Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of the West of England, Bristol
The Game of War
This collaborative project was made by Class Wargames, a multidisciplinary group of artists and academics - Dickinson (UWE), Dr Richard Barbrook (University of Westminster), Alex Veness (artist), Ilze Black (curator), Fabian Tompsett (writer), Stefan Lutschinger (artist) and Lucy Blake (software developer) - investigated Guy Debord’s little known ‘Game of War’ (1977), a Napoleonic era military strategy game, which he dedicated the last years of his life to designing, playing and writing about. However, even Debord’s own book A Game of War (only translated into English in 2007) contains little reflection about the game, how it should be played or an explanation of its relationship with his Situationist International writing, despite Debord’s own claim that it was his most important work. Since 2008 it has not been played and has received very little attention or discussion.
The game pieces and board were meticulously reconstructed in solid pewter and aluminium from archive photographs and drawings (the original game no longer exists). ‘The Game of War’ was recreated, played and discussed in a series of public performances and exhibitions that created a new understanding of both how the game works, its relationship to Debord’s analysis of Spectacular Society and the application of war gaming strategies to politics.
The project was first tested as a live performance as part of the London Games Fringe in late October 2007 but exhibited formally from 2008 in a variety of contemporary art contexts: The Institute of Psychoplasmics, The Pumphouse Gallery, Battersea, London (April-May 2008), curated by Pil and Galia Kollectiv; ‘The Game of War’, at http Gallery, London (26-27 September 2009); ‘Class Wargames Present Guy Debord’s The Game of War’, Art Space 2, Institute of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Arts, Bath University, (January-February 2011); ‘Games People Play’, Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World, Haldon Forest Park, Exeter (April-September 2012).
