Ludic Society / Margarete Jahrmann & Max Moswitzer 2006 / Switzerland / Austria

Margarete Jahrmann and Max Moswitzer lead the Ludic Society, an international association of artists, game practitioners and theorists pursuing an artistic re/search discipline referred to as “ludics,” which makes explicit the link between play in the game space and life on the streets. “The suburbs in France and elsewhere are not built for living but for playing,” they explain, “ei- ther with cars or bikes or with your own body as a game character.” “Readyplayed” is a video project about today’s suburbs and those who live in them. The piece uses video clips of parcour, which Wiki- pedia describes as “a physical art of French origin, the aim of which is to move from point A to point B as efficiently and quickly as possible, using the abilities of the human body.” In the real life game space of modernist suburban architecture, players leap across buildings and over fences, becom- ing action figures, while a game status bar on the screen and the pixelated analog footage gives the work the look of a 1980s videogame.