Play, Games, Humor, Flow:The Creative Fluidity of Human

Experience

WHAT IS A GAME?

EXERCISE

1. DESCRIBE AND SHARE SOME GENERAL FEATURES OF GAMES.

2. DESCRIBE EXAMPLES OF GAMES YOU PLAYED THROUGHOUT YOUR CHILDHOOD AND ADULTHOOD.

3. WHAT TYPE OF GAMES DID YOU TALK ABOUT?

THE GAME OF HEX

1. What was it like to play this game?2. Who won and lost? Why?3. What kinds of games does this most closely resemble?4. Why do you think people play games like this one?5. What is the relationship between games and culture?

History of Games

WHAT IS A GAME?

WHAT IS A GAME?

WHAT IS A GAME?

WHAT IS A GAME?

WHAT IS A GAME?

WHAT IS A GAME?

WHAT IS A GAME?

WHAT IS A GAME?

game:

a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome

Roger Callois

WHAT IS A GAME?

1. Agon or competition:

Games where there are winners and losers. The outcome is determined by the skills and/or strength of the players. Examples: races, weightlifting, chess. 

2. Alea or chance:

Games where fate, luck, or grace determines the winner. Examples: dice, roulette. 

EGYPTIAN DICE

3. Mimicry or simulation:

Playing within an imaginary, make-believe, or illusory world. Examples: theater, children’s make-believe play. 

SECOND LIFE

4. Ilinx or dizziness:

Playing to induce a disorienting experience or state of mind. Examples: spinning, roller-coaster rides, getting “crazy drunk”

MERRY-GO-ROUND

CASE STUDY:Children’s Handclapping Games

Pizza, pizza, Daddy-o: Children’s Musical Play/Game Spaces

http://www.folkstreams.net/film,73

Bess Lomax Hawes (1967, Los Angeles)

“First, this seems to be primarily a female tradition; little girls begin to learn it during their 6th or 7th year. By the time they reach puberty the tradition is abandoned, or perhaps simply transmuted into social dance.

Boys of the same age-span seem invariably to know the games but do not perform them in public situations such as the school yard. In backyards or alleys, however, the games may be played by mixed groups.

Bess Lomax Hawes

Bess Lomax Hawes

The primary game form is the ring. The clapping formation in which two children face each other and clap hands is actually itself a small ring to which others can be added like a string of beads. The other principal play form consists of parallel lines of players facing each other. All action takes place inside the ring or between the parallel lines; players do not go "outside."

Characteristically, there is a central figure who initiates the action, and the "plot line” of each game then consists of a series of moves which constitute one run-through of the play; this is repeated until the group is satisfied, or until everyone has had a turn at the center role.

Bess Lomax Hawes

This structure guarantees that there will be no more or less time for any child to have the central power position; competition, then, in the sense of winning-losing, is absent. Though individual players may try to outdo each other in improvisational detail, there is no reward expressed in terms of game action (another turn at the central role, for example).

Bess Lomax Hawes

Stylistically the major feature is call and response; almost every phrase is echoed both in singing and movement patterns. Motor expressiveness is elaborated; musical expressiveness is not. Though the children clap, their clapping style seems to stress tactile rather than tonal values. Their hands are quite relaxed; they stroke instead of making an impact.

Bess Lomax Hawes

This effect is emphasized by the degree of body empathy the children share; they move over, make room, spread out, close together, move in tandem and adjust to each other's physical presence in a thousand subtle ways. Physically speaking, they enjoy group blend to a degree that white society only seems to achieve under the strictest imposed discipline.”

Bess Lomax Hawes

1. How is this form of play a type of “game”?

2. What is learned during the game process?

3. What gender roles are encouraged?

Peak Experiences and Flow States

Psychologist: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

PRONOUNCED:

“CHICKS SEND ME HIGH”

(NO JOKE!)

“Flow activities lead to growth and discovery. One cannot enjoy doing the same thing at the same level for long. We grow either bored or frustrated; and then the desire to enjoy ourselves again pushes us to stretch our skills, or to discover new opportunities for using them.”

PLEASURE ENJOYMENT

Peak Experiences and Flow States

1. Clear goals: expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities.

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Peak Experiences and Flow States

2. Concentrating and focusing: a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).

Peak Experiences and Flow States

3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness

Peak Experiences and Flow States

4. Distorted sense of time: one's subjective experience of time is altered.

Peak Experiences and Flow States

5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).

Peak Experiences and Flow States

6. Balance between ability level and challenge: (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).

Peak Experiences and Flow States

7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.

Peak Experiences and Flow States

8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.

Peak Experiences and Flow States

9. People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action and awareness merging.

Peak Experiences and Flow States

AUTOTELIC vs. EXOTELIC

AUTO = “self”

EXO= “outside”

TELOS = “goal”

an intense engagement in an activity for its own sake

Deep play:

Peak Experiences and Flow States

Describe an experience to a different person where you felt in “deep play,” had “a peak experience,” or were in a “flow” state. Write down your partner’s descriptions.