Ludutopia

Zur Ethnografie ludischer Phänomene am CERN und der kulturwissenschaftlichen Bedeutung von Spiel. Performance-Vortrag

Abstract

Ludutopia. On the Ethnography of Ludic Phenomena at CERN and the Cultural Scientific Meaning of Play. Performance Lecture
This article deliberately and playfully breaks with the format of the classic article. As a smoothed transcript, it allows the reader to comprehend the theatrical nature of scientific productions as well as the ludic power of free speech, in which things arise in the moment because everything is in play. The talk explores the ludic as meth‐odology, practice, and theory. It focusses especially on the interference of work and play, generally understood as two opposing phenomena. While work is associated with con‐trol, seriousness, zeal, and discipline, play appears as a haven of idleness, a welcome diversion from everyday fronts. In this lecture these clear distinctions are questioned and become subject of a cultural-anthropological revision using the example of how to get into an ethnographic field and how play becomes central within the scientific culture of physicists. Based on ethnographically collected data at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN), I reflect on the ludic as fundamental modality of human experience in a digital, post-Fordist and cosmopolitan work context. In doing so, I ask the ever-present question of the extent to which what we observe is co-constituted by the way we name it and the way it is conceptualized by our fields: The new and the ludic as such are thus captured in the moment of ethno‐graphic recording and the performance of lecturing.