Play as a phenomenon and metaphor of the park

Abstract

The article analyses the works of Dutch philosopher Johan Huizinga, who identified four distinctive features of play – free participation, creation of one’s own world, limited time of play, and order, as well as the works of French sociologist R. Caillois, who reduced the diversity of play to four types – competition, simulation, chance and vertigo. Creative concepts of parks are studied as an embodiment of alternative reality and integrity of the play in contrast to the experience of social development dissonance, identity crisis and lack of aesthetic harmony. The authors study the characteristics of the context of the play: the correlation between the rational and irrational, the limited material space, the presence of characters and rules, paraphernalia and performance as opposed to everyday life. Examples of realisation of playing practices in parks are given. Actualisation of the play in the modern entertainment industry is considered through the lens of theme parks.

Keywords

• play
• play concept
• park space
• theme parks
• immersivity
• spatial context of the play