Decatastrophizing Failure Through Playfulness

Everyone alive is engaged in playing elaborate games

The Grasshopper

Prelude

Fascination with conceptual intersections with games and with play is a recurring element in the making and presentation of art and in the practice of art-related activities. In 1938, historian Johan Huizinga drew on a long tradition of conceiving humanity in terms of “play” in order to assert the importance of this behavioural element as a defining characteristic – and to propose a close association between play and the arts, in particular musical practices. ^[1] Symmetries and resonances between aspects of play and art are the subject of the tenth chapter of Homo Ludens, in which play is conceived of as central to the historical understanding of mankind: civilization arises and unfolds in and as play. ^[2]

In more recent years, the potential of intersection between artists, artist researchers and the study of games and their principles of design and function have become increasingly prominent. ^[3] The contexts in which these juxtapositions emerge are as diverse as artistic practice itself. They may be conceived of as occurring in the generation, presentation, conceptualization, or reception of these productions, made explicit or deeply anchored within the material. The engagement with aspects of games and play is transdisciplinary in nature and appears independent of both the artist(s), their socio-aesthetic contexts, and the specific goals or direction in which their activities are directed. ^[4]

The intersection between games and musical artistic practice is not a phenomenon confined to the 20th Century. ^[5] As early as 1767, Johann Philipp Kirnberger published Der allezeit fertige Menuetten-und Polonaisencomponist, which is a musical dice-game which generates popular dances through a process of chance, without requiring any previous musical knowledge. ^[6] After Kirnberger’s publication, many others imitated his experiment, substituting cards for the dice and therewith allowing for a live performance. One prominent example of this variation may be found in the Kaleidakunstikon of Friedrich Kuhlau, from approximately 1820. These artworks propose an alternative way for the reader to engage with a musical composition by invoking elements of chance through randomized procedures. ^[7]

More recently, game references have found their ways into a variety of artistic practices and their reflection and analysis. Examples may be found in the works of Zofia Kulik and Przemysław Kwiek ^[8] and in historiographical examinations of the role of randomness in early impulses towards artistic research, for example in the work of Marcel Duchamp, portrayed retrospectively as an artistic-research inflected “game of chance”. ^[9]

The implications of fruitful interactions between artistic research and game studies, or ludology, have been the subject of increasing awareness in the last decade. Often, the main focus of these projects is to instrumentalize the game as a tool or method to achieve a specific goal, or as an isolated aspect of a particular research question. They focus on the expansive possibilities that specific aspects of ludological engagement may bring to a project or a perspective firmly rooted in the terrain of artistic research. Broadly formulated, these categories involve either integrating certain specifically chosen aspects of a game into the artistic research, very often through the use of individual practices in a defined manner, directed towards achieving a specific goal. A second option is the (re-) examination of certain artistic or research practices – in essence, culturally connotated practices – through the lens (often itself culturally connotated) of game studies. Our proposal is that this development is driven by societal factors, as games and game-elements are becoming inseparable from an everyday existence in diverse societal and global contexts. ^[10] These efforts are highly valuable and produce fascinating insights, but could be expanded by recognizing the intrinsic value of play in itself. ^[11]

Increasing visibility and engagement with gamified situations through the omnipresence of smartphones and the rise of video games as a creative genre and socially-determined aggregation of entertainment, collective activity, aesthetic engagement, and academic study (for example, the relatively new discipline of ludomusicology) ^[12] are reflected in the deeper engagement with games, game studies and ludification in artistic research. Games are increasingly being ... harnessed for productivity …, value creation … or experiences that matter most for business goals. ^[13] Why, then, should artistic research remain untouched by the pragmatically directed tendencies of gamification and the integration of game-aspects into its activities?

In exploring the intersection between game-based practices and artistic research, several notable projects ^[14] assist in portraying the diversity of creative and innovative approaches. Specific and current examples of the presence and function of game-elements in artistic research may be found in the GAPPP: Gamified audiovisual Performance and Performance Practice project (2016-2020) by Marco Ciciliani, Barbara Lüneburg, and Andreas Pirchner, focusing on developing an understanding of game-based elements in audiovisual works from the tripartite points of view of the composition, the performer, and the audience. A recent article by Bert Willems in Forum+ is centred upon Acting silly as a way of doing research - Being silly as a way of life ^[15]

However, these approaches involve implementing or examining game-based aspects as parts of a larger research project, or as goal-directed tools involving specific materials, practices, works, or genres. The game-elements are, in this sense, generally conceived as tools to be used to further research aims and to investigate more deeply specific research questions. The tantalising possibilities presented by the nature of ludified spaces remain open. What are the potentialities of opening the practices, methods, and conceptions of artistic research to a holistic approach to ludification?

“Deficeo, ergo sum”

In order to explore the possibilities fully, it is helpful to imagine the purpose of such an integration. Games, as self-contained and self-limiting entities, offer a safer space for exploration, experimentation, and also for risk-taking and failing, both constructively and non-constructively. In our experimentation with the contextual setting of gameplay, we found that the suspension of everyday reality, i.e. the magic circle, offers a new sense of freedom from those negative consequences intuitively and experientially associated with failure.

The nature of a game is such that it allows the creation of a temporary and imaginary world, possessing its own rules, order, and consequences.

The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of justice, etc., are all in form and function play-grounds, i.e. forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain. All are temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart. ^[16]

The function of the magic circle is not that failure is no longer extant, or no longer exhibits certain undesirable consequences. On the contrary, within the mechanics of a game, failure is a necessary element in order to retain interest and interactivity with the proceedings. ^[17]

Without the contrasting possibility of failing, success would be less salient as a motivator for participation and engagement. Each play-ground, or in later terminology, “magic circle”, possesses its own highly distinctive characteristics, as is evident in Huizinga’s list. The interchangeability of these game-like practices is almost none, as the failures and successes of the card table are, on their surface and seen in terms of their practice, entirely unrelated to those of the tennis court or – regardless of linguistic coincidence – the court of justice. These dissimilarities do not change the fundamental nature of the circle itself, which is based in its separateness from ordinary reality and its absolute and peculiar order. ^[17:1]

The highly limited and specific nature of failure within these magic circles is essential to its decatastrophization. In being restricted to the magic circle, it is removed from its consequences “in real life” - the process of learning and experiencing remains, while the catastrophic results are retained within the temporary nature of the magic circle. A wonderful metaphor is the artgame Braid by Johanthan Blow: "The Pit”. In this game, the main character has the ability to travel backward in time in order to avoid the consequences of his failures. However, actions taken before travelling backwards are not fully reversible - some of the consequences remain present, especially the positive consequences or achievements. A key obtained from an inescapable pit is retained although the action of entering the pit has “never happened”. ^[18]

It is this latter aspect which creates the basis for a differentiated experience of failure, as although the restriction of activities to the paradigms belonging to the individual game-world, or magic circle, does not mean that failure becomes nonexistent, the consequences for failing are regulated entirely by the internal order of the magic circle. Within this temporary and consciously created area, it is possible to treat failure as an opportunity for processes of exploration and learning. The example of video games and their effects on the cultural connotations of failure in gamified spaces is of relevance here. Situations which, outside of the magic circle of the game, would be marked by high stress and great danger to life and limb are presented as challenges for developing new skills, whether motoric, intellectual, spatial, reactive, or otherwise. The car which crashes down an embankment and bursts into flames in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is, in any sense recognisable in the real world, without the meaningful consequences of failure. The crash or the virtual death within the magic circle of the videogame is an invitation to return to a certain point within the chain of events, to repeat one’s actions and to improve or change them, treating the barrier of “failing” as a temporary state and an encouragement to engage further, in the footsteps of Samuel Beckett’s Worstward Ho (1989): Ever Tried. Ever Failed. No Matter. Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better. ^[19]

It is of interest to note that the piece of prose in which this unusual exhortation is found is itself something of a game, as it inhabits the magic circle of parody, relating to the 19th Century historical novel Westward Ho by Charles Kingsley. The process of improvement through failure – very often through repeated failure – is essential in the game-world, magic circle, or play-ground. Beckett’s exhortation is, from the perspective of experiential and experimental engagement in games, perhaps still too goal-oriented, as the intervening or perhaps final step of “fail differently” is an equally legitimate proposal to “fail better”. ^[20]

In allowing for the differences in constructs of failure and for reconceiving failure as having consequences limited by the space of the magic circle, its threatening nature is reduced. The playfulness of the approach to integrating games into research spaces involves acting “as if”, making the experience of failing non-threatening, and perhaps even cathartic. Confronting failure through “playing at” failing results in a new openness and opportunity for experimentation and exploration. This limited experience of failure, a “virtual” experience within the confines of a game, has consequences for real life. Experiencing decatastrophised failure inside of the magic circle offers the potential of reconceiving failure in other contexts, once the suspended reality of the game has passed. The boundaries of the magic circle may be thought of as a membrane, a shield of sorts, protecting the fantasy world from the outside world. The inner world needs defining and protecting because it is necessary that everyone who goes there adhere to the different set of rules. ^[21] This membrane, however is actually quite porous… people are crossing it all the time in both directions, carrying their behavioral assumptions and attitudes with them. . Although Castronova is speaking about cyberspace, the transferability of behaviours, experiences and attitudes beyond the magic circle holds true for the intersection between game-worlds and the spaces in which artistic research is conducted.

Fabula aperta

The function of our work is not only to create spaces defined by playfulness in order to explore new ways of collaboration, we also wish to emphasize the potential of nonhierarchical and non-goal oriented interactivity. From our case studies, it was apparent that the non deterministic but constrained aspects of games were highly successful in generating new forms of interaction. Writing about flexibility in experience and the potential of games to create experimental spaces offers an opportunity to investigate the possibilities of including fluidity, spontaneity, and an explorative mentality into our article. In his 1979 book Lector in Fabula, Italian philosopher and author Umberto Eco proposes two types of narrative, or “fabula”. An “open fabula”, or non-linear narrative conceived of as a tree with many branches to be explored by the reader, and “closed fabula” in which only a single path is allowed by the author. ^[22]

Extending an invitation to readers to intervene in the structure of a text is an established practice, particularly in the field of literature. The forms these invitations may take varies considerably, and an exhaustive list would be beyond the scope of this article. Particularly notable are those which focus attention upon the act of creating a narrative, either through disruption of linearity, or through references to the active nature of reading. An example of the first kind may be found in Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire (1962), which consists of a 999-line poem by one authorial figure and a forward, commentary, and index by another, presented in the role of an academic commentator. The “complete” narrative emerges from this combination. The second type of invitation to readers to consider their agency in the context of narrative structures may be found in Italo Calvino’s Castle of Crossed Destinies (1973), in which the reader is presented with a network of stories told through the superimpositional arrangement of tarot cards. Calvino’s focus on the game aspects of storytelling, particularly through the necessity of interpreting the communication of figures who are unable to speak for themselves, draws attention to the interpretative actions of the reader. This results in a de-stabilisation of the literary content - it is subjected to a twofold act of interpretation, and gives the reader a sense of their own agency in constructing meaningful experiences. ^[23]

Similarly, non-linear and open forms have been established in musical practice and in artistic research. Deconstruction in Music, Marcel Cobussen’s 2002 dissertation, was the first online, interactive, OA dissertation of Erasmus University Rotterdam (NL). The open form of the dissertation, which consists of five elements, exists as a website which ...can be the beginning of a journey through the world of deconstruction in music. Of course, a deconstruction of music. But also a strategy of deconstruction through music. The form and presentation of the material reflect the content of the dissertation. ^[24]

The explorative and playful possibilities of non-linear and open forms and the presence of game-elements in music are united in Mauricio Kagel’s Prima Vista (1964). The piece is a series of slides (which can be shown in any order during a performance) and is performed by two (or more) ensembles, each of which is looking at its own screen. However, the slides which appear on the screen are controlled by the other ensemble: The sounds are produced by one ensemble reacting to the slide projected by the other ensemble. In addition, during rehearsals, a recording of each ensemble is made (in which the determination of the slides remains the responsibility of a member of the other ensemble), which is then provided to the first ensemble for the performance. The elements of non-hierarchical participation, spontaneity, and surprise form the basis of the interaction between the ensembles.

All of these examples show intertwinings between the material or information being conveyed and the form it takes. This offers rich possibilities for engaging with audiences, readers, performers, and researchers in new ways. It is our intention to continue experimenting in this mode, drawing the central position of games and playfulness into the structure of our presentation. We wish to question the fixed and closed nature of an academic text, particularly one which enters the discourses surrounding artistic research. ^[25] In that sense, the “introductory summary” statement appears at the close of this text, as a retrospective glance at the path already taken. ^[26]

The approach we have taken is tripartite: firstly, we provide a magic circle, where the reader can immerse themselves in conceptual exploration. Secondly to demonstrate the promise of our engagement with creating exploratory spaces for artist researchers and within institutional contexts in order to encourage new types of collaboration and discourse. Finally, the function of the interaction between informational material, organizational-exploratory structure and the agency of the reader is to create an aesthetically and intellectually experienced cohesion across three levels.

1. The nature of the content informs the choice of presentation, describing the phenomenon of game-play through the ludic experience itself.

2. The engagement with an “audience” is non-deterministic and participative in a manner which provides new insight into the experience itself.

3. The result of each individual “journey” through our game-article produces its own version, its own experience. The narrative of the article, or its “storytelling”, and the cohesion between entities is a collaboration between the reader, the authors, and the game mechanics.

The text you have read is an extended introduction to the artistic, cultural, and academic background which informs our thinking, but is not the main body of the article. This is an invitation to continue your journey into our magic circle and to enter the realm of playfulness and assume an authorial, exploratory role.

MONADS! A Ludic Article Generator

Monads is a network of concepts which are related to each other and to our aims as authors. In the process of creating the article, we generated a provisional list of relevant “monads”, which will be expanded through the inclusion of brief statements in the future. By travelling through the network and accumulating statements, the reader is empowered to generate their own narrative. Not only the content of the monad pages, but also the connections of the paths between them form the substance of these individually created narratives. ^[27]

The demo version of the game is already available, come and play with us!

References