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How to pronounce procrastination in Dutch?

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[Music]
welcome
by the last of life ring from
spellbreakers and fear daily
philosophers respect overspell
today we will switch to english because
of her esteemed guest teresa
i am free from baldwin writer and critic
and i'm moderating tonight from my home
in amsterdam
the dutch historian johan hausingha
introduced the concept of
homo dudens in 1938 in his book with the
complete title
homo ludens as a study of the play
element
in culture in this study he argues that
play is the primary formative element in
human culture
this is also the starting point for this
series of conversations
in which we focus on the play element in
different domains of human life
namely art politics psychology and now
finally in digital or virtual world
and now the most important part our
guests for tonight
teresa ruler is one of the two
co-founders together with flit ruler of
the rodina
the rodina is an amsterdam-based
post-critical
design studio with an experimental
practice
drenched in strategies of performance
art play and subversion
the rodina invents ways in which
experience knowledge and relations are
produced
and preserved in their work teresa and
fit explore the spatial and interactive
possibilities of
virtual environments as a space for new
thoughts
and aesthetics the studio specializes in
video
user experience installations and visual
identities
and since 2013 they've worked around the
world
in all these aspects as artists and
designers
so i'll start the lecture by 3-0
[Music]
hello everyone welcome to transformative
collapse
today i would like to talk about digital
games
and how they are being enriched as a
medium by
artistic practices i am teresa ruler
communication designer educator and
founder of amsterdam-based studio
the rodina in our practice
we design situations participations
and interactions be it physical
installations performances
and playgrounds or video games
environmental websites
experiences and tools for life
engagement
playfulness and imagination they play a
key role in designing such projects
therefore i would like to look at
selected concepts
spanning from play as a cultural
phenomena
motivational and educational tool
two digital games as counter voices
to current socio-political situations
so let's dive into games used as
emancipatory tools rather than ecstatic
escapes first chapter
from comenius's cuala ludos to video
games
during the great depression a dutch
anthropologist
johan huizenga introduced a powerful
idea
that the condition for culture is a free
act
of play but already
280 years before huizinga's book
homoludance which was released
1938 elaborated the concept of a natural
and fundamental need to play
this revolutionary idea
was theorized by czech born philosopher
ecological thinker and school reformer
john amos communions cominus
jan amos komenski his book orbis
pictures
is the first picture book ever made for
children
during the 30-year war a collapsing
middle-aged
european world order restructurized
during a violent 17th century religious
war which annihilated almost
half of the population comenius had to
flee
re-catholicised bohemia to amsterdam
death became a safe haven for him as a
protestant
in exile he developed philosophy of
education
and revolutionized primary schools
by integrating play and play time
and nature exploration communions
saw the play as an important didactic
strategy
in his words the joy and play
have the power to open the wisdom
gardens
inspired by his emancipatory work
we've recently developed an educational
project called futuropolis
school of emancipation for the czech
ministry of education
that engages in critical and creative
education
by strengthening pupils to question
and face current world issues with
patience
imagination and courage
comenius would probably have loved the
rich abundance
of games and gamification today even
though he encouraged competitiveness
in play as part of a learning curve
it is important to note that his vision
was more one of a peaceful utopia
with enlightened citizens rather
than what we have now workers players
consumers performing their visibility in
platform capitalism and competing for
multiple jobs
in the contract-less gig economy
in his school alodos cominus
introduced a theory of games
and healthy competition in relation to
learning
comedians described seven criteria of
what makes a game a game
movement spontaneity collective activity
competition order and rules
facility and imitation and purpose
as he called it the relaxation of the
soul
this list was later refined
during the boom of digital arcade games
of the 80s making learning fun
publication analyze digital games to
find out
what it was in the game design that made
them engaging
and motivating it introduced the
taxonomy of
interesting motivation which expanded
communion's and who is in us
theories it concluded that digital games
have the ability to motivate players
internally by challenge curiosity
control and choice and fantasy
the key insight is
early digital game theory brings human
interaction
empathy and imagination to the center
in 1991 motivation and education
theories were tested
as part of the interactive punk
experiment
a large audience became controlling a
tennis player collaboratively
just with colorful pedals without any
given rules
much like the deepmind learned how to
play atari games
only with the pixel data controls and
scores
so the crowd was able to figure out
the situation with no instructions
second chapter from intoxication to
critical world making
when reality becomes like games
there are 1.65
billion playing digital game users
worldwide
which makes a 159 billion dollar
industry in 2020 although nobody knows
how many invisible players are simply
pirating or
borrowing license software
as society evolves from an industrial
to informational one play playfulness
and games have a forming force in human
lives
even though play was for a long time
considered childish
most of the digital games of today i are
designed by adults
for adults this change
is ever more accelerated by digital
technologies that superimpose
the virtual designs on physical such as
augmented and virtual reality
these technologies overlay digital
information
images and video on the physical world
blending the physical and the virtual
worlds together
and enhancing our perception and sense
of reality
additional media theories alfie brown
bound writes about the full immersion
as a form of intoxication or you could
say who is in us
vertigo it is now
via our phones consoles and computers
that life is really more dreamlike than
ever
today virtuality perpetrates both
physical space and online experience
the capacity to depict the world in high
definition has
never been greater game developers
as well as artists manufacture our
reality
as tools for game making are
increasingly
increasingly accessible to a wider range
of creatives
it is essential that the virtual won't
be seen
as an escapist technology promoted
by big game developers but also
reclaimed
as a way to mobilize new political
imaginary
like it was in the online multiplayer
game animal crossing new horizons
where hong kong geese protesters
customized
their islands and use the platform to
protest
during the pandemic lockdown in spring
2020
games contain values of people who make
them
however many games still reinforce
existing inequalities and appropriate
marginalized communities be it racial
gender cultural and class biases
the tropes versus women in video game a
project by
game critique anita sarkisian is a great
example
of unpackig unpacking some of the
systemic bios problems
the project examines the patterns and
stereotypes associated
with female characters in gaming
the games we play can affect our sense
of
self and the ways we relate to the world
for example works of random johnson or
larry achiangpunk and david blendy
dwell into the politics of race
racism and they they challenge the
post-colonial issues
in digital games in our game
poetic machine unlearning the player
explores
a landscape revealing systemic bias
as an ai engineer you have to find
and fix all the confused biased and
stuck
intelligent notes slowly
more sensitivity and reflection are
brought
into game development an excellent job
of incorporating a character's culture
history
is game never alone folklore and
traditions
of inupiat those are native alaskan
people
are present throughout the game in a
respectful way that
enriches the player's understanding of
these people and their experiences
the third chapter fantastical proposals
and embodying the kinship
digital games are important not only
because of their cultural ubiquity
or their sales figures but for what they
are
what they can offer as a space for
imagination
and critique these are significant
not only uh to the game designer but
also for the artists
and an indie game developer who rethinks
games for example lawrence lacks
fantastical simulated environment
idol on a near future an epic unpacking
complex struggle between humanity and ai
in playbird city engines virtual
environment
online visitors encounter a live stream
mimicking the language of facebook's
famous live multi-layer marketing
selling events peril parties
together with jessica dara we perform a
bidding event full of
mojos moments of joy
in a playful way
we reflect the recent transformation of
free play
into the gamified play burn where
your work feels like fun while somebody
else monetizes and profits with your
users data
later all the winning bits are sent to
the charity
for people in need digital worlds
our praise are digital worlds
are places for subversion games have
powerful force in constructing our
imagination and desires
or else the digital dream world will
fall into the hands of corporations
digital games expand the boundaries
beyond the realm of pure entertainment
they offer they offer space for
imagination
and alternatives to current world order
they educate us about how to live in the
midst of the multiple
swirling crises ecological climate
breakdown
economic recession and uncertainty of
covet 19 pandemic
kojima's masterpiece death stranding
reflects on the post-disaster
post-disaster
world of life and also death
after the ecological catastrophe and
mass extinction
a game that invites the player to think
about deep
ecological time so
digital media can bear witness to events
beyond the scale of our perception and
sense of time
the roles we play do not only expose our
true realities
but allow us to become somebody else
the subjectivity of role play is
therefore an important
tool for navigating the perspectives of
others a multi-species tourist donor
highway offers productive new ways of
reconfiguring our relations to the earth
and all its inhabitants her vision of
how human and non-human are inseparably
linked could be experienced in a
simulation game called
everything there on micro
and macro levels the player takes form
of
any object in the game and is able to
interact
with other objects creating unique
behaviors so everything manifests
digital games
are new culture genres helping us to
forge the bonds with the
other be it non-human species or
deplanetary
to conclude when comenius
reformed education the western world
and its order were in chaos agony
and collapse comparable turbulent times
of the great depression
in between the two world wars shifted
hoizinga's attention towards play as a
cultural phenomenon
similarly in the gig economy and
precarious conditions of 2008
and 2020 economic crises that
repeatedly put down the workforce of
millennials
we play with the notion of what a
virtual world can offer to players
such a deep time of reflection and
uncertainty
led us to experiment with rules
break and subvert them
we are interested in this collapse or
precisely in the lack of rules
when the audience takes over and invents
their own ways of play collapse
steers the ground for the new
imaginaries
through the means of role play their
transformative power
allows billions of players to understand
and feel empathically
what is it to be the other apart from
being motivational and
educative digital games can be a
critical
genre reimagining the world differently
thank you so much for listening
thank you so much teresa for this uh for
this
very uh interesting and also um
visual and complicated talk and luckily
i can ask you all
everything about it so um again
thank you and i had i'll just
dive in with the questions um
in your lecture you contrast uh comenius
utopia
so the czech humanist and
protestant i guess with the real world
of i quote workers players consumers
performing their visibility in platform
capitalism
and competing for multiple jobs in the
contract-less gig
economy um so i feel this is the
description
a somber description of the world we're
in at the moment but maybe you could
explain a little bit the terms you use
because i have the feeling they're very
important for the rest of your story so
what do you mean with these terms like
workers labor players consumers or
platform capitalism and also
contractless gig economy
so what's your start maybe yeah thank
you so much for having me
uh inviting me for these uh more
philosophical
lectures i think it's quite exciting as
a visual designer to take part in this
series it's
it's great to be here thank you so play
playbor and playbers
i came upon um this stern which was
actually coined
in 2005 um
by other philosophers which i just
forgot
um then um i was really looking at
how actually fun and play are being
transformed
um by uh
by the let's say not just the game
industry but
more by platforms we use on daily basis
like facebook and instagram
into basically taking our users work
us as users and our free time and
transforming that
kind of playful activity into monetizing
upon
this time we give them or the data we
share
so somehow i felt um
i started to research that in 2014 15
that these boundaries between play
and production are melting and
also boundaries between what's work and
what's leisure time
as well they're kind of blurry and and
also consumption and production because
at the same time and especially on
social
media we are somehow consuming
content that others are making and ads
and advertising that's there
in a pleasurable way but
as well we're kind of contributing to
these platforms we are making the
content
and we are making the work for them as
well
so i felt this is really strange
phenomena and i wanted to dive into that
so
most of my most of my uh projects when i
can do
what i want uh are around the topic
feeling or expressions around
what the player is what what does it
mean to be the player the worker in this
visual industry
that produces a lot of images yeah
yeah elsewhere you call it i think uh
this
personal data that's being mined like
the new oil
of the of the new this new digital era
um would you say that um transforming it
into your
own work is it is it a way of uh
raising awareness or what what would you
like to do with it
with this information for you i was
interested also in the
in the work of designers themselves of
us
what does that mean to contribute to
this economy and we can call it
we're part of the platform capitalism or
we are part of we are the workers in the
geek economy and the gig
is i think taken mostly from music
industry the inspiration that you're
running your gigs
you have show and show and another show
but for us as
uh creatives it means mostly that we're
asked to be flexible
and we don't have really full big
contracts we're not really
employees of of any company we are more
kind of this kind of flexible workers
running from one job to another
so that's also described like that also
contains a lot of
uncertainty in in this especially in
these days
that you don't know what you what will
you do next year
or in few months this kind of strange
thing that you also have to pay your own
taxes your own security insurance you
have to save up for your own
pension uh there is basically no uh
structure that could really uh that you
would feel that you
you would be supported by you cannot
form unions that easily because
uh if you're not employed it's uh yeah
where do you
who do you meet where do you go um
so somehow be independent there is this
double-sided coin of of being
independent creative
um and i want to express this feeling
because
of course i love to be a designer but
also there is this
other side of okay where does this go
because
mostly be an artist or designer could be
also considered oh you like to do it
so you might even do it for your
visibility for xero
on the platforms on the instagram make
instagram stories for free make this and
that
so it makes me wondering question
okay yeah so maybe um
we're all part of this either and you
already said it very uh
um clearly like a play in production
is is merging consuming and producing is
merging
but to take a step back the games you
describe are all in the virtual realm
but even the virtual cannot exist
without the material so
hardware internet accessibility surfers
less fiber cables precious metals if you
go
like all the way to in the chain of
production
how does this aspect of the digital
world interfere in relation between
virtual and
physical and especially as you propose
this idea of games as an emancipatory
tool
i think one one thing that that just
pops out when you mention
also the virus and the cables is also
just good to mention responsibility
towards
actually designing and making things to
contributing to the world of games or
design because everything
you do even though it's just virtual and
it seems
very much not physical it takes
the data they have physical
representation uh
all the servers that run on on clear
water
and and energy they need all these
physical resources from the ground from
earth from the upper layer
upper crust of our own planet so i think
that just uh
i haven't thought about it before but
when you mention it now it really
sparkles
um this idea to be responsive
responsible towards the
environment we're at and then as i'm on
spiritual i was thinking that
it's just like i mentioned it there in
the talk that that
the access to all technologies it's just
increasing
we have like this year we have three
billion uh
users of smartphones and through those
of course there's so much augmented
reality
apps and tools and and things you
and games you can play so i think it's
question of accessibility for players
but
how we can make these players
emancipated that they
start making their own tools and that's
where i'm really
starting to be interested that you can
you know mess with the rules of some
games change the scenarios or change the
maps
maybe change the textures and then you
can start thinking how can you develop
your own game
and i think there are wonderful game
engines like uh
i think unreal and unity that if you
know a little bit
of yeah if you work with computer and
and you might take
um you know you can look at some
tutorials which is also nice that
there's a huge community
then you can actually grow and become
your own developer and
tool shaper so that's exciting
that's right a question that ties very
nicely um
into this uh you you talk you give the
example of the bong experiment an
experiment in which a group of people is
giving this game
um without instructions and yet they
could figure out collectively how
how it worked and play it could you
maybe tell us somewhat more about the
importance of uh rules in digital games
and not only
like what rules are made by the game
maker and which rules are
inherent to the digital form maybe so
you already
talked a little bit about almost giving
the means of production to the player
more than
the maker of the game but how would this
does this
difference matter between um what is
inherent to the digital form and what
are the rules made by the
game maker i think with the
um i think it's mostly like question on
the game mechanics and
affordances that we can or possibilities
that different games can can give us so
if you have like the table games or the
or
board games they would have different
possibilities than
games role play or that you can play
outside on the playground as a kid and
definitely different than using
technologies
i don't know what i haven't thought
about exact examples
of these new mechanics that are brought
by
virtual worlds or or these games but
it's definitely
a means of maybe embodiments
that you can of course you're using your
uh the role play as one of the so you
have your characters your avatars
but in these uh in these virtual worlds
these avatars already look somehow so
there is already a visual
layer of these avatars which can be done
maybe
customized by you as a player or by game
designers developers
i was quite interested in the mechanics
itself because it brings like a lot of
interesting questions for when you're
developing your own game
whether you want people to collect
action points
or solve puzzles or race
against each other or more build
something together
so there's all these questions that you
have to
kind of think about when you're making
when you're making game
and i think um somehow it's connected
maybe also with the
how also games virtual video games have
developed
because in video games the processing
power of computers
has really much increased so you can do
much more if you imagine like the old
game of like space
invaders or i don't know asteroids
something you've played maybe i don't
know ms-dos or even before like atari
uh then uh it was just about the game
mechanics was like
to collect things or to shoot things and
the game scenario the world was very
much
limited and you had the levels but now
uh it's extremely complex like huge open
scenario
mass multiplayer worlds where you can
really join in like the
fortnite uh the battle royale or
or the world of warcraft so those are
huge worlds you can really explore
or elder scrolls and you can play it at
home even and be connected with many
players abroad
so it's just like you have more
affordances more possibilities what to
do
it's just yeah quite exciting
you give also one example of a game that
this may be used for totally different
uses than than the makers had had in
mind uh you you give the example of the
game used by hong kongese um protesters
uh i i'm looking for the name of it
oh yeah it's animal crossing uh yeah
could you tell us
about how this game is used for all
these totally different
yeah it's quite it was quite exciting to
uh found out that was i think this
spring that i realized this happened
because of course the protests for
democracy in in hong kong and the
protesters they couldn't really meet
because of corona they couldn't gather
and of course the police
oppression was very much present so they
needed to figure out some alternatives
for gatherings but also really
showing to the world that they are still
holding the flags of democracy
and and this animal crossing is
i don't want to label it but it's very
simple
um leisure time too cute
too cute for me to even play it like
it's ridiculously
cute game that you just almost do
nothing you just help your friends to
build
and live on islands it's just yeah
there's almost like for me the game
mechanics
yeah it's like far away from what i
would be interested it's
basically killing the time it's like
doing nothing almost
and they use this space to put on their
textures
the banners for protests so they really
took over this
space which was before claim they are
not interested in politics and they will
they will not um do any censorship
so uh yeah they took they took over this
space
and who are they in this the the people
who ex
who made the game available or the
server now that was like uh
parts of the umbrella protest the joshua
wong
and and his yeah i understand but who
was who
who gave them actually the opportunity
by saying that they were a political the
makers of the game were the ones the
makers of the game
said that it's like non-advertising
environment and on political so that's
why they will not censor
things and it wasn't i think explicitly
really
said before to invite protesters it was
just part of the rules of the game
and they just imported their own
textures which is
which is allowed but normal people they
put textures of their pets
or of their yeah of their of their mom
or something they put there but
they just they bend the rules for their
own uses
yeah yeah exactly
maybe um to also ask something about the
figure you introduce or the historical
person
of comenius who
developed his ideas about play and
especially children's play
after fleeing for the 30-year war
and you also mentioned that housing
wrote homo ludens
during the great depression and i think
it's very funny you were the first who
called
the great depression because everyone
mentioned that it is before
second world war but you um connected it
clearly to this economical crisis
um do you see a connection between how
these diff
different writers use the play element
or
explore the play element in times of
crisis
i know because we in the studio we
really like to work
with not with crises but uh
you know with this positive means of
being a little bit stressed and a little
bit pushed to do
things or or also seeing
that our work is being used in a little
bit different manner that people take
over and they
find their own rules or you know they
read in between lines and become
become creative in ways we don't expect
and that way i also looked at
i thought that oh how come that they
thought about
play and childhood so much and i think
it was very much similar also to dada
movement
how they actually protested after the
war after the second world war
after first world war and how they felt
how they felt the crisis of basically of
what does it mean to be human with such
so much violence and cruelty they they
seen in the war
so i thought this is very much connected
how data started and i thought okay
there wasn't just like first world war
in second world war the time
in between was longer and you cannot
easily say when it started but it was
crisis that really
creeped into people's life same as the
30
years long war in europe which also
creeped into people's life
throughout multiple multiple horrible
events
so it wasn't just like one date you
could say but it was
slower and it was there somehow it feels
very much similar
if i compare the the crisis today
i mean we have ecological climate
breakdown
going on but we just like don't we pay
attention to it but
there's so many other crises the
economical one and also the health one
we have many uprisings all over the
world
like now we there's there's new wars
popping up around so
you also feel how come what what is this
time we're living at
uh is this also in between things how
this will be framed in the future
i'm quite curious about that slow
increasing
um where does it go yeah so would you
even say maybe that there is always
somewhere
crisis on the background yeah and maybe
more
also for creative people to create
crisis or
spark also new ideas or try to find new
ways
how to deal with the world and with life
so yeah yeah
so maybe i'm a bit uh less utilitarian
you give
um several examples of games for
educational purposes
and ms story aims
and even rather emancipatory than uh
aesthetic escapist as you call it uh do
you think that games
always need to have some use that they
um is there also space for just useless
games
yeah yeah yeah
yeah we don't have to have all didactics
games or
uh beautiful games i think there's some
games that just bring the leisure
so so you feel free again
yeah you somehow use it for your free
time but i also come up on
like a ridiculous game about this goose
i think it's like new favorite game it
just was just released recently and
that's like very annoying ghouls that
just walks around
and bites people and destroys destroys
things around and you play the goose and
you're just like
yeah there is like nicely organized
village and you're trying to just uh you
know bite into everything and
uh so this just ridiculously again
cute game that actually doesn't really
harm but you're just this annoying
animal and
so yeah you can you can uh you can live
uh
with these games where actually you
don't have to make protests or
you don't have to make strategic worlds
and new
special worlds you can also just feel
free to enjoy
yeah yeah and do you think that these
digital games do
what you call so beautiful or comedies
also beautiful
the relaxation of the soul is that also
possible in this digital realm
yeah yeah but i have to say for me as
creator somehow
brings always these topics of society
and change and the future of the world
is
is not relaxing but somehow it gives me
like hope when i will tackle these
topics
uh that it will bring some future
relaxation of the soul so
it really depends what kind of person
you are if you just want to forget about
the world
or if you want to try to yeah steer some
uh wheels in that direction yeah so for
everyone it's something else this
relaxation or
a game even yeah and it's so broad the
virtual worlds now
are so broad and there's so many options
so many games
many engines you can work with so i
think we have opportunities to really
explore our individual uh pleasures
let's say or joys or or fears i mean
yeah it depends
there's also a question uh from alina
and she wants to ask him herself maybe
this is the right time yeah yeah ask
sure ask me questions
thank you for your talk and your
explanation i thought it was really
interesting and i was really uh
reminiscing about all of the games
i used to play
well i wasn't really that gamey but i
was uh really into second life for
example
all of the games where i was like a god
figure uh
making theme parks for example ingress i
was a huge ingress fan
and that were really games that engaged
me and made me really active and the
the sad thing is now i play games while
i am listening to podcasts
because it's really a mindless game so
that i can keep
being focused on the podcast it's a
strange function
uh and i play yeah matchington mansion
it's a really bad
app game um but the question i actually
wanted to ask
is um i i i was wondering
um the the games with a political
dimension it's really interesting
to hear about those because i think 10
or 15 years ago
they weren't really around or i i didn't
know them in any case
uh and i was wondering um if if they
really
um um
if they correspond with with actual
actual events
i suppose so and also
as a maker i suppose that you
might feel some responsibility to tackle
issues
like that but then again maybe it takes
away some of the playfulness you
you have as a maker so i was wondering
how you
uh how you manage that yeah i mean i
still feel
playful within that so um
i mean for example last time uh we did
this
um i think i mentioned in the lecture
but in the playback city engines with
jessica daira we did this
peril show and a transaction party that
was inspired by facebook sparrow shows
and it was a lot of fun for us but of
course before
we started the live streaming in this
virtual world
we decided if we really get some money
from bidding because it was all about
bidding and people could really send us
money
with people and buy some uh future
playgrounds from us
that we have to actually sculpt next
month but um
but then we thought okay this if we
really raise some money from people
through this game world we will dedicate
it to some funds
so then it was a lot of fun and later
than we just used it and we supported
the
the trans queer uh black
dutch movement the netherlands so we
send it there
and we felt yeah this this this had a
meaning and we sent also health to
fund of single mothers because in crisis
in corona crisis and especially in
eastern europe they're falling in
between two chairs they're not being
supported by state enough so they really
don't have money
so we thought yeah we will send it there
and it will at least there will be some
little gesture which is not a lot of
money
but i have examples from um more in the
industry
so the indie games how was it called i
have here
um each io each io and this is like in
the marketplace
and they gathered like a lot of games
that you could buy for
really little money and they raised a
lot of money
for for the uh for black lives matter so
for
racial justice and this was just the
indie market that just did it and
they raised until the end i think eight
million
so it was quite a lot for for different
community bail funds and and
things in states so i think these games
they react
often or the game world reacts often
later after things
happen so it's not really beforehand but
then there are examples of many
artists who are actually active and
asking about for example queer spaces
and what does it mean to be
you know do not fall into the norms of
what is
about sexuality and and about gender
and and these they are investigating
these norms
already beforehand and now when things
happen or
or um then they become maybe more famous
so there's
jack will be satellite or i mentioned
ridden johnson or
larry achiangpong and david blandly so
those are
amazing artists i would say game
developers
and artists who are mentioning these
problems already before
but yeah i don't know whether i answered
your question
i got a little bit like yeah with all
these games
no but these are amazing because they do
it before it's just like we have to wait
for events to happen and then we can
see that this was already topic for
quite some time and for many years
already
yeah yeah absolutely yeah answer the
question thank you to
uh also continue on that you also write
that
um games have a powerful force in
constructing
our imagination and desires or else the
digital
dream world will fall into the hands of
the corporations could you
maybe tell us some more about this how
to be
how to prevent that actually or how does
that work
yeah i don't know it would be also great
that the bigger companies who make games
would actually
you know kind of seize the chance to
demonstrate
that they also have some solidarity that
would be amazing that the big game
industry i talk about the big
i don't know nintendo and the huge ones
the corporations would also do a bit
more
before things happen so they would
really uh
you know for example with the black
lives matter that there will be already
some ceos or there will be already
people leading the industry
you know like uh people indigenous
people people of color
but it just takes so long and people
have to complain and protest or even
lives are being taken for this
before the before the industries just
makes
little steps it's just so easy to give
few contracts in such a huge companies
to people who
should represent and or be represented
and be there
yeah you do give a few few hopeful
examples
also luckily um
i was also wondering a very more small
question how did yourself start as a
player of digital games
i just i just played i think same as
aline i just played
uh already as a little kid i think on ms
dos i really don't know how
i would right now if you would open ms
does how i would like
go somewhere because it was without
mouse and cursor
but i somehow did it i think i played
like old games like prince of persia
and then later i played like more the
shooting action games like doom or the
quake
and counter strike and then later there
were all the strategies so it was more
complex you had to build the worlds like
tycoon i think you mentioned or the
hospital or sims
but then also i don't know age of
empires and that actually is big passion
so it stayed with me
i still like to sometimes play age of
empires it's kind of reminds me
christmas time you know when you
see your favorite fairy tale on tv and a
game of
of these games they remind me kind of oh
it's like holiday time it's special time
do you think sometimes it makes it hard
to um so there's this entire virtual
world which is very present and very
influential but at the same time it's
very generationally bound so do you feel
that there is quite a big
yeah like um the fight between
generations because these worlds are so
separate
i think now more and more generations
find themselves in games
also maybe the older generation with the
tools are so accessible
or the games and apps but of course it's
easy to catch them
on on games that are you know just uh
the facebook games the easy one that
just mine your data basically
you know you collect the colorful stones
and they're popping out
it's like yeah i don't know how it's
even called but
you know these are the most addictive
games they claim themselves they're
puzzle games but there are no puzzles
it's just like it takes your time
it's like takes out your productivity
and then you feel guilty you play these
games
especially in office like it used to be
this old card game solitaire i think
or finding the mines i don't know what
was that in the old
windows and now it's all this
procrastination
games online that's more for that that's
what i see
when i see people playing these games
then i see playing these games when i
look over the shoulder a little bit in
the metro or something then i see them
doing this
but yeah i think we have more common
language these days and especially
like gen zed and millennials we can find
like our
our games i think okay
um and um so we talked a little bit
about
uh crises before and now with the uh
covet 19
panemic uh of course the like the
digital space has become even more
important even
faster like it accelerated even also in
uh
like educational context for example
could you tell
something about this and how this
influences the work of of your studio
yeah i mean we were preparing for
making more and more virtual games
before so with the coding you need quite
some coding skills which i really
don't have it's more really uh it's more
vid side
he's expert in that uh and and the free
building 3d world so kind of this shift
that happened really fastly in spring
we felt it's ready for us to just
help others the institutions that they
needed to
create virtual exhibitions because the
physical ones were canceled or postponed
till never ending date so we could
really help them in a short time to
build
virtual show but then somehow it also
became exciting for us we also want to
have our own show so we try to think
about these
the means of building our own or helping
others just with like
different types of streaming but then
actually oh how
it would would it be that we try to
stream ourselves and and try these
things but of course it's always
difficult with this with streaming for
example
how much you want to become this uh
consumer producer
player how much you give yourself to
platforms like twitch or youtube or
facebook again so
that's why we thought could be quite
interesting during this pandemic
to stream only inside the virtual worlds
that we make architecture of
so inside our worlds without without the
streaming platforms
so that was quite exciting it was a lot
of fun
yeah so so this part was somehow
smoother than we expected but we were
when a lot of installations and like um
some shows that we have planned were
cancelled or
you know needed to we just postponed we
thought oh what do we do because we are
so uncertain we actually
have booked the time for exhibition and
now there is nothing is this emptiness
but then you know after a few months
these projects can also
dangerously like pile up
right because you don't have the
deadline and suddenly everybody wants to
when when the
pandemics not ends but when the social
distancing
gets less i would call it like uh
problematic then everybody wants to make
these shows again and that would pile up
projects and it's
you cannot handle it as a small studio
of two people
so then we thought let's try to shift it
into the virtual spaces
so we can we can have to work going on
so yeah so you even shifted more to the
virtual space
than before like everywhere before most
of the video games that we made were
really like video games so we used
engine unity
and we would sculpt it in 3d and that's
galleries
museums they would have computer in
there and you could play it on console
but now we thought you cannot really
come to museum to galleries they're
closed so
uh we need websites so
the game the games that we started
making was just because of pandemics
yeah
so the the institutions in between have
been cut out
of the communication actually between
the audience
yeah but that actually brings a lot of
new problems because
you are used to there is technician like
person who helps you to build it
if you need to make some nice i don't
know a wall
wall paintings or or wallpapers
there is production company that prints
it for you installs it for you but
suddenly if you make the game you have
to make the lights you have to make the
everything you have to build yourself
you have to sculpt it yourself
you also have to take care of opening
hours or like
letting visitors in so you have to test
how many people you can have
at the same time which suddenly like all
of the jobs
are connected into being being this kind
of
experimentator yeah it's funny even the
virtual realm has
opening hours uh and you you have to be
both the supposed and the maker and the
painter and
yeah i have a last question you did
answer it throughout our conversation
but i
asked it anyway um so in the
introduction
for this series uh the philosopher elise
at the mill writes in her introduction
that housing notices an alarming erosion
of
game playing in his own time and he for
him it comes because of
economic interest technological
development
and individualization of society so
everyone
doing everything on its on his own um
and because the game loses its aspect of
disinterestedness or
being a means without an end um and he
fears that the erosion of the game
element is also the end of culture
so for you do you recognize somewhat of
his
pessimism concerning culture and in your
case of course
more specific digital culture or are you
a real
optimist and do you not recognize
anything of this
i hope to be more optimistic in that
in emancipation of the tools we have as
creators and players
but somehow i recognize when he
he mentions that i would more say for us
the fear is this
uh is more instrumentalization
so that the the players or the users
are turned into workers so that's more
going back to the
the platform capitalism and labor itself
that we are being instrumentalized or
objectified
as as means of resources ourselves our
data our lives
our time our playing time so that's
something i'm more
afraid of than uh what he was at that
time
so it somehow developed i think he was
very much right
but somehow it shifted towards this
instrumentalization
encryption maybe um i i don't know maybe
this is too big a question but could you
give
one way for us as um players
to stay players without becoming either
workers or consumers in in this digital
realm
i think it's uh i'm struggling with that
myself
no people often ask about la so how do
you do with instagram if you criticize
it so much
uh yeah you can still find me on there
so it's like
it's very problematic i think it's more
about
trying to be more like players hackers
in in a good sense
in creative sense that you try to
understand
the tools or the games themselves or the
mechanics of them and try to
dissect them or analyze them and use
them for your
own um own things in your own life
somehow or
play play with them in in a way that it
wasn't maybe
designed for and expect it
that you will do that and take over
yeah thank you thank you so much uh
today so a wheeler
so we have to use game for other
play them in another way than there may
be made yeah
experiment to break the rules and i
think that could be interesting
thank you thank you so much people
yeah i will close a little a bit i'm i'm
looking for my um
instructions so um
thank you also visitors for your
attention
and your visit tonight this is the last
series
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procrastination::noun | Spocien Dictionary

procrastination

noun

the act of procrastinating; putting off or delaying or defering an action to a later time

Type	Words
Synonyms	cunctation, shillyshally
Type of	delay, holdup
Derivation	procrastinate

procrastination::noun | Spocien Dictionary

procrastination

noun

slowness as a consequence of not getting around to it

Type	Words
Synonyms	dilatoriness
Type of	deliberateness, deliberation, slowness, unhurriedness
Derivation	procrastinate

How to pronounce procrastination in Dutch?

procrastination::noun | Spocien Dictionary

abandonment

Related words

procrastination::noun | Spocien Dictionary

abandonment

Related words

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