Reading Reflection – Vilhauer, Gadamer and the Ethics of Play

(Excerpts from the text given in italics.)

I began by investigating and exploring many of the terms used in this excerpt from the Ethics of Play by Vilhauer.

Inclusion as a participant in the play of this text, in order to be drawn into the game and to fully engage whole-heartedly with the truth being presented, required acquiring an understanding of what are probably considered basic terms: ie: phenomenology. The definition being: the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness – the study of general and fundamental questions such as reason, existence, knowledge, values, mind and language.

These and other areas of philosophical study seeming to be posed as questions much as in the spirit of Gadamer’s text, led to my recognising research as being an on-going and open-ended process. Because the common world changes constantly, the questions consistently fall and play over ever-changing landscapes which undulate ( Bewegung ) and vary. Also, conclusions are open to interpretation seen through the lens of the times in which they emerge.

I was resistant at first to the idea of art necessarily needing to be engaged/played/danced with and I felt quite defensive about the artist having ownership of their intention. However, having read the text and through group discussion with peers on the course, I recognise the play as being the energy and driving force of creativity. The elegant way these ideas are explored in the text help me to appreciate absolutely that ideas/artworks begin to resonate when they are being interacted with. For the fragment of truth that is potentially being brought to light – the joy in the dance of interpretation is everything.

Play as depicted in the text, might represent creativity’s constant instinctive questioning of ideas and sifting of imagery, providing the catalyst and the ground on which to dance with others around grains of ‘truth’ and any resulting emergence of subject matter. This preparation for other’s interaction can be minimal or multi-layered and complex.

The restless energy that is potentially manifested by the process (or serene recognition and every other imaginable and unimaginable reaction) facilitates growth into territory unknown that can go beyond the sum of its parts. This dialogue making an encounter with art in all of its forms so compelling.

Gadamer’s analysis of the idea of play is juxtaposed with the more conventional view of art as a static object which exists independently, its meaning buried deep within it. This has elitist overtones; excluding attempts to gain access by the ‘viewer’ and never fully gaining the life that sharing might breathe into it.

I’ve explored the language in the text by attempting to use it myself here to better understand the ideas in the text. Through this process I began to see that there are parallels with teaching styles – the transmissive model and a more constructivist approach; the two contrasting modes of participation as discussed in Dall’ Alba’s text: ‘Improving teaching: Enhancing ways of being university teachers’. One similarity: art being seen as something apart and distanced to be passively viewed in isolation with the object transmitting its insight to be passively observed, would chime with a description of a style of teaching which Dall’ Alba’ calls transmission. This being teacher-centred, conventional transmission of expertise aimed at predetermined goals – students passively acquiring knowledge. It effectively exaggerates that which the teacher knows and the student doesn’t, thus shutting down the possibility of play around ideas. A constructivist approach to teaching empowers the student and honours their participation, recognising that the acquisition of knowledge is not something we possess but who we are. Because the play values what a person brings to the dance, this better facilitates growth.

I began to apply this new perspective to art pieces I’ve seen which have resonated with me. For example a video installation by Yang Zhenzhong at the Venice Bienale in 2007. Called ‘I Will Die’, the piece is minimal, consisting of a darkened corridor lined floor-to- ceiling with projections of films showing head-shots of people saying ‘I will Die’ whilst looking straight into the lens. The people in the film are diverse in their age, gender, ethnicity and are unified by this one fact that they state about themselves. For me, the power of the piece is in the play of how the mind cannot fully comprehend its own ending. This is echoed in the title of Damian Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.

Yang Zhenzhong’s film can be seen by following this link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQytEyFKQG0

In these works, the artists lay the groundwork for the dance/play in two very different styles. Although both minimal, one is an immersive installation and the other an object. Yang Zhenzhong’s installation invites us into the dark to watch our own destiny spoken by strangers – people that we will never meet but who speak our truth.

Damien Hirst’s title brings the truth of our incomprehension of this to bare on a dead shark in a tank of formaldehyde. Hirst’s piece asks us to engage with our own incomprehension of what it means to die. Hirst’s work is playful in that although the shark is an animal and not necessarily capable of cogent thought about its own death, we identify with its condition of a life that’s now gone even though the shark’s body is still preserved.

Although these works are very different in their construction, both offer a truth and the opportunity to dance with its physical manifestation.

My playing with the pieces enjoys the idea that the human condition involves not being able to remember pain with 100% recall, never mind being able to imagine death. We can’t conjure exactly the pain of child-birth. If one could recreate that sensation completely then you would not choose to experience it again. The same could be said of the pain of losing another and the inevitable feeling of grief. Grief is the bill of love, come due (David Mitchell, Utopia Avenue). One forgets, recovers and then proceeds to embark on similar experiences. One definition of insanity is the repetition of a behaviour whilst expecting a different outcome!

To summarise – Interacting with art offers a place to play with an unimaginable array of issues and ideas which runs parallel with the most effective and fertile modes of teaching and learning where teachers and learners are like artists and art. Play is where the learning is.