Wellbeing and Playfulness – Bill Michael Linde

1. What is the first things that comes to mind when reading the sentence ‘The Playful Voices of Academia’?

What comes to my mind when hearing the sentence ‘Playful Voices of Academia’ is an intellectual playfulness. An interplay between different faculties of consciousness in one person, but also the interplay between persons from different scientific faculties at the university.

It is an academic voice distinguished by curiosity, wonder, openness and joy. A conceptual thinking, but in a way that uses concepts in an open and context-sensitive manner. A playful voice does not give final answers or closed definitions. When speaking Playful Voices are always listening, awaiting a response. Playful voices are voices of interplay and responsiveness.

Playfulness is for me a prerequisite for being well in academia and for the wellbeing of academia – here your research activities are not constricted by a set of fixed concepts or closed questions.

 

2. What are – to you – some powerful or inspiring concepts that might be useful when considering having a playful voice in academia?

Powerful playfulness requires ‘Imagination’ (Einbildungskraft), especially in the way described by Immanuel Kant in Critique of Judgment (1790), as well as an ‘Anstrengung des Begriffs’, as described by G. W. F. Hegel in Phenomenology of the Spirit (1807).

Central to me is also the concept of Agalma, which is a concept introduced by Plato in his dialogue Symposion (385–370 BC). Here, Socrates is described by Alcibiades as an agalma, because he is very attracted to him. Not because Socrates is beautiful on the outside – he is absolutely not. But because of his wisdom he is very beautiful on the inside. Here, agalma has to do with Eros, fascination, allure, inspiration – for me all characteristics of having a playful voice in academia

Etymically agalma derives from a verbal root with a diverse compound of meanings: Joy, exultation, to celebrate, to adorn. It is both a jewel, a jewelry box, the statue of a god, and a votive gift. Agalma can be found in every aspect of play, as both method and theory, as a structure, a pattern, and a pathway. Agalma is at the same time a process and an object. It is concurrently an ornament as a whole, the mosaic multitude of decorative parts, and the patterns that links the ornament together. Agalma is to me the source from which play, learning and research all derives.

I also see Agalma as a mysterious journey into a very intricate labyrinth with many doorways leading in many different directions and into different areas of being. Agalma is like the world wide web, but even more intricate, since it involves an eternity of dimensions which our networks are not even close to touching. Agalma captures and connects the essence of play, wisdom, knowledge and creativity.

 

3. How can being playful intersect with and contribute to being academic? And how might that look or be expressed?

I think it is about time we rethink the approach to research, teaching and learning characterising present day academia. Especially, the research process related to academic writing. I like to think of the process of learning and research as an adventurous journey into roots of Agalma. You have an idea of the subject matter, and what you want to discover. But while you are searching for answers, you are suddenly confronted with aspects of your questioning that you could never have anticipated beforehand. This is, however, almost absent in the way research is framed and research projects carried out in present day academia.

 

4. Are there – to you – any important intersections or cross-fertilization between being playful in academia and being playful in other domains of life, like e.g. art and why/how?

I see cross-fertilization across numerous domains and spaces. Today, most academics end up outside academia in the private sector, cultural organisations or elsewhere. Many academic research projects exist only due to collaboration with private investors and entrepreneurs.

In my thesis I came across a project called TGarden – developed by the experimental art-research group called FoAM. TGarden is a social play space where performers co-create the narrative of their play in the fusion between the physical, the virtual and the digital. Connected by technology-augmented clothing, performers invent alternative ways of communicating and socialising in a non-verbal language by virtue of their movements and gestures. Their findings through these forms of communicating result in, for instance, new solutions for communicative interaction between elderly people and staff in nursing homes. Another FoAM-project, groWorld, explores how technology, culture and nature can be reconciled in contemporary society. This project contributes with open problem-solving and new solutions to the current climate crisis.

And also, all the academic and artistic activities of the avant-garde group Situationist International were performed in a quite playful manner. At the same time they have influenced (and still do) academia in many ways, ranging from design-theory, urban planning, politics, Social Sciences, situated pedagogy, situated learning, and different kinds of action research.

 

5. What would YOU like to ask or read more about in relation to play, playfulness & academia (max 280 characters including spaces)?

Playfulness as a rigorous and theoretically grounded methodology for research and for discovering things that we never knew we needed to know about – what is sometimes called the ‘unknown unknowns’. In playfulness new things come to us or leaves us in open places where ever new things can appear. So, how can we shape and frame this openness of playfulness into a way of being in and doing academia?

 

 


Bill Michael Linde holds a Master degree in Art History and Philosophy from Aarhus University with a MA thesis on Situated Normativity in Play: How to enliven social and poetic creation in urban and responsive environments – envisioned within the scope of the Situationist International, Constant’s New Babylon and FoAM’s TGarden. His research interests include art, metaphysics and medical philosophy. Linde is also a former professional dancer. Currently, he is a performing artist practicing glass painting, ceramics, lino, woodcut and stone lithography.

 

 

 

 

You can keep the playful conversation going with Bill on his Instagram at

billmichaellinde

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