Play in the Information Age

This article is an inquiry on the role of play in shaping the cultures of the Information Age. By applying concepts from Postphenomenology and the Philosophy of Information, this paper argues that play and computation share a capacity to shape human experience. I will apply the concept of re-ontologization to describe the effect that computation has had in shaping the world. I will apply the concept of relational strategies to argue that play is a way of interfacing with the computational world. This paper argues that play is a particularly relevant form of shaping the human experience of the re-ontologized infosphere because play, like computation, can create worlds. The goal of this article is to propose a research program that situates play as a relevant perspective to analyze the culture of the Information Age.
Author(s): Miguel Sicart [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) 0000 0004 0620 5453, grid.32190.39, Center for Computer Games Research, IT University of Copenhagen, , Rued Langgaards Vej 7, 2300, Copenhagen S, Denmark [...]