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Down the Rabbit Hole
In this schema, we frame games as the play of meaning, which is also a way of framing play as the process of making sense of the representational space of a game. What does it mean for a game to be a space of representation? Players interact with a game in order to make sense of it. Rules guide this interaction, establishing relationships between signs that tell a player what things mean. Meaning emerges as a player actively interprets the system established by the rules. To illustrate this complex process of meaning-making, we take a detour through Wonderland. In Lewis Carroll's story Alice in Wonderland, there is a rich play of meaning, of sense and nonsense, that can shed light on the way games generate representations. In the story, Alice is lost in a fantastic realm of curious creatures, tripping and tumbling from page to page, through one non-sensical game to the next. Whether trapped in the elliptical language games of the Cheshire Cat or misplaying her way through a game of Croquet at the Queen's Court, Alice continually finds herself struggling to understand the rules of the game. Take the following excerpt in which Alice is challenged to a race: First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, ("the exact shape doesn't matter," it said), and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there.There was no "One, two, three, and away," but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running a half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out "The race is over!" and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking,"But who has won?" [4]
Wonderland has its own set of rules for determining not only what things mean but also for determining how they are made meaningful. Alice's descent down the rabbit hole can be metaphorically seen as an entry into the magic circle that is Wonderland, a realm of artificial meanings, marked off in time and space from the real world. The rules of the real world do not precisely obtain in Wonderland, even though Wonderland itself is in some ways a parody of the real world, a curious mirror of reality that playfully distorts our ideas about the logic of representation.
Each individual game that Alice encounters in Wonderland is a microcosm of this general scheme. The absurdly humorous contest Carroll describes is still recognizable as a race. It has a track, runners, a starting count, and a clear moment when the race ends. At the same time, it is like no race in the real world. The shape of the track doesn't matter, the runners can abandon the game at any moment, and even when the race is finished, no one is sure who won. As nonsensical as the race may seem, it is its own representational space, a space within which players struggle to make meaning. "But who has won?" they ask, seeking like all players to know the outcome of the game. We have established that signs gain value from the system of which they are part. The structure and context of the system organize not only what those signs mean but also how they are used. The space of play defined by the borders of the magic circle operates as a space of representational possibility. This space of play gives life to a separate reality, a world of its own where its inhabitants can perform actions that are permitted to occur in that world, but that would not make sense anywhere else. It is only within the very strange context of Wonderland that such a contest could be called a race, and a winner could be so unknown and eagerly anticipated. The complexity of using this example, of course, is that the game is not an actual game, but rather a fictional depiction of a game inside Carroll's story. But that is exactly why we have included it. The Wonderland race illustrates the process of meaning-making on two levels. First, it has its own curious internal mechanisms, its own "rules" for what constitutes the race to its participants. Second, the race also creates meaning for readers of the story by virtue of its relationship to the larger context of the real world. We know that Carroll is describing a race because we have a sense of what an ordinary race is like. It is our commonsense understanding of the real world that allows us to appreciate Carroll's playful nonsense. In this way, the meaning of the Wonderland race illustrates the paired interaction of system and context, the play between internal and external meanings that makes representation possible. [4]Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (New York: Signet Classic, 2000), p. 97–98, p. 173–74.
