SemioNerd

Magic Circles.

Of the Special Issue on selected articles from Nordic DIGRA 2012 I particularly appreciated the article “In defense of a Magic Circle” by Jaakko Stenros (he is also one of the authors of a book on pervasive games that I enjoyed very much). In this article he investigate the concept of “Magic Circle” an expression widely used and abused when talking about Play.

I won't here summarize all the article (if you are interested you should read it, follow the link below), but rather focus on some of the conclusions.

Stenros hit the middle of the question when he says that “Magic Circle” is often used to indicate indiscriminately three very different things:

- The mindset necessary in order to play;

- The social contract between players that allow play to exist;

- The material space and time of the game.

Starting from Huizinga, the author trace the use of this term through the history of game and play studies, and in the end try to clarify, and define the three different kinds of Magic Circles.

The first one is the Psychological Bubble, theorized by Michael J. Apter who wrote:

“In play, we seem to create a small and manageable private world which we may, of course, share with others; and this world is one in which, temporary at least, nothing outside has any significance, and into which the outside world of real problems cannot properly impinge. If the ‘real world’ does enter in some way, it is transformed and sterilized in the process so that it is no longer truly itself, and can do no harm”

Apter, M. J (1991) “A structural-phenomenology of play.” In J.H. Kerr &

M.J. Apter (eds): Adult Play: A Reversal Theory Approach, Swets

& Zeitlinger, Amsterdam.

The second one is the Magic Circle of Play that is, according to Stenros: “the social contract that is created through implicit or explicit social negotiation and metacommunication in the act of playing”.

Ant the third one is the Arena that is “a temporal, spatial or conceptual site that is culturally recognized as a rule-governed structure for ludic action” such as the recreation time at school, the chessboards or a stadium.

Personally the one that I find more fascinating is the first one. I've always been amazed by what happens in our mind, or even better in a child mind, when we suddenly exit from the real world to dive in the world of play. There is a sort of click in our mind and suddenly we are tuned to another universe.

Yet I don't like very much the image of the “bubble”. A bubble is always in tension and extremely fragile: once a bubble explodes it cannot be recreated. Additionally being in a bubble means that the player should be completely separated from reality, when in reality is quite the opposite, the player continuously fluctuates between reality and play, without ever being in the one or in the other. More than a “bubble” thus, I see it as an endless repetition of concentric waves of playfulness that risignify, or risemantise, the world around the player.

http://todigra.org/index.php/todigra/article/view/10/27