives. The dandy invents himself within this reality. He tries to heroize (perhaps ironically) his present. These are the aspect of dandyism that seem very urgent in present day society. Baudelaire himself did not see dandyism as having a place in society or in politics. Dandyism’s role was in the world of art. However I think that now, twohundred year later this distinction in no longer valid. Art itself has either fallen under the dictatorship of being useful and mutated into ‘communication art’, ‘interactive art’, ‘design’, ‘socially critical art’ or the arts have withdrawn in it’s corner of the world. Only ‘worthwhile’ to the few who dare to venture in this particular heterotopos. But since post-modernity the deck has been reshuffled. Everything is crossing over with everything and no discipline is bound, we are all allowed to meddle in other people’s business. Given this atopian gamespace the role of the dandy might be able to have a function outside of the arts. Perhaps now you can achieve freedom within the systems by developing your own heroic tale and discovering the poetry of your possibilities!
Both the dandy and my aeth-ethic attitude focus not on the utility of their actions. No, instead of having a utilitarian justification of their actions, you actually make use of the two other dominant ethical approaches in history. Namely neo-kantianism and/or Aristotalian virtues. It is not the use of your actions that guide you, it are your personal principles or your personal virtues that you adhere to that guide you. These principles may not be universal, and of course there certainly is a use for utilitarianism, but in our pluralistic society there is more than enough room for multiple ethical principles side by side.
Already we are seeing signals of the decline of utility thinking. The very urgent environmental issues force us and our industries to think not in terms of profit. Environment conscious actions are not guided by immediate use, but instead value nature and the environment as something that is intrinsically good and must be protected. Of course is also measurable in an easy calculation, continue current action = death of planet. Even for a utlitarian this is a crystal clear quantifyable danger. However few people believe or are able to remember this drastic scenario in their daily business. The easiest guideline to assure an environmentally justified action is ensured by acting on certain principles and virtues.
And if we look at the current clash between cultures (western utilitarinist vs. middle-eastern honour-cultures) and the clash between the WTO and different-globalists Might it not also be a clash beween utilitarianists and neo-kantianist & virtue thinkers? The western industry is slowly being attacked on all sides by people who live by other moral guidelines then utility. Perhaps again I am taking giant and crude leaps over very complex issues, but I still think that it might be ‘useful’ to consider the above point of view.

Style is the answer to everything.
A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing
To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it
To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art

Bullfighting can be an art
Boxing can be an art
Loving can be an art
Opening a can of sardines can be an art

Not many have style
Not many can keep style
I have seen dogs with more style than men,
although not many dogs have style.
Cats have it with abundance.

When Hemingway put his brains to the wall with a shotgun,
that was style.
Or sometimes people give you style
Joan of Arc had style
John the Baptist
Jesus
Socrates
Caesar
García Lorca.

I have met men in jail with style.
I have met more men in jail with style than men out of jail.
Style is the difference, a way of doing, a way of being done.
Six herons standing quietly in a pool of water,
or you, naked, walking out of the bathroom without seeing me.

In my last post I advocated a focus on the style of play within games. A way to start looking at the ethics and aesthetics of a game not by breakig the rules of ‘hacking’ but by adding rules of your own that mainly focus on the way of playing. There are certain issues with this approach:

1. Escapism
Games are mainly a form of escapism. Getting away from the drudgery of real life. Therefore the gamer is not keen on adding personal responsibility in his gaming. To add complexity by adding actions from an outside-gaming world, the ‘magic circle’ of the escapist game is broken. Even in the multiplayer environment, where the player is confronted with real people and all their quirks there still is a magic circle. A certain club of Puerilist (see Huizinga) players with their own code and mores rules this semi-open gamespace. The secret treehouse club to escape to. If you add personal style and hot on its heels ethics and aesthetics, can you still feel you are escaping to a different world?
I think the answer to that is YES. Escapism can be understood as an escape to a world that is more lucid than the chaotic world of everyday life. However most games (if not all of them) are not more lucid at all. They are more simplistic. An easily made mistake. This simplicity is what attracts gamers at first but also bores them, forcing them to repeat the process in a different game ad infinitum. Adding style (Aesth-ethics) might introduce the necessary lucidity to a simplistic gamespace. It will still be a simpler clearer world (you are not breaking its system) but it does facilitate more complex behaviour. For example different styles of gamers within one game might be mutually exclusive. A concept that is normally impossible in a game world where things are either true or false. Such paradoxical behaviour in styles won’t crash the system.

2. What is the point?
Besides making for a better gaming experience what is the point of such an exercise? In my last post I stated that such an analysis within the digital-game world might lead to conclusions that can then be tested in ‘real’ life as well. However such an aesth-ethic play style in real life is hard to imagine without ending up at a Situationist way of navigating the psychogeographies of reality. So are we then back to a concept developed 50 years ago? That seems a bit disappointing.
The one difference that I think is important between the actions of the Situationists and aesth-ethic play might be that situationist try to change the dominant system while with aesth-ethic play you see the dominant system as an unchangeable given and only your personal judgement (and perhaps those in your direct environment) is changing or being re-valuated.
I guess what I would like this way of playing to achieve is a consciousness of the alternating personal choices within pluralistic ethics in a given atopian world. That world can be a digital game as well as the everyday (augmented) reality.

Thinking on style within games. One quickly has to include ethics as well. The conscious thought on decisions why to do certain things and why to refrain from other actions is wholly affiliated with ethics. However games appear to be in an a-moral space. If ‘voetbal is oorlog’ and ‘all is fair in love and war’ are true than all is fair in football. Virtual games are in a virtual world so your actions have no consequence on your world, perhaps only on your online fellow players. Or does it? In the utilitatian world of gaming where the goal justifies the means this seems to be true. In an neo-kantian perspective it is of course a different story. Some things are then not allowed. However these principles do not necessarily be the same principles of the ‘real’ world. There is no history or story, there is no future or past that can judge your actions in a certain light. Perhaps the principles of digital games reflect more the underlying algorythm. For example it is allowed to kill in shoot ‘m ups, but is it allowed to shoot someone in the back? It seems to be allowed to keep a fascist standpoint in World of Warcraft, but social behaviour like giving away money without recompensation is frowned upon. If playing style is given more weight, the consequence of your actions should be weighed against the principle of action of your actions.

An introduction of unwritten rules within a game seems familiar as a sort of instant tribal culture, fitting with the non-historic cyclical gamespace time. The culture of instant liaisons of likeminded people, or perhaps of completely random people, but each one needs to secure it’s own place. Currently this is done by the one who is the best (agon). But it might also be about personalities. Not in a VIP kind of way, the way of who can stoop the lowest or hide his complete personality the most. Personality in respect for ones own decisions and how this affects the group. Hmmm, it starts to smell like Romanticism (in a contemporary way). This  might fit the kitsch (as understood in Kundera‘s ‘the absolute denial of shit’ ) of the game-world. It is no wonder that games are so popular then. The cultural context of searching for ideals after the faltering of economy and individualism. Subjective (but not wholly emotional!) action and still being able to switch between instant tribes.

Concluding from McKenzie Wark’s book ‘ Gamer Theory’ that one can see society as analogous to the (digital) game, one has to see society as a multitude of spaces, overlapping, interchanging and being aware of it’s own limitations, however inable to find a solution to escape from it. It is not so much about winning, although that is implied in the current way of agonistic gaming. The trick is to see the game for what it is and to work within it. How you can do this without simply giving up or just destroying the game or yourself is unclear.
You can’t play the game without being in the game (just like you can’t live in society without being subjected to it’s rules), and thus you are always imprisoned by the game designers vision and algorythmic laws. However it is all not as bad as you might think. Refusing to take a paranoide Guy Debord-like stance, I think it is better to revel in the algorythm (as I concluded in my last post). See for example writer George Perec, who really plays withing the literary space..

If I analyze my own personal intuition in how I survive or enjoy gamespace, and limiting myself to the digital game (the most agonistic, binairy, simulacrumesque (is that a word?) type of game around), I notice that longerlasting pleasure is achieved by developing you own style. “Style? How do you define this thing you call style?” I hear you say.
Well, that is indeed hard to define. If ignoring dictionaries and just thinking for myself I come to the definition of doing in a way that is not directly inspired by the dominant gamespace. Doing is stressed. I am not writing about image or fashion, not a visual style, but an aesthetic of action. Since digital game is an environment of action, and non-action is just equivelent to boredom in this gamespace.

Games are able to withstand time: save, restore. And the concept of fysical space is very abstract, since your just cruising a mathematical landscape that is not directly accessable but always mediated via classes-objects-instances-images-screens-controller. The space is just the space that you are in, or maybe floating somewhere inbetween the representation and the action. So the thing to focus on, if you really want to play in a digital game is on the passive inter-action between you and the algorythm. How do you interface with it outside the given constraints. But, before I lapse into generalities that mean everything and thus nothing, let me get back to my point.
To focus on a style of action is to find the freedom within a game. Most games don’t allow for this freedom and those are most of the time bad games, or just games as an equivalent of movies. Popcorn-entertainment to erase your mind temporarily.  But the good game unintentionally has space for style. A way of doing things in the game that are aesthetic and personal. Let me give you an example:
The classic game Worms. A game where you need to kill all other teams or worms with your own worms. An arsenal of weapons is available, from bazooka’s to holy handgrenades to exploding sheep. The graphics are simple, the action too. However the game manages to entertain for 15 years now(released in 1994). And before that, the game Scorched Earth (released in 1991), which was exactly the same, only Worms made it more graphical and used worms instead of tanks. I think because the good player doesn’t play to win this game, it plays to excel in how to win the game. You can kill with a straight shot in the face of the worm, or you can position your worm via complex ballet-like ninja-ropes in a perfect position and just conclude with a slight but o so cruel nudge, to push him off a cliff. The endresult is the same, the kudos are not.

And so there are more examples of style, of aestethics of doing, in games. The interesting thing about this is that the focus in doing, on action, opens up the area of ethics, or the philosophy of doing (generally focus on doing the right thing). But the right thing here is doing the other thing. Gamespace in digital games is generally a-moral (although that is also debateable), but not if you include an approach that is focused on the way of doing things. My point is not to come to an morallly or politically laden way of gaming, but a consciousness of why you play in the way that you play.. a certain aesth-ethics.

If I would research this in my thesis, I hope that my research is eventually not only applicable to digital games,but to loop back to gamespace  or society as well. To stress aesthet(h)ic action in a quantitative commodified society.

Kan je de activiteit spelen los zien van het begrip spel? Een spel is als ik de heer Huizinga volg in zijn boek Homo Ludens een vrije handeling die buiten het gewone leven staat, zonder direct materieel belang of nut in een opzettelijke bepaalde plaats en tijd en die naar bepaalde regels ordelijk verloopt. Het werkwoord spelen wordt in hetzelfde boek van Huizinga ook uitvoerig onderzocht. Hieruit volgen verschillende betekenissen, wisselend in verschillende talen. Sommige talen vatten alle vormen van spel (kinderspel, wedstrijd etc.) samen in een woord (bijvoorbeeld het Nederlandse ‘spel’), andere talen maken daarentegen een onderscheid tussen kinderspel, wedstrijd, of zelfs tussen wedden en strijd.

Bij een analyse van de betekenis van ‘spelen’ als kunstuiting in een postmoderne wereld zal eerst het onderscheid tussen de verschillende betekenissen van spelen onderzocht moeten worden. Hierbij hangt tevens veel af van de zienswijze van het fenomeen ‘spel’. In de huidige samenleving is het mij niet duidelijk of de samenleving een spel is, en degene die daaruit wil ontsnappen de ‘spelbreker’, of is juist de dagelijkse werkelijkheid geen spel en is het ontsnappen uit deze dagelijkse werkelijkheid een spel. Is de stereotype forens in de sleur dan juist de spelbreker. Er zijn theorieën voor beide zienswijze te vinden. Volgens McKenzie Wark is de werkelijkheid een gamespace, een spel, en dien je je te gedragen als een speler om het spel te winnen, of moet je juist het spel doorzien en jezelf er los van maken om echt te winnen. Volgens Huizinga is de werkelijkheid ernst, en is spel een afzonderlijk gebied, echter de samenleving en culturen zijn doorspekt met spelelementen, sterker nog volgens hem is het spel de voorloper van cultuur. De werkelijkheid zou dus heel goed als spel gezien moeten kunnen worden.

De betekenis van spelen is dus volledig afhankelijk van de theorie die men aanhangt. Een speler speelt het spel van de samenleving naadloos volgens de regels. Of een speler is iemand die juist buiten de alledaagse werkelijkheid staat. Om deze valkuil te proberen te vermijden vraag ik mij of er zoiets is als spelen zonder spel. Er is geen in tijd en ruimte afgebakend spel dat volgens bepaalde orde verloopt, wat is dan nog spelen? Ik zie het spelen an sich voor me als een vrij bewegen (zie ook de oorsprong van het woord spelen in de tekst van Huizinga) tussen de regels. Er is juist geen orde, er is alleen mogelijkheid en kans. Spel als het de tijd nemen om je te onttrekken aan de regels van de omgeving, wellicht is daar ook het meer poëtische Japanse woord asobu en het chinese woord wan voor spel op gebaseerd. Deze woorden hebben naast de betekenis van luchtig vermaak ook de betekenis van bevoelen, onderzoeken of het bewonderen. Spelen kan dus ook geïnterpreteerd worden als een waarderen van iets buiten de regels en zonder context. Juist deze vorm van spelen mis ik in de huidige opvatting van spelen (en helemaal in het ‘gamen’). Het spel wordt hier vooral geïnterpreteerd in het begrip van het Griekse woord agon. Het gaat om eer, het behalen van roem, het behalen van een doel etc. Is het dan geen toeval dat het menselijk ras in het engels vertaald wordt als ‘the human race’. Denken we dat er uiteindelijk iemand wint?

Is er nog een rol weggelegd voor dit spelen (in de vorm van asobu of wan)? Of is spelen al volledig uitgebuit door bijvoorbeeld de situationisten? Is het vrij bewegen tussen contexten inmiddels opgenomen door de post-moderniteit? Of is heeft deze annexatie alleen geleidt tot een verbastering van het spel tot een wedstrijd? Een middel tot het bereiken van nog hogere hoogten? Nog meer agon? Waar is het spelen als omgaan met het onzekere en (on)mogelijke zonder dit onzekere te willen oplossen?

Kortom, is er nog een rol voor het spelen zonder het spel. Een rol die juist de gaten tussen de verschillende spellen duidt? De difference weet te vinden en er in weet te zwelgen? Of is er alleen nog maar sprake van een af-spelen binnen de systemen?

Spel        Game    Wild (als in dieren)

Playing seems to * a loose way of interacting with the world, not bound by consistent rules. A game however * defined by its rules. Perhaps there * few rules and unlimited variable ways of playing the game. The outcome will always * win or lose (or perhaps a draw). A Boolean outcome to a formal system. No wonder that games and computers have such a happy marriage. It seems to stifle the possibilty of playing. The binary logic of the past century (Bush: ‘your either for us or against us’) must * the cultural rich soil for such technology to develop, or * it the other way around?
McKenzie Wark claims in his book ‘Gamer Theory’ that the world * gamespace, an incomplete and badly designed game (the game * rigged). The game * an atopian (not to * confused with utopian) inspiritation for everyday life. The next step in organizing our society after trying to mirror it in networks, demarcating it in lines or conquering the unknown.

These allegories seem repetitive to me. Every century sees its newest and most promising technology as the ideal way of seeing the world. I think the world * in all these instances depicted in a narrow time-entrenched view. In a few years the world will * seen as a serverside cloud. years after that it will * seen as a quantum computer. Or perhaps it * mirrored in something outside technology. The world * a tree, the world * sex, the world * a disc on the back of 4 elephants on a spacetravelling turtle.
Nowadays to play, * to play (afspelen) your MP3 or movie. It * to represent. It * just waiting for the slide at the bottom of the screen to reach the end. let’s get rid of this equalization thinking, let’s get rid of the 0 and the 1. let’s start counting from 2 onward. And accept a pluralist view of the world, reigned by uncertainty and (im)probability.

Or not, let’s not do that! That * just another allegory, another adagium to live by. let’s live in pure anarchy!

Or not! let’s hang on to what we have and revel in the beauty of systems. The uncertainty comes automatically just because it * part of this world. And everything, even our virtual reality, is part of this reality.

Will there be a role for art to play?

I think the great Achilles’ heel of gaming is that it takes place on a computer. Computers are (for now) very formal systems. Completely rule governed, anything outside the rules will just cause an error. For this reason even if a game has been been programmed to be free (so called sandbox-games like GTA 4 approach this ‘freedom’), it isn’t, because it is programmed to be free. And until real and true artificial intelligence has been developed this programmed freedom still adheres to the rules. The virtual reality is always less free then real reality because, even though real reality has a lot of systems and rules it also contains the possibility of inconsistency, paradoxes, chaos, fuzzy logic, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle etcetera. All this is not available in computer games.

However the method of gaming is stays an interesting principle. As I see it, you need to seperate the game from playing. The game is an artificially created partial system of consistent rules. Playing is acting according to your own rules, which might be very inconsistent and erratic.
I’m interested in seeing if art is a game that might cater to playing. For this game to be truly free it needs to be able to break out of it’s own code. A certain paradoxical self-referentiality must be possible. (For this reason computers might not be the way to go at the moment, this medium is currently incapable to deal with uncertainty as far as I know).

A self-referential system approach of art might be an interesting path to follow. It opens the art-proces up (there might be a role here for generative art) and it can facilitate paradox and humour/self-relativizing (something that is often sorely missed in the institutional art-world, and maybe also in this text). Also, in conjunction with the previous text (‘On bricolage’) art-gaming might be able to open the path to unknown possibilities. That’s another way of saying the same as above. Real freedom in gaming would be to create chance and unforeseen possibilities (even by the programmers) without creating a system-error.