A:FATE/CIRCULAR CAUSATION

Travel back in time to save someones life only to discover that it cannot be avoided, or worse yet you were in fact the cause of the persons death in the first place.  Most plausible.

B:ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

Travel back in time t save someones life, do so and return to your own time to discover that nothing has changed…you’ve only changed the timeline of an alternate quantum reality.  Amongst most plausible.

C:SUCCESS

Travel back in time to kill your great grandfather and succeed.  Theory very unlikely if you were successful you would inevitably never be born and never go back in time to kill you great grandfather.  Thus the paradox and the implausibility.

D:OBSERVER EFFECT

Travel back in time to alter history, succeed, but the only person able to differentiate between the reality left behind and the new reality are those directly associated with the time travel…the time traveler.  The extent of the paradox rests in how the time traveler is affected.  Existing ‘out of time’, he may not be affected by whatever changes he inflicts on the timeline, thus the time traveler himself becomes a stranger in this ‘new’ present.  He may go back in time, kill his own grand father and return to present to discover there are no records of his own existence.

SOURCE:some magazine.

My cartographies of Nowa Huta, Sheffield and Second Life led me to consider the articulation of memory and how memories of places develop through familiarization, which is inherently dependent on the scale and thus time taken to travel and familiarize with a place.  This familiarization would then exist as a memory, consolidated in the mind by a web of interdependent synaptic connections that articulate the sensory environment of the place and form the memory.  Over time ofcourse, this neurological network which forms the memory becomes distorted and its image is warped out of time and scale.  It is influenced by an incalculable number of other experiences encounter since that memory was formed.  The memory exists as the requiem of a placeless place, entirely virtual, yet it remains a representation of a place you once were, and will in some way affect your experience of that place should you return there.

Over the summer I visited Alcatraz.  The guided tour on tape attempted to recreate the experience of the abandoned prison cum tourist attraction.  One ex-convict from the prison remarked on how to survive in solitary confinement:

“If you close your eyes for long enough you can see a tiny white dot down there in the darkness and if you stare at the dot for long enough you realize that it’s a TV and, after a time in the dark, you can see al kinds of shows on there, all kinds of films and stories and shows…it takes a bit of practice, but in the end it’s there…that’s how I survived…”

Within our minds we form our own virtual realities, distinct and unique from anybody else’s.  We form our own identity, which is then projected back onto the world via an incalculable number of experiences and encounters affecting anybody else who might be within range of its influence.

Attercliffe, an industrial suburb in Sheffield’s northeast, is an anonymous place.  ‘Sheffield Attercliffe’ had been one of Sheffield’s parliamentary constituencies since 1885 but will become part of Sheffield South East. Further more, Attercliffe had recently been recategorised from the Burngreave Ward to the Darnall Ward.  It is a kind of placeless place.  This however has not always been the case.   In the beginning, Attercliffe was a small settlement centered around Attercliffe chapel, part of the parish of Sheffield. ‘Ateclive’ [meaning ‘at the cliffe’] was recorded in the Doomsday book as a small escarpment of the Don Valley.

Attercliffe was once the centre of Sheffield’s world renowned steel industry, where, out of the floodplains of the Lower Don Valley, a plethora of cutlers, forge-masters and steelworks emerged to brand the heraldic “Made in Sheffield” firmly on the city’s identity. Benjamin Huntsman, a clockmaker turned steelmaker, established a the Attercliffe Steelworks.  Here he invented the crucible process which lifted the quality of the steel industry of Sheffield from obscurity to worldwide fame.

[Cyclops Works, Sheffield]

However, beyond the works’ boundaries other developments were taking place. The extension in 1819 of the canal from Tinsley to Sheffield had passed just to the east of Attercliffe village and enabled the delivery of imported iron from Hull, via Tinsley and Goole directly into Sheffield. Many of the larger firms, including Huntsman, had acquired land adjacent to the canal to construct their own private wharves, saving time and money on the storage and transportation of the heavy raw materials.

During these prosperous times the area also supported a large residential population and Attercliffe road served as major retail centre, incorporating the original tramways and the famous John Banners Department Store [and it’s fondly remembered escalator first of its kind in Europe].

The area was known for its unique sense of community. At the turn of the twentieth century it was considered a self contained district, neither socially dependent on Sheffield nor Rotheram [but ofcourse still economically interdependent on both for global trade] and this was expressed in the number of civic facilities, many of which are either derelict or have been converted for other purposes.  The Attercliffe Free Library and Attercliffe Pubic Baths are now an office and business complex.  The Vestry Hall is now the Yemeni Economic and Training Centre.  The Adelphi, once a popular cinema and theatre venue, is now nightclub.  The Attercliffe Radical Club, aka The Rads, was a popular social club that existed as a bustling community and entertainments venue but is now derelict.

In an attempt to resist the industrial decline of the 1960s and 1970s the state evicted a large portion of the residential community to make way for more industry.  This was not successful and had a dramatic effect on the area’s demographic, ousting the community atmosphere and local identity as well as the residents.

Attercliffe is now better known for its sex shops and erotica industry.  It has become a destination for anonymity.

“…The Wall is not yet completed. At this writing, only one-fourth of its planned extent is actually constructed. The rest weighs on the mind as though it already existed, but as yet it does not. Let me be optimistic and imagine that the ruling powers in Israel come to, or are brought to, their senses and stop construction of the Wall. The space for exchange, however tilted toward Israel already by the existing imbalance of power, will remain open. But what should happen to the already constructed portions of the Wall? Many will want to tear them down, understandably so. They are ugly symbols, for many on the Israeli side and for most on the Palestinian side. Certainly, finished sections should be torn down to make the line more porous, so that Palestinians’ direct access to their fields and jobs and villages is assured. But some sections of the Wall could remain. If they were left as free-standing artifacts in a still-divided and yet still-negotiable landscape, they might serve some useful purpose. One of these could be the Wall Game. The Wall Game uses some sections of the wall as a two-sided playing field. Palestinians control one side, Israelis the other. Each side has a team of builders, architects, artists, and performers, who make a construction on their side of the wall, using it as sole support. In other words, the new constructions cannot rest in any way directly on the ground, but only on the wall. They are cantilever constructions. As such, the cantilever on one side must be balanced by the cantilever on the other side, or else the wall will fall to one side or the other, and the Game will be over. It is a game only for two opposing sides. One side cannot play it alone, as unbalanced structural forces will bring the wall down very quickly. A one-sided game has no point, that is, no winner.

The point of the Wall Game is to win. There are three levels of winning. The first level is to keep the game going. In this sense, both sides win against the improbability of their continuing to play and against the Wall itself and the complex set of forces it activates. There is no time limit to the game. It ends only when one side wins over the other–the second level of winning–or they both lose. To understand how one side wins over the other, a little more must be known about the nature of the constructions they build. It may be assumed that each team will build a different type of construction. Different materials, different configuration, different method. This is because the different teams represent different cultures, religions, histories, and aspirations. Even if both teams were to produce similar constructions, they could win on the first level only, because to win on the second level one construction must convert the other. Conversion of a construction occurs when its system of order, that is, its basic system of spatial reference is transformed by the system of order of the opposing side. This occurs during predetermined time periods when the construction is left open to infiltration by the opposing construction, through the wall. During these time periods, the opposing team may construct within the construction left open. Not every attempt to convert the opposing construction will be successful. If a construction left open to a conversion attempt is syntactically clear and strong, the attempt will have to be even clearer, stronger, and above all more succinct to reorder the open system of space and form in the time allowed. The third level of winning is the most difficult to attain. It occurs when both constructions are converted, not according to the system of order of one side or another, but in such a way that an entirely new system of order is created. At this level, both sides win, because they transcend, together, their former states of opposition, and enter a more complex, multivalent state. Resulting from the fusion of the former systems, their constructions achieve a new and hybrid system of order. They meet each other not as contenders but as co-inhabitants of a new spatial condition to which they have both contributed, and which they must both work to not only maintain, but to evolve further. The Wall Game is clearly designed to engage a new generation of Palestinian and Israeli players, who not only see the old games as destructive and self-defeating, but who want to create new and more productive modes of competition that may lead to new forms of cooperation. Because it is only a game, with neither territory nor lives at stake, winning and losing take on new meanings. As in any game, there is always next time to recoup pride and prestige, and thus the imperative to learn not only from failure, but also from success. The winning team in any single game can be assured that the next time it plays, the opposing side will have learned not only their techniques, but also devised new tactics of their own.

Neither victory nor defeat is ever final. And there could be spin-offs. Certainly there will be in the development of new, computer-based technologies that oversee the conduct of the Wall Game. From monitoring the stresses in the wall that is the playing field, giving both sides the information they need to continue construction, to judging the success or failure of a conversion attempt, computers-programmed to be as objective as possible-will rely on software that could bring new dimensions to ethical thinking. After all, in this situation, what does ‘objective’ mean? Even the most bitterly opposed adversaries who learn to play together find it difficult to kill each other. It is instructive to consider the impact of the famous Ping- Pong matches between China and the United States in the seventies in ending open hostilities between these countries (such as the Korean War); or the role of the Olympics-and the United States refusal to play in Moscow in 1980–in the rapprochement between the Soviet Union and the United States in the eighties. It can be argued that these games were only a sign that the opposing sides were ready to cooperate more openly and that the games were only symbolic, but that does nothing to diminish the importance of the games as a method of approach. As the cultural historian Johan Huizinga wrote in Homo Ludens, “Play is a uniquely adaptive act, not subordinate to some other adaptive act, but with a special function of its own in human experience.” This is an insight whose day of usefulness may, once again, be at hand. “

[Note: Since the initial publishing of this piece, the construction of the Wall has continued, with the result that it is now about three-quarters complete.]

 Lebbeus Woods (October, 2004)

Very interdependent indeed.  

The Israeli Western Bank barrier is a highly controversial construction.  Under the guise for security the wall reportedly annexes Palestinian land, divides and displaces Jewish settlements and violates the freedom of passage within the West Bank.  The similar Israeli Gaza Strip barrier was considered much less controversial, perhaps due to its more ephemeral fence-like structure.

Banksy has playfully expressed his own views of the wall:

The 3D virtual environment is a spurious phantasmagoria – an illusion, a distortion of reality as users engage with one another via computer terminals from remote locations across the globe.  The internet connects people.  However this very ‘connection’ demonstrates the reality of the disconnectedness of the modern age.

The physical reality of virtual space is the sum-atomic movement of electrons flowing across a complex network of electronic circuitry, mircochips, servers and telephone lines.  The virtuality of this situation is the user at his/her terminal communicating with other users as if they were present in the within space and time.

The condition is an actual-virtual paradox and Linden Lab’s Grid Server is at the centre of this actual-virtual world.

Second Life is often referred to as a game, the description is more accurately defined as a ‘sandbox game’.  The term sandbox represents the virtual world’s open-ended-ness – the lack of direction, target or agonistic notion of winners and losers that typically describe a game.  The user constructs the game for themselves.  It does involve strong play-elements and ordinary games are included within parts of Second Life.

Inspired by Neal Sephenson’s novel Snow Crash, Linden Lab created Second Life in the image of the fictional world ‘Metaverse’ as described by Stephenson, a user-defined world in which people interact, play, do business and otherwise communicate.

[10.11] Rux Roogus: “Why do you use Second Life?”

[10.12] Imogen Rieko: “It is so wonderful.  I’m never bored.

I bought a house here, for 13 quid-ish.  I’m a trekker you see.  I use it for roleplay and I have many friend for which I use Second Life to communicate with.” 

 [click for larger image]

This virtual flight path map indicates the physical locations of users encountered in Second Life.

The paths represent the electronic connection between each user as their client software comminicates with the Linden Lab servers located at Linden Lab in San Francisco, where the Second Life Grid is hosted.  The Permanent Virtual Connection [PVC] is the term the describes the path data takes through virtual network.

The advent on new information technologies has facilited communications between individuals and institutional entities enabling them to no longer be bound by contingencies of place.  This has presented opportunities for anarchic schools of thought, equiping the everyman, the amateur, the citizen journalist, with the tools and the power to reach global audiences and impact on the very substance of society.  Tactical media forms, such as Indymedia, arose in the aftermath of the Berlin wall – exemplifying the fluid, the temporal and the soft and malleable nature of reality and society through the construction and deconstruction of this great divide.   The birth of tactical media forms symbolises a celebration of media freedom and resistance to the authority. 

User generated content has erupted in the recent times of networked society. Discussion boards / blogs / social networking sites / news sites / trip planners / customer review sites / experience or photo sharing sites / any other site offering the opportunity to share knowledge and familiarity with a product or experience / games – all are forms of user generated content.  People are able to form expressions of themselvea through the content and creativity they generate and publish to the wider community.  Wikipedia is now the world’s largest encyclopedia, created by no one in particular and everyone at the same time.  The willingness for contemporary society to make their mark can on the world is perceived by Zygmunt Bauman as the ‘frantic search for identity’, but more than this, the desire to collaborate stems from a need to socialise, gain recognition for work and contribute to a democracy and equality of information and knowledge.  It exists out of a yearning for the utopia of the local community spirit, the paradise lost in the globalised world, connected via Permanent Virtual Connections.

This internet is “the primary socio-technical architecture that enables the mobility of data with a logic of informationalism.”    [Ned Rossiter, fibreculture]

Imagining a world without the Internet is nearly impossible. Despite the Internet’s global significance, less than 20 percent of the world’s 6 billion people currently have access to the educational, social and economic opportunities it can create.

[Isolated centres]

Globlisation in its literal definition is to develop or be developed so as to make possible international influence or operation.  This generally refers to business, industry and commerce through communication and the globalising of capital markets.  It speaks also of a unification of the peoples of the world, within a single society functioning together, and of the flattening of the globe.  Arguments for and against this notion have long been debated, but the point of interest here is in the image of ‘sweeping generality’.  Globalisation paints a picture of replication/duplication, of standardization, uniformity through commercialisation.  It renders the world in a scripted language akin to that of programming source code, where the meaning in the content is near undistinguishable between programmes of completely contrasting ends.

There exists then, an issue of identity.

“What identity feels like when you become aware you undoubtedly have one’, Erikson answered: it feels ‘as a subjective sense of an invigorating sameness and continuity.’” [Identity in the globalising world, Zygmunt Bauman, 2000]

Identity describes the characteristics determining an individual or a place. In the context of Nowa Huta and Sheffield these were once places whereby their very existence lay in parallel to the absolute strength of their identities as places.  ‘The Steel City’.  The very connection of people and place indicates that identity and is socially produced:

“‘Individualisation’ consists in transforming human ‘identity’ from a ‘given’ into a ‘task’, and charging the actors with the responsibility for performing that task and for the consequences of their performance; […] the shape of our sociality, and so of the society we share, depends in its turn on the way in which the task of ‘individualisation’ is framed up and responded to.”  [Identity in the globalising world, Zygmunt Bauman, 2000]

Bauman proclaims that instead of talking about identities, inherited or acquired, it would be more in keeping with the realities of the globalising world to speak of identification, a never-ending, always incomplete, unfinished and open-ended activity in which we all, by necessity or by choice, are engaged.

Nowa Huta and Sheffield are caught within the requiem of the post-industrial no-mans-land of post-identity.  In the absence of manufacturing in there exists a strong uprising of creative cultures in both these cities; suspended within this back-drop of post-industrial anonymity there lies an inescapable stratum of artistic stimulus…

Second Life, a city created by its people, is a place entirely absent of identity. Users assume avatars, alternative virtual manifestations of their actual selves, thus they assume the role which they envisage these imagined characters possess.

“Identities sought these days are such as ‘ can be adopted and discarded like a change of costume’”

The idea of the digital city came about from the technological convergence of computers, telecommunications and mass media, coupled with the social and cultural context of the ‘information society’ and ‘network society’. The very globality of the internet feeds a hunger for its immediate opposite – a smaller, simpler and more localized world where every person can make a difference.  Bringing people together in the electronic agora is never going to replace the sense of community that evolved from by-gone eras.  The loss of social capital – of people normally networking in person turn to the convenient but lifeless medium of computers instead.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vFe2a29hms]

“Public ambivalence towards globalization – increased appreciation of the local & romantic yearning for small town-sense of community of times past.”

As basic services and amentities are sucked in the metaphorical black-hole of the metaverse, communities are devolving, straying the border from the physical to the virtual.

According to Bauman, ‘the frantic search of identity’ is developed from the combination of a rapidly globalising world and the social pressures for individualisation.  Has this frantic forage for individualism also become devolved from the locality and seeking out a sense for community within the digital city?  

“Digital cities are built for analog, flesh and blood citizens.We are not, cannot, and never will be our avatars.” [The construction of the digital city, Helen Couclelis, 2002]

The sandbox is a safe place for experimentation and play:

The term ‘sandbox’ originates in programming and software development terminology and was coined due to the need to create an isolated environment where-by servers and their data are protected from potentially harmful changes of code and data made by implementing untested programs.  Sandboxes replicate functionality needed to accurately test the progams or code under development, thus perfecting the code before distribution into the main system or network.

In Second Life, the sandbox is the place where the ‘provisional’ is made ‘visional’.  This space is reserved for testing constructions and building elements that will make up the virtual world.  Since everything in Second Life is created by the users, the sandbox is an important part in developing the virtual world, allowing users to create expression and enable to sense of place and ownership in a world entirely make-believe.

“Welcome ring.

[13:55]  You: can you direct me to a place of provisional construction?

[13:55]  Ten Kenorland: yes

[13:55]  Ten Kenorland: open search and click the places tab

[13:55]  Ten Kenorland: then type “Sandbox”

[13:55]  Ten Kenorland: and click search again

[13:57]  You: thanks.just out of interest, where abouts are in the world are u?

[13:57]  Ten Kenorland: I am near Washington DC, you?

[13:57]  Ten Kenorland: and, you’re welcome : )

[13:57]  You: sheffield, england.

[13:58]  Ten Kenorland: Well, welcome to Second life, Rux”

Orientation Island

101,171,22 

08/01/2008 13:58 PST

What if the site and/or the program were percieved as a sandbox.  Where users could create and manipulate the space in their own terms and for their own use? An expression of identity can be created.  Indeed, like The Boxman, create their own box, their own perspective on the world, and their own identity.

The sandbox is a place where ideas are conjured, tested and developed.  They are rehearsed.  The Proun Room of Suprematist painter El Lissitzky is decribed by the artist as ‘the station one changes from painting to architecture’.  The sandbox is the station were the virtual and the imaginary becomes the actual and the real.

“This is the record of a box man.
I am beginning this account in a box. A cardboard box that reaches just to my hips when I put it over my head.
That is to say, at this juncture the box man is me. A box man, in his box, is recording the chronicle of a box man.”

[Kobo Abé, The Box Man]

This is a tale of identity and anonymity. The unnamed protagonist, in taking up residence in a cardboard box, preserves his anonymity yet unveils his identity.  The box itself is reprogrammed – a shelter, a home, a mask, an identity.  The box man is a strange and threatening sight, not because of the box but because of the opportunity it offers to the box man. A sliced peep-hole is made, screened by a small piece of vinyl.  Upon tilting the box, screen opens up and the box man is able to see yet remain unseen.  He observes the world from a new perspective.  He has created for a new reality for himself, a virtual existence where he is bound by the box’s restrict dimensions, yet relishes the opportunity of voyeurism and suspect anonymity.

Yet the world has not changed.  It is our perception of the box and of the box man that has changed, but more importantly it is his perception of the box and himself that have changed.  [Tragically the story ends with box man being shot dead.]

Does this tale ring true for contemporary society? Do people disappear from the real world to spend time on Second Life in order to discover their identity?  ?  As the amenities and services of everyday life dissolve into the black hole of the metaverse, there is something of a reality crisis – we are beginning to see the world from a very different perspective.  Computers are increasingly becoming a pivotal part of our lives.  A child’s upbringing is, nowadays, less associated with the nursery rhymes and fairy tales that the older generations are so fond of. Interactive computer games and online virtual worlds have replaced tradition, inherently influencing orthodox child’s play and acculturating Generation X 2.0, growing up in a half physical, half representational reality.  Is this generation more out of touch with reality as a result, or has actual reality actually changed?

The more research carried out on artificial intelligence and new forms of communication, the more science approximates the structure of the brain; in a way recreating the thing we’ve lived for millennia. The way we react with the physical environment is, in a sense, entirely virtual.  Our sensory perception or physical reality is microcosm of electro-chemical stimulations, and one that is administered by the cognition of our memories.

The mask, the wearing of a disguise, dressing up and role-playing have direct linkages with Second Life – the avatar being a digital guise of the human operator in the virtual world.

“The sight of the masked figure, as a purely aesthetic experience, carries us beyond ‘ordinary life’ into a world where something other than daylight reigns; it carries us back to the world of the savage, the child and the poet, which is the world of play”

The mask ostensibly liberates from social constraints.  The world of play, as described by J.Huizinga in his seminal study of the play-element in culture – Homo Ludens, is an ephemeral and provisional state of being which one distinctly recognizes as non-serious and distinctly other than ‘ordinary life’:

“We found that the most important characteristics of play was its spatial separation from ordinary life.  A closed space is marked out for it, either materially or ideally, hedged off from the everyday surroundings.  Inside this space the play proceeds, inside it the rule obtain.  Now, the marking out of some sacred spot is also the primary characteristic of every sacred act.  This requirement of isolation for ritual […] is much more than merely spatial and temporal.”

Typically play is considered the direct polar of seriousness, however this contrast is neither conclusive nor fixed, play can be very serious indeed.  Competitive games or sport are played in profound seriousness, as is gambling, politics or art – each of which possess distinct forms of play yet are often considered the epitome of seriousness.

The mask and the uniform represent mirrored ideals.  The mask offers a brief compensation for the decency and prudence that must ordinarily be observed.  It has long been associated with erotic fetes and conspiracies – disturbing and trilling yet at the same time assures anonymity, protects and liberates.  It symbolises the means and often the announced decision to violate these taboos.  The uniform alternatively is a disguise that signifies authority.  It is official, regulated and in leaving the face exposed the individual becomes a representative and a servant of an impartial and immutable rule.

The afore mentioned association of masks with erotic fetes and conspiracy pertains to air of secrecy in play which most vividly expressed in ‘dressing up’.  Here the extraordinary nature of play reaches perfection.  The disguised/masked individual ‘plays’ another part, another being. He is another being.

On developing a programme for the activities to take place within Cedric Price’s ‘The Fun Palace’, the ‘Ideas Committee’ suggested methods inducing of identity-shifts and role-play.  An ‘Identity Bar’ was proposed which would dispense paper clothing, enabling people to adopt different and unfamiliar social and gender roles.  This was expressed as a need to provide “physical and emotional thrills for satisfying the individual’s desire to exhibit himself and to extend his sense of power and feel the sensation of sinking into a group.” 

This juxtaposes a the sense of anonymity, induced through role-play, with the establishment of a community and intends to liberate the individual of his inhibitions, and thus reinforce this community.

The table was created from two other tables acquired throught the freecycle network.  These were a standard metal frame computer desk and chair, primarily made of steel and plastic, and a large circular coffee table constituting of a wooden top and a wrought-iron tri-podular base.  The juxtaposition between the two table in their use, design and origin were appealing as their stories revealed themselves through their former owners.  

The computer desk was picked up in Sheffield, were it was originally purchased by the former owner.  It was well-used but brought new previous to my acquisition of it -  a cheap and functional piece of furniture, aesthetically colourless, materially and perceptually synthetic. 

The coffee table was acquired from Hathersage, the previous owners brought it in Bagnor, North Wales but the table has origins in India.  The hardwood top and weathered iron base engender an air of authenticity.  The surface is scarred and tempered through years of use and, though well crafted, the imperfections in its construction give it a character and charm missing in the computer desk. 

[click image for more views]

The occasional tables is a multi-functioning device that responds to the user and the space in which it sits.  It performs as the coffee table it once but in response to its user the table undergoes a transformation, increasing its surface height and revealing piece drawers from under the tabletop.  It becomes a game board, a theatre of play.

The game is nine-mens-morris. An ancient strategy game that may have its beginnings in Egypt in 1400 BC, but more likely originated from Roman times where it is thought to have been introduced via trade routes.  It is a game of skill and cunning where the players place and move their peices in order to construct a network of aligned pieces, giving them the advantage by taking their opponents pieces.  The name Morris comes from the Latin word ‘merellus’, which means counter or gaming piece.  The design of the has been given sacred symbolic significance, to the Celts the centre represented the holy Mill or Cauldron – a symbol of regeneration, and radiating from this – the four cardinal directions, the four elements and the four winds.

All play has its rules – they determine what holds in the temporary world circumscribed by play.  Play is, in this sense, a virtual condition bound within the territory defined by these rules.

“They are absolutely binding and allow no doubts – no skepticism is possible where rules of a game are concerned, for the principle underlying them is an unshakeable truth.  Indeed, as soon as the rules are transgressed the whole play world collapses.  The game is over.”  [Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens]

Here Huizinga expresses the ephemeral and fragile nature of play.  It exists within a spatial and psychological territory, where the rules obtain and are absolute.    The importance of the rules is explicit, a game consists of the need to find moves which are free within the limits set by the rules.  This license of the player, to express his independence to make trial of his good fortune as well as of his skill, is essential to the game and partly explains the pleasure which it excites. 

The state of play is established within the territory.  The territory is established within the Book of Rules.