JULY Ludic Liberation Lab ~ Playing with VACATION
Rediscovering the wisdom of the courtyard
Dear Ludic Liberators,
This Thursday is the 2nd Thursday of the month, but there’s no Lab. I’m taking a vacation! But I’m not going anywhere! Instead, I’m tuning into the SUMMER VACATION ENERGY from childhood. Do you remember what that was like?
For me, summer vacation was all about emergent play. Going out into the courtyard, seeing if any of my friends want to come out for the day, and inviting/inventing games based on whatever caught our interest. One summer it was mothering a colony of feral puppies (I grew up in Russia where stray dogs roam freely). Another summer it was role-playing “detectives.” Another involved a lot of badminton. The summer we all got landline phones, we discovered the mischievous pleasure of making prank calls. One summer was honestly about hiding out inside our apartments obsessively playing cards. There was no predetermined GOAL, no PROJECT, nothing to ACCOMPLISH. Every day was gloriously new, like a fresh sheet of sketchbook paper.
I have been deeply craving this kind of OPEN energy, so I decided to take JULY to explore it. Already it has been so juicy and jazzy and magical and full of delights. (Yesterday I saw FIREFLIES 😍!!!)
Maybe you are on VACATION too this month? Do you want to come out and play?
While there will be no scheduled Lab, there is a way to play along! I’m going to be a Gamemaker-in-Residence (On Vacation!) at the School of Faliure (also on Vacation for the month of July). Throughout the month, we will be spontaneously gathering in a specially designated area called THE COURTYARD (which you can join for free!) to invent and invite games! There’s already a proposal to put on a virtual play! I’m learning the ukulele and would love to jam! We might spontaneously organize a scavenger hunt, make a zine, build forts, have a tea party, go on a quest – I don’t know! I’m not promising anything. Only openness and curiosity, and permission to CHANGE YOUR MIND AT ANY TIME.
Then, In AUGUST, post-vacation, I’ll be teaching a 4-week course called Liberation Through Automation!? through an awesome futuristic education platform called hyperlink.academy. I’m so excited! We will be exploring whether AUTOMATION – the process of getting machines to do our work for us – both at the large-scale level and the micro level of our own everyday lives – is actually LIBERATING (like the phrase “FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY COMMUNISM” might suggest). If this sounds like an interesting question to you, I invite you to sign up! It’ll be theoretically eclectic, playful, experimental, and possibly personally transformative! Lab Report subscribers can use this special discount link to get $50 off!!!
See you at the courtyard,
Natalia
Gamemaker/Destroyer