Ludic Liberation Lab

Ludic(adj) – playful, spontaneous, non-goal oriented activity; related to games of chance
Liberation(n) – the action of setting someone free from bondage, oppression, slavery; release from limiting thoughts or behaviors

Can play be political? Can games change the world? Is the entire social system just a rigged game whose rules we’ve made up long ago but forgot to change for the evolving future? It is through play that we learn the world as children, and by playing with it as adults that we can learn to liberate ourselves from its pretend constraints. Play expands our notions of what’s possible and brings us closer to the source of creation, helping us—through playful obfuscation—to better see things as they really are. Play is not only human (birds and electrons play too!) but humans are especially creative at it, having designed countless genres of challenge-based, symbolic activity to be engaged in for their own sake. From the Situationists International’s playful psychogeography of dérive to Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed to Monopoly’s anti-capitalist origin in The Landlord’s Game, a growing movement of social change and activist game designers are harnessing the ancient ludic tradition to teach political strategy, experiment with forms of collective liberation, and build a new revolutionary imaginary. In this charged time of class struggle and climate catastrophe, we urgently need each other to play! 

Incite Seminars invites you to join Ludic Liberation Lab—a group to explore personally transformative and political games, game-based pedagogy, and playful facilitation techniques. We gather together to play and learn from a variety of game experiences, role plays and participatory simulations, theater exercises, and immersive and personal games as tools for political education and social change. Meetings include collective play, exploration of game mechanics and facilitation strategies, and collaborative design activities.

🎲 Ludic Liberation Lab Rules!

1. Ludic Liberation Lab is an educational experiment for Making Theory Into Practice Through Play.
2. At the Ludic Liberation Lab, we play to remember we are always playing! This reminds us that we have a choice – enact old scripts or make new rules. 
3.  It’s called a “lab” because we conduct experiments in relating. These experiments may and will FAIL, but we value failure because it gives us the best kind of data – it reveals that which we took for granted. 
4. At the Ludic Liberation Lab, everyone is both a participant and a researcher. At each lab, we collectively ask questions about play and liberation in relation to the topic of the session, but you can also conduct your own experiment and ask your own questions (secretly or openly!) 
5. As in life, at the Lab, you are always the master of your game. You can turn off stop playing or change the game at any time. 
6. Portions of what happens during the labs may be analyzed and findings are shared via the Lab Report (a newsletter for ludic liberation).  No personal information will be publicly revealed. If you have questions or concerns about this practice, please email ludicliberation@gmail.com.