The game that
gives
text by Anders Alpsten
Researcher in the history of ideas
In games there are participants, among the participants there are winners and
losers. Ann Rosén has worked with games in different forms since 1991,
when she exhibited tic-tac-toe in an exhibition called "Spelets baksida"
(The reverse side of the game). It was not a game but an art piece that used game
elements in its expression. She has produced games she has let others participate
in. That games have been arranged such that there have been no given rules, no
given starting points except the situation the participants have been faced with.
In "Grop" (Pit) the players were given a bag and instructions before
the start of the game, and then they had to start. A solitary game without restrictions,
but also without the rules that give the security a player wants to experience.
A game that asks "Can you win against yourself?". Who wins when the
solitaire does not come out?
Svenska spel, ATG and other large gambling companies give security. The forms
for games are among the strictest available in a society where the norms for how
money is made have been dissolved. Money is no longer made through hard work coupled
to the production of physical objects. Maybe they never have, but that seems to
be the image many people have, and that is the image that is contrasted with the
"shark economy" associated with the 80s, which hardly has lessened in
the 90s. On the stock market you are at best in for a share, at Svenska spel you
can participate every week, even if you can only spare a tenner.
The clear requirements, the simple rules, the possibility that keeps hope alive
- all this is attractive in our world where everything seems to be so complicated.
One's salary is in most cases decided by agreements negotiated at nights where
men sit in different groups and communicate through mediators to avoid war. This
strange game in the best case results in a 3% nominal raise and a 1% real salary
raise - 170 crowns a month if one makes 17000. This after negotiations that go
on for several months and end in the ritual nightlong negotiations. Does anyone
understand this? It is obvious that it is easier to bet 50 crowns on the pools.
For this is true: the union cannot handle dreams.
The offer in "Grop" (Pit) means pure giving. That is hard. The decisions
are made by the player himself and the results are judged by the player himself.
A kind of existential exile occurs, the arena exists but it is unclear what will
happen. It is like life, it creates insecurity. I am to judge myself without a
frame of reference; how is that to be done?
When the tabloids hang out their news bills concerning the government's budget
bill they speak of winners and losers. The game is equitable in the sense that
it comprises all Swedish citizens and many who are not Swedish citizens. Everyone
has the chance to at least be a loser and have their situation judged by others.
1999 families with children are spoken of as winners. This since families with
children are to get more money in their pockets in the future. They are winners
in the game played by the government, but based in the voting that almost all
that are touched by the game are participating in through public elections. Some
are touched without making any bets: those who cannot vote.
Svenska spel does not let you participate unless you make a bet. This makes
the Svenska spel group of people a large closely-knit unit. If you are to take
part you have to make your bet. There is no room for exceptions in the game. This
is a place of absolute homogeneity. The only difference is how much money one
can bet, but a large stake does not guarantee a large prize. A small stake can
win a large prize.
The difference is giving. At Svenska spel the aim of the game is to make money,
certainly not to reflect upon oneself. In "News Memory" Ann Rosén
invited different people to participate in a game by sending news clippings to
her. These clippings were attached to the border of a gaming table. On the table
itself lay black rectangles, similar to playing cards, their versos were mirrors.
Those who turned a dark card saw themselves. The self was reflected in the choice
of news items. The news are an I seen through other eyes. I give out my news and
receive myself.
Art and culture in general are Man's way of working with himself. Art pieces
have no meaning except themselves, but they give their own meaning to those who
are prepared to receive it and are thus placed in a context. The game is giving
and the stake is the risk in reception. Who receives the art piece and in what
way? In many cases it is like sending light signals into space. There is no reception.
It has always been the privilege of the upper class to say no. A clear power
structure that makes it possible to refuse an invitation in order to not devalue
one's own social status. The lower class has always been dependent on good intentions.
Farm workers' children and t art pieces are worthless after the exhibition,
at least if there is another value in them than the carrying of one's own meaning,
at least if the value of the art is decreased by standing in a closet.
Who isn't heard becomes silent, who isn't seen pales, those who aren't needed
live ghetto lives on the outskirts of the city. It is about giving, but also about
giving in such a manner that the I behind the giving is seen. Charity depends
on the thanks, the giver must be thanked in a clear manner. The exchange is in
form of the thanks. In art the dependence is in the discussion, the artist is
dependent on the discussion to remain in the continued discussion. The generation
of the continued artistship, the risk that the privileged will refuse the discussion.
The no that becomes a mechanism of expulsion, that results in a loss or a demand
for revenge.
The system with winners and losers is rewarding in its clarity. It may seem
cruel that life and reality consists of winners and losers. It is made even crueler
by a third category: those who do not participate. "Their lives are in other
words no longer valid, they are merely accepted. They cause trouble and are admitted
a place in the world for emotional reasons and ancient reflexes with roots in
what for so long was kept sacred (in theory if nothing else)." writes Viviane
Forrester in "The Economic Horror". It is about those who aren't needed,
those who the market has no need for.
The life of art circles in the same way in two different spheres: the art sphere
and the societal sphere. In the art sphere art is taken for granted, what is unclear
is who are artists enough to participate. In the societal sphere art is questioned:
is art necessary and how is it to be financed? The societal sphere encloses the
art sphere; the art sphere is dependent upon the societal sphere, the question
is whether the opposite is true. Art depends on how it is received, economically,
socially and artistically. The individual artist's actions must be taken at different
levels.
Internally and externally, inside and outside. A movement of focus depending
on where the individual possibilities lie. Art works are being experimented with
in different environments, imagination follows the day and the night. Standing
at the breakpoint between seeing and blindness, prisms that reflect and refract
the world around. Who wants to see and who wants to receive a seeing? A silent
and slow seeing that feels demanding, that slowly turns the body around its axis.
Is the view the same the second time around? Does the new view reach, and whom?
"Take for joy from the palms of my hands fragments of honey and sunlight,
as the bees of Persephone commanded us." Osip Mandelstam wrote in 1920. Superior,
inferior, inferior in need of recipient, hierarchy in several layers. To be well
received due to other's decisions, other's faith in that particular individual.
Because continued existence depends on it.
The player plays as if every bet was the last. Only this once, only this last
time when everything will change. So that what was once will return, like the
honey from the dead bees. Because it is time to finish, because the bees risk
their lives when they leave the hive. Step outside the context, like Ann Rosén
did in "Port" (Gate) when she was the only one who wasn't in Rågsved,
to participate but being outside at the same time. Because change is positional,
because giving must be from different directions. Some things in "Port"
(Gate) couldn't be carried out because the recipients refused to take what they
were offered.
Who wants Ann Rosén 2000?
Anders Alpsten
Researcher in the history of ideas
translated by Kai-Mikael Jää-Aro
