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Rogue Game: First Play and Replay

‘Rogue Game, First Play’ is a performative art work that entails the simultaneous playing of three or more sports, each according to its own rules, overlaid within the same space. The sports begin simultaneously and are played for their normal durations. The over-layering of multiple activities engenders numerous moments of improvisation, developing ‘event’ works similar to those by George Brecht and other Fluxus artists. Moving the apparatus and markings of the games from sports hall to gallery explores the tension between an architectural, cultural space and the space and functionality of the games themselves. Participants move fluidly between the roles of player, sports spectator and art audience, provoking a reconsideration of spaces and the nature of participation. The gallery becomes, metaphorically, the setting for new communities to develop alternative frameworks for co-habitation through the unplanned possibilities of play.

First developed in 2008, ‘Rogue Game’ is an ongoing, iterative work (including installations ‘Rogue Game, First Play’ and ‘Rogue Game, Replay’), which evolves and mutates according to each location in which it is realised: The Showroom, London (2010), Casco Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht (2011) and Spike Island, Bristol (2012). The precise methods of spatial overlay and simultaneity are set out exactingly within an instructional ‘proposition’ which was exhibited as a tear-away pad at Smart Project Space (2009) and the Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art (2011). The project was disseminated through: invited presentations at Gradcam, NCAD, Dublin (2008), Dartington School of Art (2009), and the Royal College of Art (2012); in Thornton, C. et al (2011), Soon All Your Neighbours Will Be Artists (Birmingham: Eastside Projects); at a Spike Island symposium (2012); a review in Art Monthly (December 2012); and in Atkinson, D. (2013), ‘The Event of Learning: Politics and Truth in Art and Art Education’, (Goldsmiths), published online : http://faeb.com.br/livro03/Arquivos/palestras/dennis_atkinson.pdf.