Peter Lasell  
Game Thresholds: How game design can affect psychogeographic practice

Games are a form of human communication which have been around before the written (possibly even spoken) word. They are a means to condition understanding and propagate behavior patterns in action and in thinking. The Psygeo movement has two main thrusts. One is Situationist, with people working to break up standardized patterns of urban living and transporation; the other is more 'scientific', and attempts to use micro algorithms and code as a means to investigate the macro cityscape.

Either way, there is a certain point at which you are involving people in modes of gameplay. Games, roughly defined, are activities in which human perception is limited by rules, wherein complex forms of pattern recognition or competition arise. Within practice, games create an environment where new mental patterns can be impressed on others and ideas can be shared within the understood structure of the system.

Game Thresholds is about the fine line that exists between everyday activities and gameplay; where a normal activity suddenly provides a challenge or becomes intriguing in a new way.


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