Generous Structures Casco Issues XII

by Binna Choi (Editor), Binna Choi, Axel John Wieder

Casco Issues is a magazine published by Casco - Office for Art, Design and Theory, which explores recurring issues that emerge from Casco's program. The twelfth edition of Casco Issues, Generous Structures , is a playful enquiry into playfulness as a value in critical cultural practice. It positions alternative notions of playing against the grain of neoliberal ideologies of lifelong learning and work as play. By taking the idea of playing and the metaphor of the game as a starting point, the publication addresses what might be called a "ludic turn"--the impact of the notion of play and gaming methods in various research fields and cultural work. Most prominent in the Internet industries and interactive media landscapes, but also in theoretical reflections, historical research, and the work of artists and designers, we are experiencing an interest in play as an educational tool or model for participation. However, with the conscious exception of the game per se, the publication attempts to trace its current impact and critical capacity, and explores various notions as well as concrete modes of play including activities such as learning, sharing, and group work, in relation to space, art, and design. It is driven from a methodological interest in the structure of playing, in its dialectics of rules and possibilities, planning and non-planning, collectivity and individuality. A game, in this sense, is not only characterized by its rules--or, on the contrary, by the liberty of the playing individuals--but is rather a construction of conscious interaction, application and transgression. Co-published with Casco - Office for Art, Design and Theory Contributors
Zayne Armstrong, Ei Arakawa, Bob Black, Augusto Boal, Ruth Buchanan, Binna Choi, common room, Paul Elliman, ifau & Jesko Fezer, Zachary Formwalt, Beatrice Gibson with Will Holder and John Tilbury, Kleines postfordistisches Drama, Mattin, Hwayeon Nam, Merijn Oudenampsen, Nam June Paik, Anne Querrien, David Reinfurt, Margit Rosen, Katerina Sedá, Axel Wieder

391 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2011

About the author

Binna Choi is director of Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, formerly Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory in Utrecht, the Netherlands since 2008. She conceived and co-developed with the team and numerous others a long-term artistic research project like Grand Domestic Revolution (2009/2010-2013) and Composing the Commons a three-year interdisciplinary and artistic research programme (2013-2015/16); has been part of the faculty of the Dutch Art Institute /Masters of Fine Arts Programme in Arnhem; and working for and with a trans-local network Arts Collaboratory since 2013 and the co-founding members of European networks of art organizations Cluster. Her other curatorial projects include three day seminar program Cultivate or Revolutionize: Life Between Apartment and Farmland at Times Museum, Guangzhou (2014, with Nikita Choi) and summer school and exhibition Group Affinity at Kunstverein Munich (2011, with Bart van der Heide). For the 11th Gwangju Biennale (2016) she worked as the curator.

As part of her practice, she also engages with writing, editing, publishing, and contributing to discursive platforms with lectures, discussion and workshops.