The book Interplay examines five unique experiments in the field of game design –Schema, Vivarium, Biotopy, Interplay and Nephila. In the course of the book, each is explored as a vehicle to apprehend the unconventional configurations of intelligences that are today emerging from innovations occurring within the field of game design.

To ongoing debates about emerging technologies, namely artificial intelligence and biotechnology, this book contributes the novel hypothesis that interaction sites between human and non-human intelligences, be they human, collective, biotic, synthetic or environmental, are already proliferating according to developments in game design. In short, new genera and species of interactions and of intelligences are already present in playful experiments.

This book tracks the evolution of five such intelligence experiments, not unlike a set of petridishes with variant initial conditions. In doing so, what the book offers is not a unified theory of ‘play in the age of AI’, but rather a multifaceted account of how intelligences form and emerge through and across playful interaction surfaces, spaces and dynamics. 

The idea for this book came up with the artist, game designer, and researcher Will Freudenheim's exhibition Schema (December 2023 - May 2024). The idea developed into a collaborative work with the philosopher of technology, William Morgan, and with Will Freudenheim complementing the publication with other self-developed games and sharing their insightful knowledge and ideas alongside co-authors Flora Weil, Wendi Yan, Doug Stark, and Sylvan Rackham.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Biotechnology; Playful Experiments; Game Engines; Virtual Worlds; Genres of Intelligence, Emergence

Authors: Will Freudenheim (NYC, USA), William Morgan (Berkeley, USA)
Co-Authors: Doug Stark (Arlington, USA), Sylvan Rackam (London, UK), Flora Weil (Paris, France), Wendi Yan (Los Angeles, USA)

Interplay
Will Freudenheim, William Morgan, 2024
Book, Softcover
156 pages, 17 x 24 cm
Printed in Germany
Published by Caldo Worldwide
Designed by Graphic Design Christina Mayer
ISBN: 9783948288051
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