Class Wargames

by Richard Barbrook

“Richard Barbrook’s book is a jubilant manifesto for ludic art and revolution – each in service of the other – for a participatory future. By bringing Situationist disciplines into a contemporary context, he shows how thinkers, gamers, artists, hackers and educators can resist assimilation, and their creative endeavours escape perversion, by the deadly, dominating forces of neoliberalism.” – Ruth Catlow, co-founder of Furtherfield and creator of Rethinking Wargames

Genres: Games

Unknown Binding

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?