Various thoughts

[permetaform]

In class, variously, there's been talk of areas/arenas of Play; this is especially in relation to the creation of logic and culture. (note: the idea of games as For Children has apparently only been a recent development)

What's been startling and wonderful to realize is that it is by playing that culture's arisen, that there are ties and themes to playing in festivals and religions, and that by playing one comes about to the creation of beauty.

And here too, a realization, that if it can be said that games are simulations, that games are needed for logic. And if games are simulations, then it is a space for mistakes.

To say this again, in another way: Games are a place where mistakes are allowed and made welcome; whereas outside the Magic Circle of a game, mistakes are unallowed and discouraged.

_{This is not to say that games do not fully have consequences, either. Games can be deadly, can be life-threatening (ie. gladiator tournaments, x-games, free diving, Ender's Game), but with the context of a game one is more free to take risks, one is more free to move. In the context of a game, a death is given meaning like with chess or religion.}

Consequently, in the middle of games, mistakes are made beautiful. Mistakes becomes patterns, mistakes becomes reinvented, mistakes become the path to victory; in the middle of games, a mistake has a place.

Which, to bring it back to fandom, has interesting resonances with post-modernism and SGA, "The Isle of Misfit Toys".

On that note, it looks like my download has finished, w00t! SGA Season Finale!!

Comments

[fancyfox.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[jackiekjono.livejournal.com]

What sort of class is it? Psych? Art? Philosophy?

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

very cool ideas!!!

i love the word play and overuse it at times, both in its postmodern pla(y)giaristic use (yes, i'm a child of deconstructionism :-) and in its double meaning...derrida's srtucture, sign, play remains one of my favorite essays by him (only superceded by Signature Event Context)

i've been reading a lot on games lately and not really writing about it, but have you read First Person? it has some marvelous essays on games and narrative and ludology and such...

tell us more about your class???

[nightengale.livejournal.com]

i love when you think out loud.

and yet. again. am unable to respond coherently. *laughs* Every time, Perma, every tiiiiiiime.



Regarding SGA, I'm through 1-18 & gonna try to watch the Siege in full this weekend. *quiver*

[no-detective.livejournal.com]

A big honkin' word. Play is: making mistakes -> beautiful -> suspension of disbelief -> imagination -> interaction -> consequences -> pattern creation -> meaning -> reinvention -> intelligence. SGA fits this beautifully, but for me, fandom as a whole (and the experience of LJ fandom in particular) feels this way as well.

The season finale was UNBELIEVABLE. Oh my god, such human stupidity/stupid humanity.