1. A Ludic Aesthetic in Everyday Life?
Dan Dixon
University of the West of England
Digital Cultures Research Centre | Pervasive Media Studio

2. Who got coffee on the way in?

3. Aims
• Show the relationship between gameplay and everyday experiences
➡ de Certeau - The Practice of Everyday Life
➡ Nietzsche - The Birth of Tragedy
➡ Game/Life distinction
➡ Tactics and Games
➡ The Ludic Age
➡Re-evaluate de Certeau

4. de Certeau in a nutshell
• Consumption -> Use
• Ordinary people, everyday life, everyday language
• Individuals
• Strategies and Tactics
• Everyday creativity
• An art of Practice
consumption production

5. Apollo and Dionysus

6. Dionysian Apollonian
• physical • cognitive
• ecstatic • individuating
• chaotic • understandable
• intoxicated • illusions
• music • visual arts
• dance • narrative

7. rhythmic principle tactical aesthetic
• physical • cognitive
• ecstatic • individuating
• chaotic • understandable
• intoxicating • astounding
• interaction • simulation
• rhythm • rules
• dialectic/conversational • narrative
• “playing” • “gaming”

8. movement systems/rhizome
rhythm understanding
autotelic
Lego
Twirling Pervasive
gaming RPGs
am es PnP RPG
sensation
rhythm-action
g
rhythmic FPS
MMORPGs tactical
Navigation
Dancing
Gambling
ery day Ballroom
ay
ev Dancing Sports
Stockmarket
eve ryd
Dionysian earnest Apollonian
Gadamer de Certeau

9. Everyday games
• Are games set aside or part of the everyday?
• Huizinga - Ritual and the Magic Circle
• Caillois - Games and Society
• Goffman - Frame Analysis

10. Everyday tactics and games
• The aesthetic of everyday life in games
• Tactics in two senses
• Tactical use of games
• Tactics within games
•

11. The Ludic turn/age
• The aesthetic of gameplay in everyday life
• Importance of Leisure in the contemporary age
• Computer games a symptom

12. Ludic reevaluation of de Certeau