Pat Kane's presentation to BBC Digital Futures, 2006, on 'The Ambiguity of Play'

Slide 1: The value of play The ambiguity of play patkane@theplayethic.com

Slide 2: The value of play - It’s our primary adaptive response as The ambiguity of advanced mammals play -It’s our most -It is essentially appropriate way of amoral/multi-moral operating in the -It is an energy to be network society contained, as much as - It’s a display of ‘soft expressed power’, both -Play is not ethical, domestically and but requires an ethics globally

Slide 3: ‘Pokemon Theme Song’, Anthony Pedilla & Ian Hecox, 28.11.05 QuickTimeﾪ and a decompressor are needed to see this picture. Second most viewed ever on YouTube: 19,836,641

Slide 4: Circle Circle Dot Dot - Jamie Kennedy and Stu Stone (2006) QuickTimeﾪ and a decompressor are needed to see this picture. Views on YouTube: 2,562,563 (No.2 December 2006)

Slide 5: ‘Dirty Kuffar’ Sheikh Terra and the Soul Salah Crew (2004) QuickTimeﾪ and a decompressor are needed to see this picture. YouTube viewers: 8,896 (uploaded November 2006)

Slide 6: Bluetoothed to Pat Kane’s phone, 21.12.06, Princes Square, Glasgow

Slide 7: YouTube (and the Given the Net in general) is essential a ‘playground’, a ambiguity and ‘ground of play’ potentiality of play… What sustains a What kind of playground? Law? playground, or Custom? Culture? ‘ground of play’, Its design and should the BBC affordances? Rules be? of each game?

Slide 10: A recent history of play: John Thackra's 1998 Doors of Perception - play as a kind of active learning, a spirit of experimentation - Danny Hillis saying that play and efficiency are opposed – but that a creative business needs to have long-term playfulness - Lovely cosmic and spiritual stuff from Dutch poets, Indian designers http://museum.doorsofperception.com/do

Slide 12: Nearly ten years on - 9/11, Iraq, 6/6 and the Stern report – the world has gotten much more playful in some ways, and much less playful in others

Slide 13: More playful - The acceleration of network society (M. Castells, R. Sennett) - which requires ‘players’ to survive and thrive in it. - Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 to Web… the ‘innovation commons’ (Lessig) just keeps on growing, through participation and creativity - Maturing of the ‘Greystation’ generation - games now as formativ as television was to e Boomers and early X-ers - For the first time ever in 2005, recreation was the biggest component of household expenditure - Much organisational work inherently playful - or requiring energy, enterprise, and investment of imagination and emotion. Rise of the ‘Soulitarians’ (But can you keep their heads and hearts in line?)

Slide 14: Less playful ‘Liberal semiocrats’ don’t have it all their own way The illimitability and excess of play becomes directly questioned by a growing society of limits and asceticism, caused by • environmental considerations (will all design now have to be sustainable design?) • the relegitimation of the sacred and iconoclasm (can all signs be equally promiscuous?)

Slide 16: Benjamin Barber … ‘Jihad versus McWorld’ Need to revise that … ‘Jihad via YouTube’ How can such an obvious play-form as ‘Dirty Kuffar’ preach iconoclasm and Western image decadence? It is another form of play - but how to recognise it? We could as easily have… ‘Itijihad via YouTube’ (answer video, comments) We are on a common global ground of play, as players - but we need better theories of play than just ‘free play against authority and order’

Slide 17: Best grounded theory of play I can find…. Brian Sutton-Smith, The Ambiguity of Play (Harvard 1997) For complex mammals, humans most of all, play is ‘adaptive potentiation’ It keeps us flexible and full of possibilities, in the face of our struggles to survive and prosper in our social and natural worlds

Slide 18: “Play, as a model of evolutionary selection, engenders variable contingencies (uncertainties and risks) for the purpose of exercising selective control over them in fictive or factual terms. It is a mastery process creatively derived from the the exigencies of the evolutionary predicament” (p.229) “I define play as a virtual simulation characterised by staged contingencies of variation, with opportunites for control engendered by either mastery or further chaos. Clearly the primary motive of players is the stylized performance of existential themes that mimic or mock the uncertainties and risks of survival and, in so doing, engage the propensities of mind, body and cells in exciting forms of arousal…” “Play is also a lifelong simulation of the key neonatal characteristics of unrealistic optimism, egocentricity and reactivity, all of which are guarantors of persistence in the face of adversity” (p.231)

Slide 19: Brian Sutton-Smith - the seven rhetorics of play Modern Play as progress – we adapt and develop through play Play as selfhood – play as an expression of voluntary freedom Play as imaginary – play as symbolic transformation, mental energy Ancient Play as power – we contest and compete with others – in sports and games, in theatres of power Play as identity – the play-forms we use to confirm membership in a community – carnival, ritual, festival Play as fate and chaos – the sense that we are played by forces greater than ourselves, not accessible to reason Play as frivolity – play as laughter, subversion, tomfoolery

Slide 20: Sutton-Smith’s theories help us to establish the legitimacy, diversity and constitutive reality of the ‘ground of play’ in world society - it encompasses the extremes and subtleties of the human condition But it is a HORIZONTAL model - like Gardner’s ‘multiple intelligences’ - and doesn’t account for the tangled ‘play-forms’ of YouTube (from Pokemon to Jihad), mingling modern and ancient forms almost chaotically Can we think of play VERTICALLY as well - more developed and expansive forms of play and player? How do we nuture the new ‘lego’ [Danish, ‘play well’]?

Slide 21: Unitive player Style of Play Examples Worldview/ Center of Play Selves Cook-Greuter Identity /Piaget Pneuma- Unitive Player Identification with the play of Trans- Dynamic player centric Spontaneous, the world. Improvisation at Personal Play as lila witnessing, highly psycho-spiritual levels - creative, original, Crazy wisdom, tantra, and Ego- & Const.- and open. playing with luminosity. aware Unites deterministic and free, structured and open, chaos Complex player and order. Kosmo- Dynamic Player Improvisation with Post-post- centric Multimodal and transformation. Meditation, Personal Play as multi- holotropic breathwork, transformative dimensionsal inqury Integrated Sensitive player World- Complex Player Improvisation with the world, Post- centric Fast and improvisational movement Personal Play as chaos unpredictable and theater, multidimensional simulations, virtual reality Autonomous World- Sensitive Player Name games, ropes courses, Post- Status player centric Connecting and New Games, team building personal Play as sharing exercises, cooperation Individualistic Socio- Status Player Video games, gambling, Personal centric Winning and poker, competitive sports, Ordered player Play as losing games at fairs and carnivals, Conscientious competition Ropes courses (transitional) Piaget: Form- Op Ethno- Ordered Player Board games, collecting Personal centric Following the things, hobbies, card games, Aggressive player Play as structure rules intellectual games. Mensa. Conformist Piaget: Con-Op Ego-centric Aggressive Player Survivor, war games, Pre-personal chicken, drinking games, Play as conquest Acts of heroism boxing/fights Self-protective Magical player Piaget: Pre-op Ego-centric Magical Player Dungeons and Dragons , Pre-personal Balancing good Fantasy games, Divination: Play as connection and evil Runes, Tarot, magic tricks, Impulsive From ‘Are We Having Fun Yet? An integral investigation of to cosmos Charms, rituals Piaget: the transformative power of play’, Gwen Gordon and Sean Sensorimotor Esbjörn-Hargens, Play and Culture Studies Vol. 8. Figure 5: The Eight Play Selves

Slide 22: Developmental Play Rhetoric Play Self stage Transpersonal Unitive Player Play as frivolity Dynamic Player Post-personal Play as Self Complex Player Play as imagination Sensitive Player Personal Play as self & Play as progress Status Player Play as identity Ordered Player Pre-personal Play as power Aggressive Player Play as fate Magical Player Figure 6: Play Rhetorics in the Developmental Model From ‘Are We Having Fun Yet? An integral investigation of the transformative power of play’, Gwen Gordon and Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Play and Culture Studies Vol. 8.

Slide 23: A ‘play ethic’ is not just a euphoric celebration of play… …but an approach to the composition of a meaningful life, faced by a society of play and players Robert Kagan talks of being ‘In Over Our Heads’ - incredibly evolved (and evolving) tools and technologies, but with our values, ethics and consciousness struggling to catch up This is mostly where we are with digital games - incredible synthetic words dramatising school bullies, LA pimps or trivial celebrity narratives… But can interaction design at the BBC be more/better?

Slide 24: Q1: Who takes responsibility for the development and growth of players (rather than workers)? Q2: What are the means and techniques that enable development-through-play? A1: The BBC (or maybe the BIC)? A2: Interaction design?

Slide 25: The day my technophilia finally evaporated: Steve Jobs pranking Starbucks with his I-Phone, Jan 2007

Slide 26: Always the possibility of new secondary markets though… QuickTimeﾪ and a TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor are needed to see this picture.

Slide 28: Role for the BBC in this digital, playful, global future? ‘Gorgeous Librarians’  the most attractive (and accessible) audio-visual- textual archive in the world.  A true ‘ground of play/playground’  ….But will “share”, “find” and “play” allow “rip”, “mix” and “burn”? ‘Serious Players, Serious Games’  BBC should not be transfixed by notion of ‘correcting market failure’.  So much of the ‘wealth of networks’ is based on commons/civic/academic values - economy of sharing (Y.Benkler).  Use your non-market position to think of advanced technique and advanced content simultaneously - move players’ “up the spiral” BBC => BIC: British Integral/Innovation Commons

Slide 29: The value of play The ambiguity of play patkane@theplayethic.com www.theplayethic.com