Ludic Meanders through Defictionalization: The Narrative Mechanics of Art
Games in the public spaces of politics
In the following article we will meander. This is precisely the narrative mechanism that is used to outwit complex content. It happens mainly in public space online, in the agora of politics, and physically in the arena of the urban games in our daily lives, which has changed drastically in the times of the pandemic of both playgrounds have political effects. The one that affects the personal is from now on hegemonically decreed, by means of rules of whom you can meet and when, whether elderly relatives may be visited or not; when we meet friends or have corona parties, punishments are executed. New magic circles of distance are imposed by the state, borders are raised, rituals of contactless greeting are established, the game of controlling the body has become realpolitik.
Apps for the purpose of self-optimization and health care were already popular, now they are being considered whether to become legally binding or at least a condition of freedom of travel. Once the use of the body has been gamified in biometric apps, the new contact apps will not only make a possible chain of social contacts as source of infection traceable for a benevolent purpose, but also express acceptance of state social control. Probably because they appear in the guise of a mobile snowball game, for example.
Reacting to changing social conditions is a basic mechanic of art. It uses
emotio-political effects for the purpose of enlightenment. Here, it is helpful to refer to a conceptual comparison of the theory of game mechanics in narrative text as a model. Art has always applied game mechanics, fed by artistic strategy and the primal logic of art as an emotionally touching experience. Understanding political contexts then becomes part of the reward and motivation system in art.
EIGEN-MECHANICS OF ART
2020.