I’m spending a lot of time again thinking about my blog. I posted before about how fast moving this liquid world is and I was reminded of this talking to Dr J on the phone today. Even the affinity space is changing. Trois Tetes is silent, Mary Plain and Simply Clare have entered the arena. Strange thing I thought I heard their voices, and the geographical information suggested I might know them, but I was reluctant to reach any conclusions. Dr J revealed their true identity and only then did I feel OK about linking them on my blog. There’s something about inclusion in a social network here …that and the overlapping of real and virtual worlds.
Play, not surprisingly, is also on my mind (as a result of the up-coming ESRC series). I’ve been thinking about blog play and message play. The latter seems quite straight forward since it’s an extension or development of informal language games. But, blog play? Well blogs are quite playful…they can be frivolous (but not necessarily), they are boundary-blurring, but also they can be a bit like work, too. Can the blogosphere be seen as a play space? The play
…becomes an experience changing the person who experiences it…For play has its own essence, independent of the conciousness of those who play. Play also exists - indeed properly…where there are no subjects who are behaving ‘playfully’…The players are not the subjects of the play; instead the play merely reaches representation through the player.
(Gadamer, 1982)
