Playing

Manager:
Tim Jackson, M.F.A., Ph.D.
Director, Synth/Ops Research Group
and Professor of New Media
Department of Art History
Savannah College of Art and Design
tajackso@scad.edu

“Play is a uniquely adaptive act, not subordinate to some other adaptive act, but with a special function of its own in human experience.”
Johan Huizinga

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”
Plato

“Play is the exultation of the possible.”
Martin Buber

Play is the beginning of knowledge and the manifestation of our curiosity and joy. Play also involves our senses and imaginations in dynamic flow. The challenge is how to play without placating the players. Play as discovery is ontologically inverse to playing games. To play in this sense of discovery is to engage in the activity of the unknown, rather than the experience of a construct such as many games provide. Telematic play involves the use of the medium as a playground. Telematic play allows one to turn percieved weaknesses (latency and asymptotic signatures) into strengths as materials for interactive play.