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In the Philosophical Dictionary André Lalande writes that play is
“an expenditure of physical or mental activity that does not have an immediately useful or even definite aim, and whose only purpose in the mind of whoever undertakes it is the pleasure which is intrinsic to it.” (Philosophical Dictionary, 1926; cited in Bataille 2018, 234)
Based on this definition, Bataille asserts that play is the principal of pleasure and the opposite of work. Temporality of productivity normalizes the notion that human expenditure of energy (and by extension time) leads to predictable and useful outcomes. The fact that, in Western societies, play is mostly reserved for children confirms the assumption that adults are supposed to invest their time in work or to spend their time (to a great extent) productively. The intrinsic characteristics of play, however, undermine this normalization. Play disconnects expenditure of energy from calculated purposeful producing and it proposes, instead, unproductive exchange with the sole aim of pleasure. In this sense, play is wasteful; and a theatre performance that invites adults to play games in a public space introduces the temporality of wasting time into the normative temporality of productivity.
Although Bataille recognizes that work and pleasure can be combined, he insists on the opposition of work and play (Bataille, 2018, 236). Work promises a satisfaction upon achieving a goal. This goal oriented doing and the need for constant calculation of products and future profits, which underlie temporality of productivity, steer human experience of time into the future. On the other hand, pleasure, which is intrinsic to play, can only be experienced in present time when a human is playing a game.
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Making art playfully
Bataille contributes to play aesthetic value and he considers art as the most prominent form of adults’ play. He, further, points out the essential relation between play and the unconscious, “to which my mind has access by a leap and not by an intellectual effort” (Bataille, 2018, 236). If art is a form of play, then working as an artist involves rational processes as well as leaps that access the unconscious and cannot be related to reason. It might be possible to calculate how much time one needs to process rationally or to do automated manual work; and temporality of productivity asserts that this is the only normal way, namely, to calculate. Yet, in my experience, I am not able to predict how long it will take for this leap into the unconscious to happen. Simply put, the equation
x hours of making art
equals
x predictable outcomes
does not hold up. Trying to fit making art into the temporality of productivity seems to me an invalid notion that diminishes art’s intrinsic pleasure and minimizes the possibilities that unpredictability bears.
Making art alike playing, also, means an experience of and an attention to the present. It is not a projection of calculated outcomes into the future. Again, my temporality as an artist clashes with the future oriented temporality of productivity.
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performance practices_divergent temporalities 