I tend to think of this – perhaps grandiosely, perhaps unnecessarily – as a kind of libidinal architecture: creating a structure that encourages those moving through it to move towards a certain set of goals and away from a general set of lose conditions.
Read MorePlay – as Huizinga defines it above – is ultimately generative. It creates an order that would not otherwise come into being: in the middle of the twentieth century we see a narrowing of horizons. They are not so much being allowed to play as they are being encouraged to engage in what might be called a kind of “socratic” play. The doll or the model car has a specific way that the user is encouraged to engage with it in, and to do otherwise is a kind of perversion.
Read MoreIt becomes increasingly clear that what we are exploring is not a something-else but a something of which we, of which I and you and Cameron in the kitchen, are already a part. Something else is going on.
Read MoreThis year, I worked more, Edgar posted a bit more often, and we have difficulty sorting out the popularity of newer pieces. It’s a bit of a difficult task, sorting the old from the new. So consider this a bit of a longer-term retrospective.
Read MoreThere’s something there – something in the use of representational art works and artists in a genre virtually defined by the unrepresentable quality of its subjects – but where are we?
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