PLAY

CURSOR06

Issue 06, Autumn 2024

LETTER FROM THE EDITORA lot of the work we do at CURSOR involves being critical. We are critical of tech giants, of algorithms that go unchecked, of tech optimists and pessimists alike, of structural power hierarchies amplified through digital spaces, of strict binaries. It is easy to resort to despair given the current state of our tech—at the lack of agency over our data, or at our collective slouching attention spans, just to name a couple of good reasons—but this issue’s theme is a reminder that being critical is not the same as being cynical. And this is where play comes in, because critique does not have to be negatively framed, it can also be rooted in creativity, improvisation, pleasure, teasing, or playfulness.

In this issue, you will find many interpretations of what it means to play with technology and encounter alternative ways of connecting online. Do you want to try your luck reenacting the teenage party kissing game, 7 minutes in heaven, or accompany Lulu and Lorenzo in their digital world of sticky dumpling dates and shitty work environments in late-stage capitalism? If you fancy a techno-spiritual approach, you might enjoy a tarot reading from allapopp’s digital twin or perusing Eleni’s article connecting the “magic” of the algorithm to a history of witchcraft and sorcery (+100 aura points if your attention span has lasted this far). If you’re feeling nostalgic, Becca and Larissa take us down the road of games past: a time of endearingly poor 3D renderings when the mark of a human’s touch on the games they created was more palpably felt.

In editing the articles for this issue, I was pleased to find that despite geographic and temporal barriers, our contributors were speaking to each other. Pointing out the difficulty of incorporating play into our productivity-minded lives, Becca poses the question, “What is play, if we’re doing it to manifest, to achieve our goals, to study our habits and desires? If we take play seriously, isn’t that just work?” And I believe Eleni provides the answer when she writes: “Perhaps our mistake was to strive for efficiency above all else. What if we embraced opacity for a change? What if we challenged our algorithms to produce uncertain futures?”

If we think of play as a practice, it is more than anything a practice of taking risks. It’s cracking a joke in the face of uncertainty, toying with failure, and believing that curiosity actually can be a method.

Maya Ellen Hertz
Editor-in-Chief

In this issue: 01: Indistinguishable from magic
02: 7 minutes in heaven
03: For Those Whose Hearts Have Been Hurt by Stinky Human Interactions and Hazardous Work Environments
04: Random Kingdom and the Power of Playfulness
05: Bad graphic tes and poems about tangerines: resisting AI by playing (with) it
05: A Return to the Digital Playground
06: Everything to Play For: How Videogames Are Changing the World
07: Disarming Play: Navigating Social Imagery
08: Simulacra, Simulations, The Sim 4
09: The Ballerina in the Music Box: A Working Theory of Meta-Machinima
10: It’s gonna be fucking transcendent, Angel

Maya Ellen Hertz, Editor-in-Chief

Editorial team
Aditi Peyush
Iza Jablonska
Maïwenn Blunat
Nata Aguilar

Print layout and design
Marina Cardoso

To order a copy of CURSOR 06: Play in print, fill out this order form.

Fish Bowl

Lananh Chu