Design games as a tool, a mindset and a structure Kirsikka Vaajakallio

The critique that Ehn and Sjögren (1991), for example, direct at themselves
and design games they have developed, concerns mainly the playground,
which they claim allows conservatism that may support the
traditional production-flow oriented view of work and technology, the
context where they developed their design games. This goes back to the
need for finding a balance between the fixed and the free, as well as promoting
the opportunities of design games as a magic circle with its own
laws and time outside the “ordinary” life. To establish and maintain the
magic circle intact, it is important to realize how fragile space/state of
mind it actually is (Salen & Zimmerman 2004, p 98). What should be
acknowledged, though, is that while creating boundaries for action we
necessarily narrow the focus of the participants’ perspective and limit
certain opportunities outside the design space.
Ritual aspects of design games
Play sphere or magic circle, besides being a special venue to games and
performances, also resembles the liminal state of rituals; hence co-design
gatherings which are separated from the ordinary life can also be considered
as rituals, like Halse (2008) does. Schechner claims that what distinguishes
performance from rituals is the purpose: unlike a performance
which intends mainly to entertain, a performance which results in change
may be considered a ritual. Since most design games aim at change, either
in the minds of the participants by providing new perspectives that create
different consequences (=learning) or in the actual design solution in the
form of a reframed task or focus, i.e. design drivers, they can be viewed
in some terms as liminal rituals (if the change is permanent) or liminoid
rituals (if the participants are able to change their perspective during the
session but cannot bring new insights with them to their daily practices).
While liminal rituals transform the participants permanently, liminoid
rituals have a temporary effect – they transport the participants for the
time of experience and then return them back. In the liminal phase of the
ritual process, people are freed from the demands of daily life. Halse (2008,
pp 117–118) proposes that “as into the workshop preparations for the design
workshop […] the process of abstraction prepares the establishment of the liminality
of the design ritual by destabilizing conventional classifications…”
One reason to look co-design gatherings as rituals is to look where transitions
and transformations occur, and what marks those moments. Schechner
(2006, p 72) describes how simple actions, such as changing clothes and
cleaning the floor, transport the performers to a different place, both mentally
and emotionally, when they enter into the workshop space. This highlights
the meaning of gradually taking the participants into the magic circle through
the actions that start the gathering or even precede it. Halse (2008, p 118) proposes
rearranging the space to transform it into a performance space, for example
by positioning the chairs as in a theatre to create a stage for action.
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