I had a love hate relationship with this text Understanding Art: The Play of Work and the Spectator by Vilhauer about Hans George Gadamer’s Ethics of Play. Ok, maybe hate is a strong word!! But I did struggle to get my head around it at times, and felt frustrated with the interrupted flow of trying to read, google meanings, and re-read to try and grasp the concept, all from a screen. But at times I really did (at least I think I did!) and the reward of that felt GOOD.
The idea that by creating and presenting a piece of art we invite the act of ‘play’- the artwork and the viewer become intertwined by a dialogue, a ‘to-and-fro’ exchange of ideas, a recognition of something that’s perhaps familiar, and hopefully the activation of some sort of understanding (Vilhauer, 2010), resonated with me. Also the idea that the spectator is an essential part of this process- an artwork is incomplete until it has been viewed by others (Vilhauer, 2010). It articulated something I have been subconsciously doing for as long as I have been looking at art, but never really thought about through the metaphor of ‘play’.
It made me think about the dynamics of viewing art, and also context. How much does the curation of a piece or group of pieces affect this ‘play’? Are we supposed to blindly ‘play’? Or is ‘play’ stimulated by some kind of context- will the ‘game’ be obvious or not? Is ‘play’ better with others? i.e if I go to a gallery alone vs. going with a friend and chatting and comparing our individual ‘to-and-fro’ to the piece and by doing so creating our own secondary ‘two-and-fro’.
This in turn got me thinking about the classroom, and the kind of ‘play’ that happens there. The interactive event of presenting something and the path to recognition:
‘understanding only takes place in a dynamic, interactive, interpretive process of working through meaning with others’
The same could be said about the classroom- the subconscious happenings in between others can equate to a greater understanding and a more enriching experience. Does ‘play’ happen differently with different groups of people? And then understanding is different? What if the intended meaning is missed- does this also invite other opportunities for learning and interpretation? This also got me thinking about the fluidity of the group learning experience and the space for adaption and randomness in a lesson. You can plan to cover a topic or for a lesson to go a certain way but you cannot control the randomness of your ‘players’ reactions to what you are presenting to them- this highlighted to me that space must be made for these enriching, interactive collaborative activities in the classroom- to make it an exciting place where anything can be expected to happen- and for all parties involved to know that that is ok!
The idea that ‘play’ can only happen when all members of the ‘game’ are participating proactively and intentionally is an important one in the classroom. Especially during these challenging times, where all learning is taking place online. Players only become free to ‘play’ when everyone is committed and proactive. The ‘play’ may not have to be serious but the approach to engagement is. It is so difficult to teach into the online void and get very little back from students, so it is very important to create an environment, where as far as possible, this type of interaction and commitment to engagement can take place. Not always an easy task as there are so many factors to it! But how can we facilitate this ‘play’ in the online space? What about dis-engaged students? Can they still learn from observation alone? How can we get everyone to participate equally?
In the session we chatted about different ways people had tried this online- deck of character, eno’s oblique strategies, we are not really strangers, freedom and balance- all types of games to play online that encourage lateral thinking and participation. I also thought a good old word association game might be a fun way of starting a dialogue about something.
In our smaller group chat about the Vilhauer chapter, Ocean likened it to a something she had read called ‘The Act of Reading’ by Wolfgang Iser so I will enjoy reading further on this.
Vilhauer, Monica. (2018) Gadamer’s Ethics of Play: Hermenuetics and the other, Lexington Books, Chapter 3, p31-48, acessed here:
https://moodle.arts.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/1049027/mod_resource/content/1/Vilhauer.pdf