DEAD DRAW
MARINE DE DARDEL
The KNIGHT has risen to his feet. He shivers. DEATH opens his cloak to place it around the KNIGHT’S shoulders.
KNIGHT
Wait a moment.
DEATH
That’s what they all say. I grant no reprieves.
KNIGHT
You play chess, don’t you?
A gleam of interest kindles in DEATH’S eyes.
The Situationists considered hedonistic play to be the radical antithesis of alienated labour, celebrating play as the epitome of non-utilitarian activity. Within the magic circle of the game, intimacy and imagination triumph over isolation and conformity. Both suppressing the political and the spectacular, and resurrecting performative creativity and self- realisation, the Situationist game is the means and the end of total revolution.
ToP VI—Dead Draw will study the territory and object of this and further archetypal games in order to draw mathematical, psychological and strategical teachings, that may be transposed into the frictional space of the city.
The correlation between board games (limited to a fixed geometric area but unlimited in their permutations) and the spatial grid (this ‘architecture without a substance’ yet more durable than any built work) suggests the complex interplay of socio-political tactics and spatial dynamics—ultimately revealing History as a deadly game, in which strategy is crucial.