Playformance
A manifesto by Simon Bachelier, Diane Landais and Nicolas Ligeon for the Sous les Néons collective
Playformance is an artistic and performative practice of a video game in which the act of play is used for storytelling.
Sous les Néons, 2024 Photo: Sous les Néons, 2023
Playforming is sharing: during the course of a purposely crafted moment, a video game is played in the presence of an audience. The act of play reveals something that neither the player nor the video game itself could individually express.
Although one could have such a revelation in the absence of an audience, there would then be no exchange or transmission. There would be nothing shared, and without it, no playformance either.
If the video game isn't played, we're no longer performing an act of play. The game becomes merely a prop, a backdrop, an integrated piece of media. Live performance sometimes makes use of video games, but without an act of play, it cannot be considered a playformance.
An act of play made in public is not a playformance if it is not done in service of storytelling. A video game played for entertainment, competition or advertising purposes does not constitute a playformance.
A playformance requires a player, a game, an audience, and a storytelling approach.
Playformance is a form of performing art
- Playformance is a performative and artistic practice of video games.
- Playformance is a form of theatrical storytelling.
Playformance uses the act of play as a narrative device
- The playformance and the video game tell distinct stories.
- The act of play is not an end, but a means.
- Playformance narrates, conveys, popularizes, explains, expresses.
Playformance is addressed to an in situ audience, a crowd, a gathering
- The audience, the player and the game all share the same space.
- The playforming space is physical and thus offline.
- The audience's eyes and reactions, whether perceptible or not, are always an active participation to the playformance.
The goal of a playformance is not to win
- Pleasure, achievement or success are not the end goal of a playformance.
- Playforming a video game does not require being good at it.
- Playforming a video game does not require following its rules.
Playformance uses two instruments: the body and the video game
- Playformance exposes the body.
- Playformance is an act of vulnerability.
- Playformance relies on the materials and properties of a video game.
- Playformance is an act of appropriation.
Playformance requires performing (on stage) while performing (in game)
- Playformance urges these two acts of play to meet.
- Delegating one of these acts of play means delegating the narration.
- The main stake of playformance is the blending of these two acts of play together.
Playformance expects a video game to be present
- A playformance may be built around more than one video game.
- A playformance does not need to show the beginning nor the entirety of a video game.
- A playformance may use a modified version of a video game or bypass its conventional rules.
- A playformance may use a confidential or forgotten video game.
There can exist an unlimited number of playformances
- The same video game can be playformed by an unlimited number of people.
- A single person may playform an unlimited number of video games.
- A single person can write an unlimited number of playformances around the same video game.
Playformances are unique and ephemeral
- A playformance belongs to its playformer.
- Playformance evades capture.
- A recording of a playformance is only a trace, a testimony, a document.
- A recording of a playformance is not a substitute for it.
Playformance is a common noun
- To playform is to perform a playformance.
- The person playforming is the playformer.
- The vocabulary of playformance is taken from Performance Art.
Playformance is mindful of diversity, equity and inclusivity
- Playformance is born from and thanks to queer people.
- Playformance evolves in the context of antifascist struggle.
Playformance is made by and for people
- Playformance can not be written or performed by artificial intelligence.
- Playformance questions our relationship to ourselves and the world.