Play Matters——会玩至关重要

Play Matters by Miguel Sigart

Play Matters——会玩至关重要

On Thinking Playfully

Many people find video games exhilarating, but it can be just as interesting toponder why that is so. What do video games do? What can they be used for? Howdo they work? How do they relate to the rest of the world? Why is play both soimportant and so powerful?

Our basic assumption is simple: video games are such a flourishing medium that any new perspective on them is likely to show us something unseen or forgotten,including those from such unconventional voices as artists, philosophers, or specialists in other industries of fields of study. These books are bridge builders, cross-pollinating both areas with new knowledge and new ways of thinking。

At its heart, this is what playful thinking is all about: new ways of thinkingabout games and new ways of using games to think about the rest of the world.

很多人发现电子游戏让人欲罢不能，其实思考其中缘由也一样趣味十足。电玩游戏都在做什么？有什么用？怎么运作的？与现实生活有什么联系？为什么玩如此重要且有力呢？

在此我们所做的基本假设非常简单：电子游戏自身异常繁盛，几乎不受任何其他新观点的干扰和影响，即使这些观点并非传统，而是来自新锐的艺术家、哲学家或者其他领域研究的专家们。趣味思考系列书籍作为桥梁，建立起新的知识与新思考方式之间的交流融合。

核心在于，这才是趣味思考的关键所在：用新的方式来思考游戏这件事，同时用游戏的方式来思考游戏外的世界。

Play Is

Think about play, and what it means to you

What comes to minds? A pastime? Games? Childhood activitise? The opposite of work? Asource for learning? What you’d rather be doing now?

Think again: how much do you know about play?

Let’s start with a simple exercise. List your daily activities,the tasks thatstructure your day, from work to leisure to those things you have to do that are neither,yet you have to do them.

How do you do these tasks? If you are happy and well rested, you may approach yourday in a playful way, enjoying what you do. Happiness may give you time toplay, to live in a different way. The temptation of enjoying and living life through play, of having fun, is always present.

说起玩来，一下映入你脑子的究竟是什么呢？休闲时光？游戏？孩子才做的事？工作的反面？一种学习方式？现在你最想做的事？

再想一想，你对玩究竟知道多少？

来做个简单的测试。列出你每天的常规任务，即那些不管是在工作还是休闲，你都不得不做的事，或者即使并非工作也非休闲，你依然不得不做的事。

你如何完成这些任务的呢？如果你很开心，休息充足，你一天过得将很有趣，享受你所做的。幸福感让你有时间以不同的方式来玩，来生活。以玩的方式来享受生活，获得乐趣，永远有其馈赠般的魅力。

To play is to be in the world. Playing is a form of understanding what surroundsus and who we are, and a way of engaging with others. Play is a mode of being human.

We live in exciting times. You might have encountered the argument that games are now everywhere; that intellectuals, artists, policymakers, and institutions are games for serious and trival purposes. You might have also read that games willbe “the dominant cultural form of the XXI Century.” There is even talk among game developers of the twenty-first century being “the ludic(ai in,play-centric) century.”

I disagree, to a certain extent. Games don’t matter. Like in the old fable, weare the fools looking at the finger when someone points at the moon. Games arethe finger; play is the moon.

会玩即是活着。玩让我们理解周围，理解自己是谁，如何和周围的人联系在一起，玩是成为人的一种模式。

我们活在一个娱乐的时代。也许你早已听到这样的论调，今日游戏遍布所有；知识分子、艺术家、政客、机构都是其严肃或者琐碎的目的而成的游戏。也许你也看到了这样的说法，游戏会成为“某某世纪的统治性文化现象”。游戏研发者们甚至有这样的讨论，说二十一世纪将是一个“以游戏为中心的世纪“。

某种意义上，我并不认同以上的说法。游戏并非实质。就像古老的寓言中那样，当有人指着月亮的时候，我们像傻子一样盯着指向月亮的手指。游戏就是那根手指，而玩才是空中皓月。

What is true is that play is a dominant way of expression in our First World societies. We play games, but also with toys,on playgrounds,with technologies and design. And play is not justthe ludic, harmless,encapasulated, and positive activity that philosophers have described. Like any other form of being, play can be dengerous; it can behurting, damaging, antisocial, corrupting. Play is a manifestation of humanity,used for expressing and being in the world.

To understand what play is, I propose here a portable theory, or rhetoric, of play. Instead of deriving an understanding of play from a particular object oractivity, like war, ritual, or games, I see play as a protable tool for being. It is not tied to objects but brought by people to the complex interralations with and between things that form daily life.

不过，玩确实成了现代社会一种主要的表达方式。我们玩游戏，当然得有玩具，有场地，有技术手段和设计方法等等。玩不只是如哲学家定义的那样，是愉悦的、无害的、可控的、积极的行为，和其他行为一样，玩同样可以是危险的，可能形成疼痛、伤害、反社会或者堕落。玩是人性的一部分，用于表达，也用于感知这个世界。

为了进一步理解什么是玩，在此提出一项简单的理论，或者叫修辞性描述。玩的概念和战争、传统或者游戏这样某一个具体的事、物并不相同，在我看来，玩是一种存在的便捷的工具，它并不依附于某种具体的事物，但确实是人在每天处理人与事物，以及事物之间复杂关系时在运用的。

Why propose a theory of play now? in our culture, playful has become a positiveword. The auther of the 2011 biography of Steve Jobs uses playful as a word ofpraise for the design of Apple computers, originally conceived to contrast withdull corporate machines. Apple’s “playful” design appropriated cues from an understanding of play as a personal expression: beauty, countercultural politics, and moral values. That is the value and place of play in our culture.

Despite its importance, we are still trying to understand play with models inheritedfrom the past. Our theories are mostly derived from the work of Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga, who famously coined the concept of Homo Ludens. This book is not written in the tradition of Huizingan play, understood as a faircontest that creates a sepatate world with rules that are never questioned. The nature of play I am advocating for here is different from that of Huizinga.

为什么现在提出一项关于玩的理论呢？因为在我们的文化中，可玩已经成为一个积极正面的词汇。2011年乔布斯传的作者，将可玩作为对Apple电脑设计的最高称赞，这与其他公司无聊死板的机器完全分开了。Apple的“可玩性”设计恰如其分的表达了玩是一种个性：美感，反文化政治，道德观念。这才是玩在文化中的价值和地位。

尽管如此重要，我们依旧希望能从过去的模式中找到理解玩的方法。我们的理论很大程度上来自荷兰文化历史学家Johan Huizinga，他以定义了“游戏的人”这一概念而著称。在Huizinga的理论中，玩是一种根据某种特定不必质疑的规则创造出的独立体系下的公平赛事，显然我们书中的玩并不是根据传统的Huizinga理论来进行的，在这里所说的玩的性质与Huizinga大相径庭。

I am not going to oppose play to reality, to work,to ritual or sports because it exists in all of them. It is a way of being in the world, like languages,thought, faith, reason, and myth.

And play is not necessarily fun. It is pleasurable, but the pleasures it createsare not always submissive to enjoyment, happiness, or positive traits. Play can be pleasurable when it hurts, offends, challenges us and teases us, and evenwhen we are not playing. Let’s not talk about play as fun but as pleasurable,opening us to the immense variations of pleasure in this world.

在这里，我并不将玩与现实、工作、传统或者运动相对立，因为玩存在于所有这些行为中，玩是在这个世界存在的一种方式，就像语言、思想、信念、理由、神话一样。

玩也不一定就是有趣的。玩令人愉悦，但它所产生的愉悦并非总是伴随着享受、开心或其他正面特征，玩的愉悦也可能产生在它刺痛、冒犯、挑战、取笑我们，甚至在我们不玩的时候。所以不要将玩作为一种乐趣看待，而是一种愉悦，一种能够开阔世界维度的愉悦。

Play can be dangerous too. It can be addicting and the destructive and may lead to different types of harm-phyical injuries, lost friendships, emotionalbreakdowns. Play is a dance between creation and the destruction, between creativity and nihilism. Playing is a fragile, tense activity, prone tobreakdowns. Individual play is a challenge to oneself, to keep on playing. Collectiveplay is balancing act of egos and interests, of itself and of its players. Play is always on the verge of destruction, of itself and of its players. And that is precisely why it matters. Play is a movement between order and chaos. Liketragedy, it fulfills its expressive purpose when it manages a fragile,oscillating balance between both. This echoes the concept of dark play,exploring the boundaries between play and not play, between performance andsecrecy. Dark play, with its potential dangers and exhilarating results, isanother example of the nature of play as a way of being in the world-adangerous one.

玩也可能是危险的。玩可能引起上瘾，毁灭，或者导致各种类型的生理伤害，失去朋友，又或心理伤害。玩是在创造与毁灭、创造力与虚无主义之间的舞蹈。玩是一种紧张脆弱的活动，极易出错。一个人的玩对于个人来说持续玩下去是个挑战，而团队玩需要平衡个人和团体利益，同时平衡玩本身以及其参与者，这种玩法本身就是在毁灭的边缘徘徊。而这才是玩的本质所在,玩游弋于秩序与混乱之间。就像悲剧一样，在其最后的表现力上往往在秩序与混乱之间达成一种脆弱摇摆的平衡。这就引出了隐形玩的概念，隐形玩在玩与不玩，表演与机密之间探索其边界，有其潜在的危险或者充满惊喜的结果，这也从另一方面佐证了玩是在这个充满危险世界的一种自然客观存在。

Play is carnvalesque too. Play appropriates events, structures and institutions tomock them and trivialize them, or make them deadly serious. The carnival of the Middle Ages, with its capacity to subvert conventions and institutions in asuspension of time and power, was a symptom of freedom. Carnivalesque playtakes control of the world and gives it to the players for them to explore,challenge, or subvert. It exists; it is part of the world it turns upside down.Through carnivalesque play, we express ourselves, taking over the world to laugh at it and make sense of it too.

Think about the famous Twitter bot-not-bot horse-ebooks. Initially a spam bot, then a piece of automatic found art, and finally a piece of performance art,Horse-ebooks is the perfect example of carnivalesque-dangerous play and playfulness in the age of computing machinery. By taking over a social situation and technology, this (not)-bot-come-art piece played with ourexpections, broke our hearts, and showed us a new way of seeing the world and understanding ourselves. Horse-ebooks was appropriated by a performance artist Jacob Bakkila teased our perception of Twitter and the technologies to which were lingquish our entertainment. The sense of betrayal that some felt whoHorse-ebooks was revealed to be human can be understood only as an example ofcarnivaleaque dark play and the ways in which it can painfully enrich ourlives.

玩也是一场狂欢。玩让事件、机构、组织变得轻松、简化，或者让它们变得异常严肃。中世纪的狂欢节就是自由来临的象征，狂欢节的魔力在于暂停了时间与权力，从而颠覆了议会和机构。狂欢式玩乐控制了整个世界，给其中玩家冒险、挑战、甚至颠覆的可能。玩就这样存在，是世界的一部分，自上而下的。通过狂欢式的玩乐，我们表达着自己，嘲笑自在我们掌握的世界，同时去理解真实的世界。

回顾一下著名的推特bot-not-bot Horse-ebooks事件。起初只是一个发送垃圾信息的木马程序，然后变成了一种自动发现的艺术，最后变成了一种表演艺术形式。Horse-ebooks事件是电脑时代狂欢式玩乐和娱乐性的完美案例。通过某种特定的社交场景，加上技术手段，这种“源自机器的艺术”让玩的同时，迎合了某些预期，打破内心深处顾虑，给了一个新的视角来理解自己。Horse-ebooks是由表演艺术家Jacob Bakkila运营的，巧妙抓住了人们对于Twitter的依赖，它已经成了人们所有的娱乐活动了。在Horse-ebooks事件给人造成的那种背叛感觉，作为一种狂欢式隐形玩乐的结果更容易让人理解，这也痛苦的感觉也是一种丰富生命的方式。

This is also not a theory of play through games. Games donot matter that much. Theyare a manifestation, a form of and for play, just not the only one. They are the strongest form, culturally and economically dominant. But they are part of an ecology of playthings and play contexts, from toys to playgrounds, from political action to aesthetic performance, through which play is used forexpression. The book explores this ecology, from conventional computer andboard games to sports, activism, critical engineering, interaction design,toys, and playgrounds. Play is the force that ties these design, toys, and playgrounds. Play is the force that ties these cultural expressions togetherand makes them matter.

这也不是一个通过游戏来理解玩的理论。游戏本身并不重要，游戏只是玩的一种表达方式，是其中一种形式，而非唯一的形式。在文化和经济层面上，游戏是玩的最强烈的表现形式，但也只是玩和玩的内容这整个生态系统的一部分，从玩具到操场，从政治活动到体育竞赛，这些都是玩的表现形式。本书在于探索整个玩的生态系统，从电脑、桌游到运动、行动主义、关键工程、交互设计、玩具和操场。玩将这些设计、玩具、操场联系在一起，它才是将这些文化的表达方式维系在一起的力量，因为玩，这些事物才有了实质的意义。

I am aware of both my ambition and the obvious limitations of what I can do. Mine is a ramantic theory (or rhetoric) of play, based on an idea of creativity and expression that has been developed in the highly postromantic culturalevironment of the early twenty-first century. I write this theory of play as a reaction to the instrumentalized, mechanistic thinking of play championed bypostmodern culture industries. This is a theory that acts as a call to playful arms, an invocation of play as a struggle against efficiency, seriouness, andtechnical determinism.

在此我也意识到我的雄心壮志和力不从心。我表达的玩的理论或者描述，是基于二十一世纪早期后浪漫主义文化下充分发展的对于创造力和表达的观点，而我要对抗的是当下在现代工业文化下产生的工具化结构性玩的概念。在现在的概念里，玩就是和效率，严肃，技术性决策对抗的臂膀和祈祷。

If and when this era passes, my theory will be rendered obsolete. But right now,we need to think about play matters and reclaim play as a way of expression, a way of engaging with the world—not as an activity of consumption but asan activity of production. Like literature, art, song, and dance; like politics and love and math, play is a way of engaging and expressing our being in theworld.

当这个时代过去了，我的理论可能会被彻底摒弃。但是现在，我们必须看到，会玩至关重要，玩是自我表达、理解世界的方式，玩不是一种消费性行为，而是一种生产性行为。就如同文学、艺术、歌舞，而或政治、爱情、数学，玩是在这个世界上我们自我表达、相互理解的一种方式。

In fact, play is a fundamental part of our moral well-being, of the healthy andmature and complete human life. Through play we experience the world, weconstruct it and we destroy it, and we explore who we are and what we can say. Playfrees us from moral conventions but makes them still present, so we are awareof their weight, presense, and importance.

实际上，对于我们道德成熟、身体康健、心理成熟发展，玩都是基础组成部分。通过玩，我们经历了这个世界，构建了它，也摧毁了它。我们探寻自己是谁，我们能说什么。玩让我们从道德传统中解放出来，同时知道它们依旧在，并且知道了它们的存在和重要性。

【编者编】

感知世界，每一分每一秒都可以是玩，有意识或者无意识的。玩的心态和视角，不一定能让所经历的事更简单，或者可以重启再来一遍，但有可以纾解那种觉得结果命中注定的沉闷，又或因为感受到这种沉闷而依然有成就感，毕竟这才是真实的世界，输赢对错，喜怒哀乐都得一玩。