Playing cooperative games...or is it just because you're crap at chess?
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Or is it just because you're crap at chess?
Cycled to Bar Lorca Stoke Newington to meet with Maf'J Alvarez, an artist who is working with co-operative games.
But first she showed me a game on paper, supposedly designed by Einstein, that her boyfriend had shown her the day before. She explained the principles of the game and talked about the concept of 'goggles' in the game . She had had real difficulty seeing the patterns and so I understood 'goggles' as a description of a kind of game blindness which I had experienced at the 'Art of Chess' tournament (Marc has jokingly threatened to tell everyone that the only reason I want to change the game is because I'm crap at chess). So we chatted and laughed about what it meant to be unable to perceive the existence of a certain state of order. What it was like to feel 'thick' and how that sensitized one to other peoples' reactions.
We enjoyed the conversation as much as the game,ordered another beer and went on to play her game of cooperation.
Reminiscent of 'Sims', it involved a 6X5 grid of houses represented by a grid of numbered dots. The object of the game was to supply each house with electricity and water, represented by red and blue lines that may not cross each other. The obstacle was that it was possible to block the supply line to a house.
As we played, we talked about the abstract, straight lines and grid structures that comprise the urban environment. And our willingness to accept the restrictions they place on our squishy bodies (an idea that Marc talked about to me years ago) in the quest for order. We talked about embodied memory and the power of the human body, about the limits of consciousness and how by comparison it felt to stand at the edge of the ocean.
We did finish the game and there was a sense of satisfaction at the creation of a functioning system - not the same exhilaration of having won, being the winner, being better, more skillful, luckier or the depressing discomfort of loosing, being more stupid etc etc
But the conversation was very stimulating and we decided to arrange an event in August where we could play with a group of people.
Cycled to Bar Lorca Stoke Newington to meet with Maf'J Alvarez, an artist who is working with co-operative games.
But first she showed me a game on paper, supposedly designed by Einstein, that her boyfriend had shown her the day before. She explained the principles of the game and talked about the concept of 'goggles' in the game . She had had real difficulty seeing the patterns and so I understood 'goggles' as a description of a kind of game blindness which I had experienced at the 'Art of Chess' tournament (Marc has jokingly threatened to tell everyone that the only reason I want to change the game is because I'm crap at chess). So we chatted and laughed about what it meant to be unable to perceive the existence of a certain state of order. What it was like to feel 'thick' and how that sensitized one to other peoples' reactions.
We enjoyed the conversation as much as the game,ordered another beer and went on to play her game of cooperation.
Reminiscent of 'Sims', it involved a 6X5 grid of houses represented by a grid of numbered dots. The object of the game was to supply each house with electricity and water, represented by red and blue lines that may not cross each other. The obstacle was that it was possible to block the supply line to a house.
As we played, we talked about the abstract, straight lines and grid structures that comprise the urban environment. And our willingness to accept the restrictions they place on our squishy bodies (an idea that Marc talked about to me years ago) in the quest for order. We talked about embodied memory and the power of the human body, about the limits of consciousness and how by comparison it felt to stand at the edge of the ocean.
We did finish the game and there was a sense of satisfaction at the creation of a functioning system - not the same exhilaration of having won, being the winner, being better, more skillful, luckier or the depressing discomfort of loosing, being more stupid etc etc
But the conversation was very stimulating and we decided to arrange an event in August where we could play with a group of people.
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