Homo Ludens

In this series we deal with the arts in terms of play. The artist doesn’t so much play according to the rules of the game – he plays with the rules of the game. He creates his own world with its own codes, rules and players.

Many aspects of our life are made up of play; be it football, implicit dress codes or social etiquette at work. The idea of the homo ludens (Latin for 'playing man') is a view of man in which man is first and foremost a playing being. The oldest known mention of the term is the title of the book Homo Ludens, a 1938 general cultural-scientific work by the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga, who became well-known for his cultural-historical magnum about the Middle Ages (Herfsttijd der Middeleeuwen). As the title suggests, Homo Ludens is about the importance of the play element of culture and society. Play as a necessary condition for the production of culture. In 2012 we organized the one-day festival Play! which ranged from the educational to artistic and serious games, from the political to the erotic game and from improvisation as a game to ‘make belief’.