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. . . NEW GAMES INSPIRATIONS . . .
The cooperative games featured on A Spirit of Play were very much informed by the New Games Movement, which I gratefully explored with Tracy Fullerton, Celia Pearce and Jacki Ford Morie of the Ludica collective; and the late Bernie DeKoven. Bernie was an award-winning game designer, New Games referee, cofounder of the New Games Foundation, and innovator of Junkyard Sports. He was also an influential author, theorist, critic, play tester, mentor to many, dear friend of Ludica, and a major fan of all things fun and related to play. One of our favorite books in common we’d often come back to in our conversations was The Grasshopper - Games, Life and Utopia by Bernard Suits. We also enjoyed many walks along Redondo Beach, observing people at play followed by tea in Bernie’s garden.
The Ludica team collectively played and experimented with some of the New Games described in Andrew Fluegelman’s invigorating The New Games Book. We enthusiastically embraced these ideas and used them as a basis for new work that included several co-authored papers, presentations, workshops, and an inspiring dialogue around the future of play–inclusion is what we found vital to capturing the spirit of New Games. “Play belongs to everyone” became our mantra. We’ve each continued to work with New Games in a variety of academic settings, professional capacities, and artistic endeavors–with more playful adventures to embark on in the future. JF
“How we play the game may be more important than we imagine, for it signifies nothing less than our way of being in the world.”
Selected highlights from Ludica’s collaborations, including game-design challenges, publications, and discussions. Ludica was cofounded in Los Angeles in 2005 with Celia Pearce, Jacquelyn Ford Morie, and Tracy Fullerton. Courtesy of Ludica, www.ludica.org.uk, featured in New Media Futures: The Rise of Women in the Digital Arts.
With special thanks to our collaborators and friends for their enthusiasm, inspiration, and friendship: Bernie DeKoven, Mary Flanagan, Richard Kahlenberg, Elina Ollila, Katherine Milton, Katherine Moriwaki, Alex and Judy Singer and Larry Tuch. A very special thanks to all of the players, game designers and scholars who have participated in our interventions, including Ludica Game Design Challenges, publications and discussions. We hope our work continues to playfully challenge and inspire.
“Most of the games were designed to encourage participation by people of widely differing abilities. All of our games required some degree of physical participation, even if it meant just sitting in a circle. Very few of our games involved keeping score.”
Park visitors gather for a parachute game at the Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago, September 2015.
“New Games is not a list of suggested forms and structures. Nor is it a foundation dedicated to perpetuating itself. New Games is an attitude that encourages people to play together. To learn only the form and not grasp the essence would be to miss the lifeline that gives rise to that attitude.”
“I applaud the sentiments here, especially the overt and unapologetic gender analysis, which I am coming to believe may be the only thing that can save our rapidly collapsing civilization.”
: : Selected Publications by Ludica : :
Getting Girls into the Game: Towards a Virtuous Cycle, Beyond Barbie & Mortal Kombat, The MIT Press, 2008
The Hegemony of Play, DiGRA 2007: Situated Play, Tokyo
Sustainable Play: Toward a New Games Movement for the Digital Age, Games and Culture, Summer 2007
*Ludica’s work with New Games was also included in Feminist Media Studies (2011) and New Media Futures (2018), reviewed in Hyperallergic and Illinois Times :
“This is a book that can be picked up and opened to any area to explore. If you do, you will come away a little bit wiser, certainly more informed and totally impressed with what these women have done.”
