Postdigital playthings: what can toys tell us about games? - A Talk by Seth Giddings

Abstract

My recent book, Toy Theory: technology and imagination in play, asks its readers to look at the development of technology from the perspective of play rather than practical or instrumental application. What if technical innovation were driven as much by experimentation, speculation, performance and hands-on ‘toying’ as by the identification and satisfaction of immediate material needs? What if technologies were toys before they were tools? For this talk I will explore the historical, material and formal relationships between toys and games – and how these relationships are remade in the era of digital games and playthings. What happens to play when the tactile handling of toys is deferred to controllers and avatars? What are the effects on imaginative play of the technical materiality of the toy, the structuring of play through game rules, and the operation of algorithms and AI? And what might be the future of virtual-actual hybrid play?