Class Wargames : Ludic Subversion Against Spectacular Capitalism by Richard Barbrook

by Richard Barbrook

Why should radicals be interested in playing wargames? Surely the Left can have no interest in such militarist fantasies? Yet, Guy Debord the leader of the Situationist International placed such importance on his invention of The Game of War described it as his most significant of his accomplishment. Intrigued by this claim, a multinational group of artists, activists and academics formed Class Wargames to investigate the political and strategic lessons that could be learnt from playing his ludic experiment. While the ideas of the Situationists continue to be highly influential in the development of subversive art and politics, relatively little attention has been paid to their strategic orientation. Determined to correct this deficiency, Class Wargames is committed to exploring how Debord used the metaphor of the Napoleonic battlefield to propagate a Situationist analysis of modern culture and politics. Inspired by his example its members have also hacked other military H.G. Wells Little Wars; Chris Peers Reds versus Reds and Richard Borg s Commands & Colors. Playing wargames is not a diversion from it is the training ground of tomorrow s communist insurgents. Fusing together historical research on avant-garde artists, political revolutionaries and military theorists with narratives of five years of public performances, Class Wargames provides a strategic and tactical manual for subverting the economic, political and ideological hierarchies of early-21st century neoliberal capitalism. The knowledge required to create a truly human civilisation is there to be discovered on the game board!

Genres: Games

Paperback

First published February 1, 2015

About the author

Richard Barbrook is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Westminster.

Working with Andy Cameron, he wrote The Californian Ideology which was a pioneering critique of the neo-liberal politics of Wired magazine. His other important writings about the Net include The Hi-Tech Gift Economy, Cyber-communism, The Regulation of Liberty and The Class of the New.

In 2007, Richard moved to the Social Sciences School of the University of Westminster and published his study of the political and ideological role of the prophecies of artificial intelligence and the information society: Imaginary Futures.

(text + picture from wiki)

Reviews

[Fresno Bob · Rating 2 out of 5]

wow, a real longwinded, overly pedantic declaration that "wargames can teach strategy". Adding Hegel and Gramsci to a simplistic wargame does not equal "avant-garde" art or "ludic subversion"

[xDEAD ENDx · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, this is terrible, misses the mark by a mile. Not only does it seem like the author misreads everyone (Hegel, Marx, Debord, Foucault, Althusser, James, The Invisible Committee, etc.) but his central thesis is that people use war games to play as authoritarian leaders, therefore preventing them from becoming those characters in real life. Maybe I'm just grouchy, but come again?