A theoretical intervention by M. J. Blisseth
or
How Practices of Play Inform Potential Revolutions
3.1 Evidences of Play Politics: Historic Ludic Interfaces and Real Politics
How Archaeology and Variantology of Media inform Ludic Interfaces

3.2 Materiality of Play Politics
Reassembling Thing Politics in Technological Materiality of Everyday Life
3.3 Metaverse, Pragmatism and Real Politics of Play
How Play Agency moves Thing Politics to Real Politics and Freiheit
This chapter builds in part 1 on the previous discussion of play affordances in relation to semi-synthetic thing in the context of play. In part 2 a particular theoretical grounding of play politics is introduced, in reference to historic ideas and actual arts practices. This angle tries to establish a conception of the political in creativity and arts beyond naive activism.
Following this argument, an observed culture of autonomous play with artefacts of technology is understood as inherently political. In order to support this argument, this chapter inquires evidences of such immanence of political agency, led by an understanding of arts practices that treats artefacts as expressions of inherent political tensions in current technologies. Evidences of such activist arts of various times, from 17th century to the present are going to be analysed in this chapter. The deeply masked political power of the practice of play in these historic evidences will be discussed In order to establish a critical view on aspects of surveillance and control by pervasive computing and play the deeply masked political power of the practice of play is discussed with the help of historic evidences. Political play objects are presented in this chapter, from times of medieval crusades to Baroque. In order to give a theoretical grounding to the argument of play as powerful practice, precedents of play politics are traced back to German Romanticism, to 19th hundreds concepts of Real Politics and 20th century activist networked arts practices, including a particular play-as-object oriented angle on contemporary critical social web works. Consequently this revision will result in shaping a positive possibility for future social utopia.
Based on observation and experience in arts it can be argued, in conclusion in this chapter, that in the trajectory of historic and contemporary Avant-garde practices, politics is embedded in the materiality and sensations of objects. The technological artefacts very directly afford play as method of interaction. Similarly the process of forced agency to handle electronic objects evokes political ideas. By revisiting selected historic moments, when politics was inherent in arts practices, and by introducing political conceptions as Thing politics and real politics, this chapter will discuss the highly consequential interrelations of politics and play. Such striking relations between objects, subjects, play and politics can be identified in western culture.
This section’s analysis necessitates a new political interpretation of media archaeological angles on historic technological toys and contemporary technological artefacts. It examines how an introduced discourse of artefacts can be situated within the contemporary context of art, technology-criticism and the creation of artefacts, beyond an understanding of commodities as contemporary Smartifacts.
For a better understanding of these structural processes of the present, the following section will look back at technological objects in relation to play and at technology in the historic evidence of political agency to unravel some of the tensions and convergences that mould present ideas about play culture in relation to technological materiality.
3.1 Evidences of Play Politics: Historic Ludic Interfaces and Real Politics
How Archaeology and Variantology of Media must inform Ludic Interfaces
Revisiting the past throws light on present issues of play as agency in techno realities, and subsequently helps to introduce a new angle on contemporary Ludic interfaces, understood as playful, political tools. A shift towards playful agency is identified in the following by a comparative study of historic and present objects of play. This section’s reassembly of the concept of „ Dingpolitik“ (Latour 2005) under the angle of technological artefacts and toys, is driven by an inquiry of materiality, at least on a symbolic level regarding the role of technologies and things, in particular. Informed by a study of historic toys as political objects, selected historical artefacts can be added to the classification of contemporary technological gadgets (as introduced in chapter 2). Following this arguments’ logic, which is grounded in chapter two on evidences of the present, play is an unavoidable affordance of the technological object.
An analytical look into past prestigious technology supports the understanding that a lot of the processes and discourses of very present emerging fields of play materiality are charged with political intentions. The development of technologically enhanced materiality can be identified by an inquiry of „playfare“ (understood in this context as wordplay on warfare) aspects of historic artefacts, starting in the 12^th century in Europe: „Persuading Thinking wheels“ were unpacked as objects with political aims to achieve hegemonic power by a dominance of science.
Spurred on by a survey on the literature of „Archaeology and Variantology of Media“ (Zielinski 2005) supports an idea, how to understand technological toys in history as tools to assert political interests. The argument of this section suggests that contemporary semi-synthetic play inherently deals with a politics dimension. Selected tangible play machines in time contextualise a reading of objects as carriers of political play. Under the angle of a distinct political intention transported by the materiality of historic logical toys, which are in the context of this thesis called „Ludic wheels“, the following section requires a political redefinition of an subsequently emerging discourse on „Ludic Interfaces“ (Fuchs 2009). So far in the literature the idea of Ludic Interfaces does not reflect the political intentionality and social efficacy of playful interfaces in technologies. By contrast the focus in this thesis draws on established inquiries of historical dimensions of technological instruments, which afford play – as one possible definition of „Ludic Interfaces“, as suggested in this thesis. In terms of a critical media-archaeological view on  Variantology (Zielinski 2005), meaning the purposeful variation of the effects in society and meaningful aspects of media-objects, this section aims to elaborate the political dimension of technological Ludic Interfaces.
Considering the importance of physicality of technological artefacts and the inherent option of a Variantology of uses of media systems – to extend meaning in media discourses. The method of „Archaeology and Variantology of Media“ (Zielinski 2005), introduced by the German leading media-theoretician Siegfried Zielinski, offers new insights into materiality of media objects. His position is diametrically opposed to hermetic machine theory investigations which regard media objects as pure writing machines, as raised in many (mainly German) media theories such as those by Friedrich Kittler and others. By concentrating on, what Zielinski calls „deep time of media“ (2006: 12), an analysis of the history of artefacts allows us to make conclusions on present network sociologies. In „ Archäologie der Medien“ (2002:76) his comparative analysis of media objects goes far beyond the fascination with the concept of universally understandable expert systems, towards a more complex understanding of media artefacts as carriers of political effects and intentions, tied to a technological objects’ appearance over time.
The angle of an insightful application of „deep time of media“ allows a comparative media study at particular moments of political brisance, as distinct from the comparison of different media systems of one particular period. By applying the method of „deep time of media“ the appearances of comparable Thinking wheels over time shall be compared to present artefacts in correspondence to historic technological objects.
According to a literature survey in media theories the 12th century Catalan monk Raimundus Lullus, also known as Ramon Lull, constructed a logical object with the aim to convince mainly Muslims about the validity and political dominance of Christianity. Among other authors, Werner Künzel (1986/1990) sees the source of computation in the antique concepts of a logical art named „Ars Combinatoria“, which was applied in material objects — to be called in this thesis „Thinking wheels“. Künzel describes the object as follows: Lullus condensed the bible’s principles to nine essential key terms (as eternity, magnitude, etc.) and related nine single letters from B to K, excluding J. Five different modes can be used to differentiate the key terms, and to relate the 9 letters in all possible combinations. Lullus[1] painted the nine letters, which contained the deeper hidden meaning and combination possibilities, on two concentric bands and one spinner disc. This mounting around one central axis allowed a counter wise rotation. In his text „Ars Generalis Ultima“ (1986) Künzel describes the historic wheel of Ramon Lull, as first known object oriented logical thinking machine of Western culture. In this way he sees Lull’s project as a synthesis of the art of logical combination and interpretation, and the effort to make the complex text of the bible universally accessible to all cultures. The objects to implement this belief system were made with a specific political intention. According to numerous authors (Künzel 1986; Zielinski 2002) the combinatory wheel of Lull was considered as weapon for Christianisation in its time.
In the interpretation of this thesis the historic Thinking wheels enabled to construct a total world. With the help of the toy like objects the totality of religious believes was expressed,. The need to publicly express these believes in a pro-active way formed the background for the advent of such think toys. Totality is „computed“, in the sense of con putare, (Latin, “putting together”). Which of course indicates the common interpretation of the Thinking wheels as proto-computers, but the enjoyment by play is almost ignored in the present analysis of these think toys. Among others, the contemporary German media-analyst and poet Cramer talked extensively in his research about algorithmic poetry and literary machines of the 12th century. In chapter two of his anthology entitled „Words made Flesh“ Cramer calls the reflections on the syntax and code of such machines „Computations of Totality“ (Cramer 2005: 2). To closer identify the relations of the algorithmic artefact culture and its construction motives the cultural theorist Florian Cramer hints to the Kabbalah scholar Moshe Idel, who researched on Ramon Lull and Ecstatic Kabbalah, published in 1988. New in the use of Christian Kaballah was the missionary purpose, which is as such unknown in Jewish tradition.
As identified in this section, the combinatory wheel was built following a strategy to convince Pagans to Christianity by the artifice and excellence of technological objects, based on algorithms and mathematics. This historic relation also sheds a different light on contemporary game scholar’s views on technological gadgets as weapons. As identified in this section, the combinatory wheel was built following a strategy to convince Pagans to Christianity by the artifice and excellence of technological objects, based on algorithms and mathematics. The strategy applied was to seduce to content by play. At the time, after the failure of the crusades, such topics were perceived as highly political. Following this observation, the Thinking wheel can be identified as toy, to be used for “serious games”[2] . According to Anne Derryberry (2007), the attribute „serious“ was introduced in 1970 to indicate a strategic military meaning to games as battlefield simulation. The US army spokesman Clark C. Abt coined this relation of toys, weapons and simulation in a public relation statement, with the aim to give a positive impression about clean technologies in warfare. In relation to the use of historic Thinking wheels as weapon, serious games are identified in this chapter as strategy, to be identified much earlier in history than in 20th century. Serious games are under this angle not invented as new phenomenon in 20th century, but to can be observed since the 12th century. Logical toys, used as strategic political objects, demonstrated the power of play as vehicle for involvement and real politics. As a consequence, it can be argued that equally in historic times as in the present, combinatory technological objects inherently offer play as seduction strategy for issues of ideological dominance.
As discussed earlier it appears as ostensible, that 12th century Thinking wheels were think-toys for serious political aims. Most importantly, comparable to the tendencies of pervasive games and computing in present times, their functions were physically implemented with the aim to tactically convince opponents in religious questions by a tangible interface. The physicality of these objects appears as most important in this arguments context of an analysis of semi-synthetic play as practice required in living worlds of augmentation, hybrid reality and pervasive gaming. Highly comparable to the actual situation of embodied artificial intelligence in smart objects, historically the only way to implement and execute political issues and algorithms was to inscribe it into materiality. Today an analysis of historic logical toys, as the combinatory wheels, helps to identify a political dimension in new contemporary toy things. They are regarded in this thesis on the same conceptual level, although juxtaposing, both as simulations of immateriality and material tangible objects of everyday life.

The affordance how to operate a Thinking wheel as political hardware in creative and everyday life is described in the analysis of the later remake of Ramon Lull’s combinatory wheel as Baroque project, called the Denckring. In the following this reassembling is identified as playful creative project, to result in a distinct socio-political execution process in poetry communities in the 17th hundreds.
Zielinski’s analysis of the work of the Italian philosopher and thinker of the 17th hundreds, named della Portas appears relevant for the Baroque remake of Thinking wheels, here identified as media archaeological things with implied political efficacy, achieved by playful manipulation of objects, Della Portas re-engineered and re-built the logical combinatory wheel of Raimundus Lullus. According to Zielinski della Portas published the wheel, printed as inlay with two connected wheels, in a printed publication of 1663. The user could lift it and by doing so completed the object and received a three-dimensional ciphering and deciphering machine. When speaking about combinatory wheels, Zielinski is one of the rare media-theoreticians to identify a playful aspect as reason for growing contemporary fascination for these logic machines. He describes the combinatory wheel not so much as first logical machine and precedent of computational machines, but as object to be played with, to gain insights about the world the player lives in (the following sentence in German from the original edition contains the description of the wheel as given in the last sentence):
„Zwei Details einer der verspielten Chiffier- und Dechiffierscheiben Portas. Der mittlere Kreis ist drehbar. Mit dem goldfarbenen Faden kann er angehoben werden. Er ist durch die Wolke, aus der die Hand mit dem göttlichen Zeigefinger reicht, mit der Buchseite verbunden.“ (Zielinski 2002: 105).[3]
Zielinski puts an emphasis on the tangible construction of the object. The shifting of wheels one to each other in a certain manner, was the tangible instruction, how to combine the databases, which were organised by a formal logic. Both, this emphasis on the tangible construction and on the reassembling, so to say the „Variantology“ (Zielinski 2002) of the object, is particularly important for this thesis, because it unravels the function of the prestigious technological object as „toy“, which has serious effects on belief systems and the constitution of realities. In this reading it is crucial, that the re-print of the Thinking wheel of the 12th century as playful poetic or cryptographic wheel is described as Variantology to its original materiality. In the mediated semi-synthetic print publication the wheel, made from paper, tied together by a golden thread, is charged with play affordances, creativity, arts and political dimensionality.
By contrast, those media theoretical analysis’, which exclude material affordances, as discussed above, see historic proto computational devices only as rationalist projects of knowledge generators, but exclude the subversive dimension of play processes themselves.
Starting from the concepts of early physical cryptography, as the wheels were used as well, according to the literature (Künzel 1990:65), these new „combinatory objects“ have been neutrally described as expert systems. Nevertheless, even such a technocratic interpretation allows to point out a dimension of play politics in the use of the Thinking wheels. The new classification systems introduced by the combinatory principals of the wheel, offered an option for knowledge classification, by secularising an originally theological device, the bible, as a rational method of knowledge classification. Künzel analysed the concept of logical memory projects, as described in the text „Ars Combinatoria“ by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1666) under this angle. Historic combinatory objects were seen as rationally oriented analogue computers, which organised contents – although often in a very contradictory manner. Nevertheless Cramer insists that although combinatory play as principal was thought out by the clerical educators of the time, they had to be understood as arts:
“In the 17th century, the joining of opposites became a principle of witty or conceited poetics and poetry.  This literature later became historicized as anti-classicist, mannerist or baroque. Wit, or acumen, was a part of rhetoric and poetics since the 16th century. It became systematically taught in Jesuitical academia.“ (Cramer 2005: 22)
The combinatory concept, as trained and exercised in associations, opened a variety of possible combinations of categories, which had effects on the thinking system of both, state and philosophy[4]. Formal strictness appeared at that time as opposed to the „sense making“ of subjective or content wise categorisation. Classification systems, however, also followed a cosmological order, which was still used, until the advent of encyclopaedias by alphabetic order. After this paradigm shift, as introduced by the play with technological objects in research societies, even more radical shifts in the organisation of knowledge followed. In the late 18th century encyclopaedias following an alphabetic order were radically new, introduced by Diderot and d’Alembert. In relation to the meaning of the alphabetic encyclopaedia as rule system, the cultural theorist Richard Senneth (2008:90-94) notes, that the political dimension opened with the introduction of this new classification systems is evident: As a consequence of the newly introduced alphabetic order, a certain anti-hierarchical order was introduced, in contrast to subjective classification systems of science and power of former times.
As identified in this section, the aspect of contradiction in particular achieved by the combinatory process, carries explosiveness in terms of political agency. Play is unmasked as political process, in the moment when the Thinking wheels transport an element of nonsense and a uselessness aspect of poetry, created by combinatory principals, and finally art, which resulted from the play with the technological artefact. The self-sufficiency of agency is the first aspect, the second is a growing dimension of equality, enabled by the vehicle of the toy, because art production became accessible for everybody using the combinatory wheel.
To understand this dimension fully, a further investigation of political intentions tied to the objects as tools for creative practice is necessary. In the following the very particular use of this objects in play affiliations is introduced. A critical reading of historic play societies as associations for poetic revolutions demonstrates the unavoidable political immanence of the artefact of playful practices.
Around the use and creation of algorithmic toys in the 17th hundreds, specialists’ associations were founded to discuss and practice the new technologies of the time. A focused literature survey demonstrated that although the practices were playful, the social configurations around the think toys were explicitly of political interest.
To unmask historic brotherhoods formed around the use of Thinking wheels in Baroque as playful „Ludic“ societies beyond the aim of neutral poetry, in stark contrast to self sufficient poetry, with a very distinct political interest, is a particular perspective presented in this section. The object of study is to draw out similarities of historic play associations and present social networks and Metaverse, which grow around the omnipresent use of electronic artefacts.
The Fünffacher Denckring der teutschen Sprache (German: Five-fold Thought Ring of the German Language) was made as physical object, which embodied a concept and was used in a poetry association in the 17th century, by the Baroque poet Harsdörffer. According to Werner Künzels (1990: 91) it was created under the premises of a „productive“ artists society of the time, called Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft (German: fruit bearing society), which gathered according to its creative text-outputs from 1617 to 1680 in Germany. In Nürnberg at least combinatory objects were forced and introduced –as poetic toys. Their use was cultivated in a society gathering around a„thing“. Combinatory wheels were understood as poetry machines, which meant that everybody could become a poet by playing with the wheel. A play had influence on the individual’s position in society,.
In order to better understand the active part of play, transported with this object, it is helpful to understand how the main product of the society, the „Denckring“ was constructed: Stem words, one-syllable words, , were compressed on to four concentric wheels. In the way they were mounted, all possible combinations of words were offered. This kind of „hardware computer“ was a play device for inventing word-play poetry. It took shape as a serious game, played with a thing, with the aim to create poetry. The object should permit anyone to generate all existing and potential words of the German language by the combination of syllables. The German language is based on stems, , which were expanded in a combinatory way in the Thinking wheel. One could say they were put together in a computational way. Poetry and creative act were completely based on play with an object. Its egalitarian political efficacy was made evident by public use in a protected affiliation, a society, where everybody could take the role of the poet and communicate his or her results to the social peer group.
Considering the previous discussion, it can be proposed that a historic „democratisation“ of poetry, the equation of arts, technology and creativity appears nowadays as precondition for computational toys. As argued earlier, play as equally valued method for poetic thinking as well as method for logical research in relation to technological and material affordances occurred between 12th century and Baroque. A separation of methods for research or arts did not exist before 20th century. The Baroque poet Harsdörffer, creator of the Baroque German Denckring, never considered such a separation of play and method.
„For Harsdörffer there was no difference between playing and researching, no difference between linguistics, the scientific study of language and poetics, the artistic use of language, between machine and play, research and play.“ (Interview[5]: Florian Cramer, 2009)
At the time the Denckring as poetic device was clearly understood as a logical combinatory toy, with the outcome of art. With the help of a logical toy everybody could do poetry. Inside the 17th century Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft association, Harsdörffer, was called Der Spieler, which translates from German as the player. Such an alter ego for the creator of a main prestige object of society, expresses that the value of play for creativity was recognised highly.
Subsuming the observations on Thinking wheels over time, it can be suggested that inherent political efficacy of play is pro-actively made viable in the protected agency realm of social configurations. Such an argument is moulded by systematic observation published in a decent study on historic combinatory artefacts by the media theoretician Florian Cramer (2005). According to Cramer the historic logical combinatory method in literature was considered as playful poetic strategy only in the remake of the Thinking wheel. This thesis expands this observation by putting an emphasis on the social use of the artefact. The creative aspect was considered as valuable in the moment when the object and its technologies were socially re-introduced with new editions of the object in the 17th century. „Affiliations“ served as organisational form of social knowledge transfer for creativity by play with the technological artefact. This creative and autonomous aspect of use was not intended before, when the technology itself first appeared.
As conclusion of a view on these historic evidences of political playthings, a drift of cultural meanings of play objects can be observed over time. This shift of meaning of play developed from the 12th century to the 17th century, as expressed in the example of the Thinking wheel. The plaything was used for political fomenting goals in the beginning towards a poetic practice in Baroque. Surprisingly the less activist attitude towards the use of the object in the 17th century poetic play practice can be identified as more effective on crucial questions of creativeness and social properties. It implied efficacy by the purposeful agitator use of technological objects. By a comparative survey of literatures and descriptions of the objects, this shift can be unravelled and accorded to the practice of „Variantology“ of materiality of technological objects over time. This section argues, that  – by a critical reading of the literature inquiries of „deep time of media“ (Zielinski 2006) of historic combinatory wheels as political thing – a shift of intentions associated to the use of a prestigious technological object, can be observed. According to the historic survey of this section, the intentions charged into objects can be altered according to the dimension of enjoyment and play in social use.
By extending historic inquiries, this section’s analysis combines the historic observation with the insight gained in actual media theories and experiences made in contemporary arts practice. In the context of this thesis, the evidence of arts practice necessitates very particular conclusions about the political efficacy of the play with contemporary technological objects.
According to the previous historic survey it can be further argued, that, in the moment of the reverberation of the concept of Ars Combinatoria and the re-building of things, which executed art in the 17th century, playful method and behaviour were socially accepted. The acceptance is not the basis for the advent of material objects, but its reverberation in time. Most important for this thesis about the efficacy of play in social configurations appears the observation, how the context of use tied to certain expectations about creative autonomy of the individual and sovereignty, as new political ideas.
This section’s analysis of historical evidence leads to contemporary matter discourse and a new theory of play politics. As consequence of a stochastic, Media Archaeology inspired literature survey on Thinking wheels, which extends a so far introduced understanding of these objects as proto-computational devices, from this thesis’ angle, the material affordance of historic „smart“ objects is recognised as political agency factor. The fact that the historic objects contained algorithms embedded in their materiality, so to say their hardware, opens the focus on the interaction process with technological things as meaningful things. This relation can be contextualised in the following as political play with the artefact and is elaborated by the concept of „Dingpolitik“ (Latour 2005).

3.2 Materiality of Play Politics
Reassembling Thing Politics in technological Materiality of Everyday Life
Drawing from previous historic analysis, a move towards political efficacy of play is identified as being caused by a new understanding of the real and the thing. Both are seen technologically and pragmatically, shift play from a passive to a pro-active concept of agency. In the following section this discourse is situated within 18th and 19th hundreds and contemporary ideas of political agency. An observation of material semiotics of „risky objects“ (Latour 2005) helps to substantiate a particular move towards an activist understanding of play, as intervention method into social conditions.
Play with things of everyday life often manifests in a subversive manner, which is observed in this chapter. Informed by an inquiry of methodologies of play politics the argument builds on an analysis of play affordances in objects’ materiality as political dimension. This section introduces the concept of Thing politics and links it to the practice of activist play. Things as matters in dispute were discussed under the viewpoint of play affordances that constitute meaning and political consciousness in the previous chapter. In the context of everyday life playthings are precisely what must be put centre stage in this discussion. Compared to the idea of a politics of thingness, this section’s argument aims to map out a public space of play, found in the thing itself, which is profoundly different from what is usually recognized under the label of „the political.“
The term Dingpolitik, which translates as thing politics, was discussed in relation to representation by artefacts in the preface of the ZKM (Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe ) exhibition catalogue „Making Things Public“ (Latour, Weibel 2005). To identify the importance of things for politics, Latour looked closer to a classical metaphorical image of the state corpus, at the iconography of Thomas Hobbes’ illustration of Leviathan:
„ But in addition to the visual puzzle of assembling composite bodies, another puzzle should strike us in those engravings. A simple look at them clearly proves that „Body politic“ is not only made of people! They are thick with things: clothes, a huge sword, immense castles, large cultivated fields, crowns, ships, cities and an immensely complex technology of gathering, meeting, cohabiting, enlarging, reducing, and focusing. In addition to the throng of little people summed up in the crowned head of the Leviathan, there are objects everywhere.“ (Latour 2005: 17)
However, the three points of Dingpolitik, as defined by Latour are viable for a politics of playthings[6]. This listing opens possible comparison to technology and synthetic objects in the context of contemporary play cultures.
„a- politics is no longer limited to humans and incorporates the many issues to which they are attached;
b- objects become things, that is, when matters of fact give way to their complicated entanglements and become matters of concern;
c- assembling is no longer done under the already existing globe or dome of some earlier tradition of building virtual parliaments;“ (Latour 2005: 80)
In view of this it can be said that objects become things, in the moment when its complex relations replace facts. If Dingpolitik is as well regarded in such relational way, it brings efficacies (of things and play) into the field of view. This thesis’ perspective directly results in a focus shift towards an understanding of politics as intentional agency to an dimension of technological things ubiquity as dimension of political agency, from nation states towards conceptual forms of social live, by drawing on the political reality and social efficacy of things, technological objects and play.
The described Latour discourse on conditions of politics in relation to things helps to substantiate a rhetoric shift from thing – to real politics  – as main intervention, elaborated in this chapter. This theoretical intervention does not borrow the expression „object-oriented“ as a trope, but traces the term back to its roots in software programming. Otherwise „object-oriented“ misleads. In contemporary technologically defined realities, as term used in software conceptions, it expresses an anti-materialist view on the object, which is an indicator for this shift from thing to real politics. In a double bind it offers viable aspects for a way to use the thing in semi-synthetic worlds. Oriented towards immateriality the conception relates actual practices of intervention from causal interaction towards unintentional play.
In a new form of object-orientation, this chapter’s argument focuses on the simple idea of the playful manipulation of electronic artefacts as reality constituents. It is informed by Latour’s analysis of reality, where things are understood as constituting elements of a political reality. Under this investigation angle an emphasis is put on political aspects of the construction process, governed by technologies and its representations in the arts field.
However, Latour expressed the necessity of simplicity with reference to „real politics“: „ The general hypothesis is so simple that it might sound trivial —but being trivial might be part of what it is to become a „realist“ in politics“ (Latour 2005: 13).
According to this chapter’s observations players historically became educated users, who were increasingly aware of objects’ inherent political brisance. This is also valid in present times, considering the observations made in the affordances chapter, which introduced a classification of playful contemporary Thinking toys. Exactly by a sophisticated use, which is required by the play objects material affordance, a critical awareness of the effects of use is burgeoning. Consciousness intriguing material affordance of play leads to an intentional politics of play. As consequence the expression „agens“ (Latin: acting), which translates in this context as agency, is used in this section, to express universal principals of play methodology, applied in individual life of the present time. This agency dimension can be identified as real politics of play. A political efficacy of play for the individual is provoked by object’s inherent playful interaction affordances. It equals a driving „elan“ forced by the object, to cause intentional activity of the player. This kind of relational explanation model of politics of play follows a line of introduced theories such as ANT, Actors Network Theories, which inspired this section’s argument on a shift from materiality to politics of play.
ANT as contemporary cultural theory introduces a relational explanation model of affordances, objects and players. This section draws on these relations and puts a distinct angle of object-oriented play politics as extension to the established cultural studies discourse, and goes beyond it by linking the analysis of intentional creative interventions both in history by a Media Archaeology view and in contemporary arts practice, as further on presented in this thesis practice chapter.
Considering a relational explanation model of play and materiality towards politics it has to be questioned, how far practices of play can be applied to suggest a creative re-use of control mechanisms inherent to technologies. A argued earlier social configurations caused by technological materiality, which requires playfulness for interaction, supports the shift towards real politics in play. The analysis of mechanisms of play politics under newly traceable conditions of technologies in everyday life unravels mechanisms of hegemonic power. This becomes evident in web 2.0 technologies, social, historic and electronic „things“, to be understood in both meanings – the things as gathering places (like electronic networks) and as artefacts. This viewpoint is informed by the identification of intrinsic affordances of play in technological artefacts, which increasingly affect Western societies’ culture. The identification of such aspects requires a new understanding of what it means to be political. A particular dimension of politics can be elaborated when it comes to deal with networked play, players, gadgets, and electronic things. By this synthesis of agency conditions of play a newly shaped idea of „Thing politics“ (Latour 2004), is identified and unravelled as political chance in the context of play as practice of everyday life. The Thing politics concepts of Latour draws on the materiality of politics, which will be further on in this chapter critically read in relation to play practice, and then conceptually referenced to the material semiotics of „thing“ and „thing politics“. The role of the thing for play can be compared to the idea of „risky objects“.
According to the political and social theorist Bruno Latour „risky objects“ (Latour, 2005) are intermediaries[7] with silent qualities beyond the ostensible. These qualities become operative once they are put into certain networked relations, which recognise the thing as equal to the human actor in terms of agency.
„ (…) all objects have taken on another quality: they no longer remain inside the narrow boundaries in which modernism wanted to keep them. They overflow their limits. (…) The distinction between humans and non-humans, embodied or disembodied skills, impersonation or ‚machination‘, are less interesting than the complete chain along which competences and actions are distributed.“ (Latour 1992a:243)
As a consequence, it can be said, that historically spoken „objects too have agency“ (Latour 2005:63). A pendant counterpart to such risky objects is recognised in this thesis by a repeated reference in various contexts to so called Smartifacts, understood as hybrid technological gadgets, which are ubiquitously present and networked in contemporary every day life. Rather than investing objects with agency (with regard to Latour’s “risky objects”), technological things are contextualised in this study as things, which inherently afford playfulness.
In comparison to the material affordance of the Thinking wheel, as discussed above, the actual contemporary materiality of electronic Smartifacts are interpreted in this study, as project to convince the users by rhetoric principals, which combine in their seductive technological design contradictory elements of life, work and play. From such an angel introduced in thesis, the relation of representation of an object status and an object’s handling in playful interaction gains prominence. Equally in both, historic objects and in the contemporary Smartifacts, advanced erudition in mathematics and logics are formalised and made manifest in technological materiality for creative aims. This is identified by the historic analysis as symmetrically political than a clear warfare mission. As physical object, the political message became masked and tangible for everybody as „toy“, as the Smartifact as remake of the historic wheel of Ramon Lull in Baroque demonstrates.
An inevitable inherence of the dimension of political play in technological artefacts is unmasked as under explored dimension in technology-based realities. Supported by a look on technological evidences of Smartifacts in a close literature survey on play affordances it is suggested, that although various theories about ”things” led already to a new meaning of things, the political aspect is marginalised.
A very particular view on „Thing politics“ (Latour 2005) of the cultural theorist Bruno Latour is taken as starting point of this discursive trajectory on play politics and things. towards agency in real politics. Although informed by Latour a agency-based argument deals with things of contemporary everyday social life, where gathering and meeting is no more conceivable without the use of technological objects.
This is just a reminder to those theories, such as discussed in the previous chapter theory on affordances by Gibson (1977). They nevertheless ignore latent political brisance of the effects of a ubiquitous play practice, when it comes to key media technologies and the self. By contrast this section puts emphasis on the relational dimension of both, carried in particular by play with technological artefacts and the political conscious self. It is done theoretically in this chapter in preparation to draw conclusions on the appearance of the Smartifact in technological cultures of the presence. To unravel play politics as politics of the self, is achieved around conclusions on the thing in technology based societies. Following this discussion, a close connection of self and technological things is identified as inevitable political dimension of „thingness“ itself .
Quite contrary to a sociological orientation of affordances studies (Gibson 1977), political brisance of things in general is discussed in Bruno Latour’s analysis of „How to Make Things Public“ (Latour 2005:14). In this context Latour primarily reminds us of the original Indo-German meaning of the term „thing“ as a gathering place.
„Thing: ORIGIN: Old English, of Germanic origin: related to German Ding. Early senses included meeting and matter, concern as well as inanimate objects.“ (The Oxford English Dictionary, Ed. 2005)
The Indo-German term Thing translates as gathering place, which then can be understood as an early form of a parliament. A physical gathering circle as the Thing is defined by objects, which differentiate its opposing realities. Latour describes the THING drawing on its etymological sources and in a tradition that politics operates in the realm of things.
A theoretical framing of a philosophical viewpoint on the thing, like the one of Latour, is built on Martin Heidegger (1951). From the angle of the latter’s argument on ineluctability of thingness in contemporary worlds his analysis of the meaning of the Old High German word thing appears as equally important as the political synthesis of the term thing by Latour. Heidegger first spoke about „nature of thingness that we are here trying to reach may be based on the accidents of an etymological game“ (Heidegger 1951: 174). In consequence, having the political thing in mind, it is required to proceed with a second passage of his writing, when he remakes „(…) thing or dinc becomes the name for an affair or matter of pertinence“ and names „matters in dispute — taken as so many issues“(ibid: 175). Building on Latour’s idea of „risky objects“, to facilitate a certain political consciousness, this section’s theoretical trajectory shifts the focus on the relational network of the object’s affordances and their playful qualities.
For reasons of symmetrical contexts of the above addressed relations of objects, play and agency, a further theoretical model becomes relevant as grounding of a distinct politics of play. If analysed in its political dimension, material affordances of play find its place in the critical technologies discourse context of Actor-Network-Theory (ANT). This thinking school evolved most influentially from the work of Science and Technologies Study scholars, such as Michel Callon (1986), and Bruno Latour (1987), among others. Callon concentrated on moments of translations, introducing four categories of these, as problematizing, interessement, enrolement, and mobilization of allies. In this study, these categories have not been named according to this introduced discourse, but inherently regarded under a new angle of technological materiality in the selective everyday play objects evidence, presented as field study in this thesis’ chapter 2.
To strengthen this new argument on the understanding of things as social networking devices, particularly when speaking about electronic things, networks as gathering places must be defined under an „ANT“ perspective: According to this theory networks consists of differing elements, as social groups, artefacts, devices, and entities.
Anchor point is not that these network-constituting elements are treated symmetrically but that they are defined relationally. Relations „representation“ is understood in its political dimension, as a process of delegation. Both, humans and non-humans hold assumed identities as „actors“. Operative identity qualities are defined during negotiations. In this introduced thinking model the „act“ linked together with all of its influencing factors accomplishes the term actor network. Networks link together technical and non-technical elements. Subjects or objects may be both, „actants“, which appears from this thesis view as semiotically inspired trope to equally designate symbol qualities to entities and objects. Most relevant for this thesis’ context is the fact, that in this understanding objects undergo a process of hybridisation, as expressed by the scholar on Actor Network Theory, Bernd Frohmann:
„ ANT’s rich methodology embraces scientific realism, social constructivism, and discourse analysis in its central concept of hybrids, or „quasi-objects“, that are simultaneously real, social, and discursive. Developed as an analysis of scientific and technological artefacts.“ (Bernd Frohmann 1995:2)
Relational network aspects, as described by Frohmann, provide theoretical groundings of this argument’s intervention in relation to material affordances, the „semi-synthetic“. As introduced in chapter 2, the idea is based on evidence of object analysis, in relation to the player-self, as described in the taxonomy of objects and their „anthropomorphisizing“.
In such a way of identification with the object the foundation for a politically conscious „Ludic method“ is constituted, as introduced in the concluding chapter of this thesis. The playful Ludic method is based on practice and not only informed by theory, but generates theory. It aims to combine a social, political and critical identification with technological object qualities. Supported by a selection of arts practice examples, as presented in the practice-related chapter, the Ludic method draws on intentionally made „hybrid“ artefacts, as found in the author’s artwork, located between symbolic object and technological toy.
The argument consolidates theoretically in this section. Grounded in ANT, it draws new insights on particular relations between play as practice and technological object affordances, as observed in this thesis’ taxonomy of play objects in chapter 2. The network theory of ANT leads to the contemporary networked things – always by the practice of play, when it comes to the political.
By observations and practical work a new political understanding of play is identified following this section’s discussion, in each agency involving technological objects of contemporary electronic networks. The social quality of these networks in their new forms of Web 2.0 is based on play, evenly distributed in the unintentional everyday practice of playful use and in interventionist practice of strategic play with the technologies present based on hybrid objects, to be further on identified as constituting element of „Metaverse“.
3.3 Metaverse, Pragmatism and Real Politics of Play
How Play Agency moves Thing Politics to Real Politics and Freiheit
Ideas analysed in this section demonstrate, how play was moved to centre stage of reflections about freedom, ‘Freiheit’, in western society. It introduces exemplary how such ideas were discussed in theoretical reflections about the role of art and play as vehicles to achieve a political ideal state. In that sense it was a concept of „real utopia“ preparing the ground for a „real politics“ of play.
Real Politics in contemporary social realities is observed in this section in the thingness of social networks, established by play objects in Metaverse. Virtual environment are identified in this section as res, things of public interest, public play things. Its constituting principals are scoring and competition as political interest of a society of competition ecologies. A new game-like quality of use, in the negative sense of competition and rule driven behaviour, is brought to radical presence in actual game-like affordances of user-generated content ratings of online environments. In opposition to this observation of a politics of oppression by gaming, this thesis suggests to re-invent a playful use of synthetic things. Creative alternatives are enacted by Smart Players, as it is called in this section, as an act of real political agency, caused by the thingness of the network.
This section examines a trajectory towards a politics of play between two positions, regarding the artefact as middle-thing between a social and anti-social gathering place. A symmetric account of this relation, as observed in this section’s analysis, demonstrates how advantages and dangers of agency by play constitute as pre-conditions for a critical view on artefacts and technological objects. Under the angle of real life, as increasingly conceptually and practically invaded by play objects, everyday life is recognised as playfield between synthetic environments, as combination of material semiotic and virtuality, enacted by politically conscious Smart Players.
Smart Players play with electronic things, like Avatars. Avatars are understood here as representations of players, not as incarnation of gods, as its original meaning in Sanskrit suggests. Nevertheless Avatars and their electronic environment constitute as a “thing“ in the meaning of a gathering place, where a political consequence in terms of community and economies can be created. In „Avatarik“, a term coined in this study, the point relevant for the argument on agency of play – that leads to politics, is the fact, that virtual circles as play circles miss physicality but have physical efficacy in terms of political consequences of Avatar interaction.
For example in „Second Life“ (Lindenlabs 2003) it can be frequently observed that Avatars, stand around in a circle, when they electronically talk to each other, although they don’t need to look into each others eyes, when chatting. According to the definition of the term „thing“ as gathering place (Latour, 2005), it can be said, that Avatars gather around a topic, a Topos developed in the electronic and logic topography of a playful virtual environment. Whilst the play culture theorist Jan Huizinga alludes us to the magic circle of play (Huizinga 1938: 45) in ritual practices[8], he overlooks the relevance of this insight for real-sight gaming environments that include the respective circle of things of everyday life.
In the case of the virtual Avatar gathering, space and object fall together very literally, because of its semi-synthetic qualities, shaped and created by a relational network. Certain qualities of this network provoke playful interaction, technologies and cultural techniques. Ritual aspect of such a circle of „thingness“ intensively refers to inherent mythological and cultural elements in game-like environments, as social gathering places, around a plaything.
An etymological grounding of the term „thing“ (Heidegger, 1951) in the meaning of topos/communicative setting is crucial in this thesis, a key issue, considering that in current game-like playful environments, the graphical representations of players, the so called Avatars gather in chats and play. This relation can be drawn from the philosophy of Martin Heidegger (1951), who describes the Roman meaning of „res“, as matter for discourse, particularly in distinction to „res publica“, not understood as „political state“ as it usually translated, but as thing, that which „known to everyone, concerns everybody and is therefore deliberated in public“ (1951: 174). Heidegger’s discussion of the thing commences with an obscure fourfold of structural elements of things, of earth, sky, gods, and mortals. „Each of the four reflects the others in its own way“ (Ibid: 172).
As consequence the relational fourfold in the politics of technology induced play can be described the following: the synthetic objects are traded as „things“ in a virtual „Thing“, in the sense of a social gathering and market place, as established by self determined players, who expand the rule driven game-like systems of „Metaverse“, understood as online environments representing the interaction of human players. The economic merit, generated in these „Things“ (spelled with capital T, if addressing the meaning of a gathering circle) by the trade of synthetic „things“ puts an emphasis on the political dimension and meaning of the contemporary “thing” as a semi-synthetic play quality in technological societies of the present.
A new reading of things fourfold allows to argue that the meaning of thing beyond physicality via mythology and sociology towards the politics of play increases reciprocally. This ist he case, if it draws on the analysis of play affordances of networks. Under the angle of the semi-synthetic as model to understand material thing’s qualities relational, political meaning beyond physicality frequently merges with the materiality of interfaces that enable access to virtual gathering places, called “Metaverse“.
The coinage Metaverse[9] (Stephenson, 1992) is attributed to the Science Fiction author Neal Stephenson, who used the term in his novel „Snowcrash“ in 1992. The Virtual worlds pioneer Bruce Damer calls Metaverse an „ ubiquitous social virtual reality“ (Damer 2007: 15). In electronic network culture the term is frequently used to describe electronically framed social environments, usually with graphical representation of the players as Avatars. In environments of this kind this thesis’ idea about the „semi-synthetic“, as a concept informed by experiences in and out of Metaverse, can be applied in an examination of the fourfold of social, politics, thing, and thinglessness.
The res publica, the public thing to be discussed in Metaverse is about social positioning. Under the angle of a critical view on the extent of how far the materiality and playful behaviour are a chance or a regulation of political consciousness. Other users constantly rate each individual’s creative output in contemporary Metaverse circles. Other players build a „circle“ of friends, a social network or the „masses“, to speak in terms of classical political theory. Permanent „public scoring“ establishes in this „thing“ in the meaning of gathering place. As a consequence of the above described social ecologies in Metaverse, the actual presence of Web 2.0 applications as Facebook, Twitter or Linked In is unmasked as method of political control of the user as „gamer“ and not as „player“.
This observation is identified as a key intervention of this thesis.
By a closer look on both, social web applications and Second Life, it rather can be observed that the playfulness quality of the Metaverse is gradually shifted towards a restrictive „Game 3.0“. Myspace, Youtube, Flicker, etc., entail formats of synthetic „thingness“ tied to immaterial labour. Permanent omni-presence is demanded in online communication and residency environments (for example Second Life is built on such a concept of presence, property and residency). The social pressure to constantly create 3D shapes and buildings, so to say „synthetic things“, can be expressed in other words as the individual’s duty to permanently produce and to post, by means of playful technological social self-observation and control.
Critical methods of political play applied in concept and actual tendencies of individual use in Metaverse, as observed in the practice chapter, equally relate synthetic environments, real life and the role of the politically conscious player. Under such a semi-synthetic play angle, social networks can be identified as virtual playgrounds and „thing“, following a particular interpretation of political concepts of things as gathering place.
A recovery of the concept of „Dingpolitik“(Latour 2004) suggests an integration of historic concepts and practices of play with logical toys. It identifies a new form of efficacy, which is tied to the object. In this study objects and things are then understood as pragmatic gathering and market places. The particular use of Smartifacts (which are seen synonymous in this chapter for technological toys) in the very contemporary western society asks for a re-interpretation of thing politics in a pragmatic reality constituting way.
The relational role of the subject as player in modern Metaverse societies is focused in this section in order to draw conclusions on the actual practices of play as „thing“ of real politics. Under the angle of an historic analysis it can be proposed, that play was understood as method of art – and as vehicle to transport a political statement about democratic values of egalitarianism and individual autonomy in relation to the technological objects of a society. Historically the German poet Friedrich Schiller as principal of real play politics introduced the role of the individual, subjectivity and ideas about autonomous freedom.
Realpolitik, which translates as real-politics, understood as materialist, way of dealing with conditions of naked power relations, was originally coined by the German politician Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), who has tried to replace the terror regimes of the 17th hundreds by a pragmatic policy of the everyday, although introducing instead a certain dimension of „social control“ into everyday life. The real politics contains a particular dimension of pragmatism when approaching the field conditions for agency in power societies. Pragma translates from Greek as „thing“ or as „act“, but pragma as practice of play addresses both, agency and thing. Pragma, as the precondition of politics, of technologically charged objects lies in the social and economic. This conclusion may seem simplistic, but from this thesis’ point of view about the real political effects of playful interaction with the things of technologies of a time, is realistic. To develop a particular view on the necessity of play politics, when we deal with technologically charged realities, first the introduced idea of politics tied to things is critically read.
The very pragmatic approach of Schiller in the way he addressed political play with impact on society can be taken further into a reconsideration of Bismarck’s approach of Real politics. Pragmatic agency of play with objects is identified under this angle by recognising the creative play practice as political reality, as basis for „real politics“[10] of playthings. A historic analysis of Schiller’s political writing demonstrates that he preceded the concept of real politics transported by the artefact, either by text or object, as vehicle. Observing the advent of new technological toys, which inherently contain texts of power relations, in everyday life supports this thesis.
Considering the discussion at the beginning of this chapter about an observed forced agency to handle technological objects in playful interaction, the politically conscious writer Schiller illustrates a political quality of play in relation to freedom. His definition of freedom as political grounding of society allows to illuminate a particular quality of play politics, which demonstrates the issue of agency. This section’s analysis helps to round off the argument about agency. Its trajectory moves the understanding of play from a passive play modality as leisure seduction into a pro-active activist political agency of play.
The following paragraph newly interprets and recovers some under explored dimensions of games studies and politics, found in a particular writing of the German poet Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805). This political direction of a Schiller reception is often ignored in the discourse about play, art and politics. Nevertheless it is identified as inevitable in this argument, because Schiller’s writings in German Idealism depart from Romanticism in an analysis of play and its political dimension. It speaks in such a straightforward way about the Intertwinedness[11] of both topics, that it becomes a historic key conception for this thesis. Although Schiller’s writing is frequently quoted in present German game studies discourse (Kücklich 2002), the aspect of real politics, in the meaning of a direct efficacy by agency is rarely discussed in relation to play as creative practice. In the following this aspect is identified as background of his texts about play in order to prepare political revolutions by aesthetic practices. From this thesis point of view, this effect of creative writing is crucial for politically conscious art. The lack of reception in discourse of this particular aspect of the entanglement of play, aesthetic and political agency can be quickly identified as based on a misunderstanding. Its reason is the ignorance towards the self-conception of the artist as political active entity. In Schiller’s case the activist’s aim was Freiheit, aesthetic freedom of the individual against suppressive state systems of the time. In the following Schiller’s very direct writings about aesthetic practice of play as spine of a sovereign society, as found in his „Letters upon the Esthetical Education of Man“ from 1795, are discussed under an angle of self determined play, derived from educative and arts practices, as political concept.
Having the target of this thesis’ intervention in mind, which is to evaluate methodological principals of play for political intervention, this section gives an example about an historic social utopia of play. The „real utopia“ of Schiller did not focus on play as content, but applied play as practical principal of creation of world. If his texts are considered as severe political statement, they gain strategic importance to justify playful arts practices in the moment when it equals play and arts to science. Because aesthetic play as effective practice of agency is an artistic practice, therefore the artist (poet) has the right and duty to develop programs viable for society. Aesthetics is defined as relevant in the education of independent self-conscious and -determined individuals. This appears in itself as political act of declaring rights  – for example on education – of the individual. Once the idea of an individual is put forward, play and art is considered as statement of sovereign freedom.
„Art, like science, is emancipated from all that is positive, and all that is humanly conventional; both are completely independent of the arbitrary will of men. The political legislator may place their empire under an interdict, but he cannot reign there. He can proscribe the friend of truth, but truth subsists; he can degrade the artist, but he cannot change art.“ (Schiller 1795: 86)
As described in the 9th letter, art is a tool of social utopia, because it is – like ideal science – immune against hegemonic power. With this argument about emergence of freedom by play, Schiller introduces arts as political condition for the evolvement of an enlightened self in a society of free citizens. He talks about what can be translated as playful behaviour and its positive functions in education, in short on plays effects on creativity and self-awareness. According to Schiller society can only be changed to the better by self-determined life and work, achieved by playful aesthetic education.
Concerned with a Sturm und Drang dictum of freedom, play, as method to alter society was a radical political program, taken up from Schiller, and deriving from artists’ own manifestos. It prepared a new form of democratic mechanisms as part of the movement towards the project of Enlightenment, and cleared the way for what is called real politics in the sense of German pragmatic politics of agency of the individual citizen nowadays. Self-referentially, the political power of play in these kinds of arts writings of Schiller, provide a critical momentum to trace play as social practice from Baroque to Romanticism towards the real utopia and idea of Freiheit- as a concept of real politics by play.
The most consequential argument to be suggested in this context of play politics proposes that the real politics efficacy of technology-based toys not only appear as subject of art but also carry and spur on general political consciousness when dealing with technologically networked realities. Popular cultures of ubiquitous technologies are the reality constituting anchor point of this argument, a condition of Realpolitik in electronically shaped worlds. In this argument an approach towards real politics by the vehicle of play with techno materiality is identified as inevitable.
To ensure substantial resonance of this concept, the dimension of enjoyment and play is required. In the following section a further look on Schiller as political philosopher who focused on playful practices helps to cascade knowledge and insight toward contemporary development in crucial growth areas about play as operative political method in relation to instinct, desire and fulfilment. Play as erotic dimension, and according to contemporary introduced cultural studies discourses the enjoyment of creative play as practice of aesthetics can be called Jouissance, which will be questioned further on.
Joy and Jouissance of the use of objects in play open up new political dimensions of free creativity and living. This is identified as grounding of political play in the dimension of joy in further theoretical investigations in the following chapter.

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[1] Lulls combinatory is based on nine divine principals, divine inspiration, but more traceably influenced by Kaballah. He draws on 13th century Spanish ecstatic Kabbalah to develop an objective formal-computational system of composing and deriving philosophical-theological statements. In Hebrew, letters and numbers are mapped into the same notation of the “alefbet”. (Cramer, 2005, p. 29)
[2] Although nowadays mainly educational and health supporting games are addressed with the term serious games, the U.S. Department of Defence coined the term “serious game” in its public communication with the congress. This public communication targeted the use of war games, either as recruitment or training tools for the battlefield and interfaces as remote controlled video game like shooters. As evidence see the white paper of Anne Derryberry, 2007, website and blog are at http//www.imserious.net. Access: June 6 2009
[3] „Two details of a playful cyphering and decyphering machine by Portas: The centre wheel is movable. It can be lifted with the help of a golden thread. The wheel is mounted via the image of a cloud with the finger of god, to the page of the book.“ Author’s translation of the quote.
[4] Media Archaeology researchers, such as Zielinski (2002), or Cramer (2005), and from a socio-political angle Senneth (2008), direct towards a political paradigm shift, caused by the materiality of technologies. Empiricism with the radically new concept of research by observation as new leading orientation was based on the interplay of observation and technological artefact. Thinking in rule systems was then declared as obsolete. Observation  – with the help of the apparatus, – to conclude the laws of nature was increasingly considered as only valid principle; formulas became empirical devices in order to describe natural phenomena. The laws were no more considered as given. By contrast rules have to be recombined by the materiality they are made of..
[5] As actual update to the research question of techno-materiality, play and politics, in June 2009 the author conducted an interview with Florian Cramer as specialist on historic accuracy and media theory. In the interview’s progress, issues about insight potential of art and play as method, about immanent politics of play, and the role of historic logical toys, as early computation devices, were broached.
)[6] With this turn to an object orientation in mind, it makes sense to compare the playful and joyous trade of objects in synthetic worlds markets, as it is undertaken in chapter 2 of this thesis.
[7] Felix Stalder as scholar of network theories contextualises the meaning of intermediaries the following: „ An intermediary is anything that „passes between actors in the course of relatively stable transactions.“ (Bijker, Law, 1992 p.25) It can be a text, a product, a service, or money.
Intermediaries are the language of the network. Through intermediaries actors communicate with one another and that is the way actors translate their intentions into other actors. Considering the definition of actors as any element  „which makes other elements dependent upon itself and translates their will into a language of its own“ (Callon, Latour, 1981, p.286), the possibility to command intermediaries lies at the heart of action itself, which is translating an actor’s will into other actors.“ http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9709/msg00012.html (Access: September 12 2009)
[8] However physical gathering places in real life, which are „Things“, were never explicitly mentioned in Huizinga’s study, but as it is visible on historic sights still today, stone circles marked these common places, similar to Stonehenge in Amesbury in Wiltshire, England. Although the uses of these circles are not traceable, the image of the stone circle is viable to support the idea about a „thing“ as simultaneous gathering place and object.
[9] „Metaverse [is] my invention, which I came up with when I decided that existing words (such as „virtual reality“) were simply too awkward to use.“ By these terms the writer Neal Stephenson  describes his use of the world in the „Snow Crash Acknowledgements“ (1992).
[10] Realpolitik. is described by Latour the following: „ the German language has provided us with the word Realpolitik to describe a positive, materialist, no-nonsense, interest-only, matter of fact, way of dealing with naked power relations“ (Latour 2005:14)
[11] Intertwinedness was introduced as concept in a book with the same title published 1999 by Margarete Jahrmann and Christa Schneebauer. The concept expresses a relational aspect of culture, technologies and network practices and was elaborated by submissions of more than 14 authors, presented in a public lecture series with live streams at the Ars Electronica centre Linz 1997 till 1998.