We should pass our lives in the playing of games Plato

1. Eames and play

short films: Tocatta for Toy Train, Chase

2. Some theory/ies of play or, is play for the rich?

freud's Civilization and its Discontents: civilizations are built on our repressed desires
repression and modernity
who needs to play when we can shop? : a contemporary cultural example -- Fight Club ("I would flip through catalogs and wonder, "What kind of dining set defines me as a person? We used to read pornography. Now it was the Horchow Collection.")

Max Horkheimer: art and philosophy (art and ideas:) are expressions of freedom, and that the best hopes for a truly human life lie in these expressive forms of cultural life. This liberating capacity appears because it is rooted in play, not labor.

Johan Huizinga: ". . . all play is a voluntary activity." By being voluntary ("child and animal play because they enjoy playing . . .") and not ordered, play possesses a quality of freedom denied in everyday life.

Marcuse: One-Dimensional man "The individual lives his repression freely as his own life" play allows us to access the relam of possibility

Jean-Paul Sartre: activity is play as soon as he apprehends himself as free and wishes to use his freedom... the desire to do (to play) is a desire to be.

play/art: Art, predicated on the play impulse, lies beyond necessity in the realm of possibility.

hakim bey: poetic terrorism

read Guerilla pranks against the system in Fight club againt marcuse/bey

Don't picket--vandalize. Don't protest--deface. When ugliness, poor design & stupid waste are forced upon you, turn Luddite, throw your shoe in the works, retaliate. Smash the symbols of the Empire in the name of nothing but the heart's longing for grace.

questions:

How does play fit with the Eames' concept of work?

In what ways are the philosophies of play we discussed today different from thoughts expressed by Eames? Similar?

Colomina describes the Eames house in terms of a multipliticity of views and in terms of a multi-screen television viewing experience. How does this relate to play? (from tutorial website -- other great questions there, too)

Do you want to play more? What stops you/constrains you (if anything)? How does play fit with your own ideas about art/making art?