Fellows

Playful Work. Playbour

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

In recent years – and at an accelerated pace during the Covid‑19 pandemic – work and work environments have undergone dramatic changes. The formerly accepted distinction of serious work and non-serious play is challenged by what Julian Kücklich (2005) calls »playbour«. We can currently see different forms of playful work, laborious play, »ludictatorship« (Escribano 2012), or »work/play interferences« (Fizek/Dippel 2018) emerging. This project explores the IFK’s research focus on »different work« vis-à-vis a revisited concept of different play. It investigates how playfulness is enabled, suggested, or instrumentalized in workspaces such as: (1) corporate offices (Google, Facebook); (2) team workspaces of start-ups; (3) home-office (non-)design; and (4) virtual offices on platforms including Zoom, Skype, etc. The research is informed by an analysis of the ideology underlying the promise of playful work, as well as by a review of games and play in a post-industrial scenario.

CV

Mathias Fuchs is a game artist, musician, and media scholar. He pioneered the artistic use of computer games and has exhibited work at ISEA, SIGGRAPH, transmediale, and the Greenwich Millennium Dome. In 2012 he became a professor at Leuphana University in Lüneburg and currently works at the Institute of Culture and Aesthetics of Media.

Publications

Phantasmal Spaces. Archetypical Venues in Computer Games (Monografie), New York 2020; Hg. gem. mit Sonia Fizek, Paolo Ruffino und Niklas Schrape, Rethinking Gamification; darin Autorenbeitrag »Predigital Precursors of Gamification«, S. 119–140, Lüneburg, 2014; »Gamification as 21st Century ›deology‹«, in: Jennifer Dewinter und Carly A. Kocurek (Hg.), Gamification and Labour Politics. Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds 6.2, S. 143–157, London 2014; »Weltentzug und Weltzerfall (World-withdrawal and world-decay): Heidegger’s notions of withdrawal from the world and the decay of worlds in the times of computer games«, in: Malcolm MacLean, Wendy Russell und Emmily Ryall (Hg.), Philosophical Perspectives on Play, London 2015; Hg. gem. mit Ernst Strouhal, Passagen des Spiels II. Das Spiel und seine Grenzen; darin Autorenbeitrag »Fair Enough! Über Spielverderber und Falschspieler«, S. 173–188, Wien, New York, 2010.