Space Time Play

The recently published “Space Time Play” edited by Friedrich von Borries, Steffen P. Walz, Matthias Böttger explores the architectural history of computer games and the future of ludic space. The book covers describes the development of new typologies of space spaces that are emerging from the superimposition of the physical and the virtual and with 180 articles tries to answer the main question: “What are the parameters of these new spaces? To what practices and functional specifications do they give rise? What design strategies will come into operation because of them?”. It is devided in five levels:

1. Spatiotemporal history of the architecture of digital games: what spatial qualities and characteristics arise from computer games and what implications these could have for contemporary architecture
2. The ludic constructions of digital metropolises: the representation of the city in games and the city as metaphor for the virtual spatialization of social relations.
3. Ubiquitous games: What happens when the spaces and social interactions of computer games are superimposed over physical space?
4. Games as tools for design and planning processes: demonstrate how the ludic conquest of real and imagined gamespace becomes an instrument for the design of space-time
5. Critical reflection upon the cultural relevance of games today and in the future: Which gamespaces are desirable and which are not?

Relation to my thesis: Nicolas and I proudly contributed to this book with a small piece on the augmentation of Guy Debord’s “Dérive” with computational means. I am particularly interested in its 4th level, that is how pervasive games can be used as alibi to become instruments for the design of the city.