Playing with Art in Suits’ Utopia

Abstract

ABSTRACTAccording to Bernard Suits, people in Utopia would spend their time playing games and would not spend any time creating or engaging with artworks. Here, we argue against this claim. We do so by arguing that some games essentially involve aesthetic engagement with artworks. One type of game that seems to do so is dual-natured games, works that are both games and artworks. If utopians were to play such games, then they would be engaging with artworks. However, the possibility of dual-natured games has recently been called into question. With that in mind, we also offer a second kind of game that serves as a counterexample to Suits: art-inclusive games, which involve aesthetic and artistic engagement as part of their playing. After providing some examples of this kind of game, we show that the possibility of such games presents a problem for Suits’ claim that utopians would not engage with artworks. If utopians were to play them, then they would be engaging with artworks. And as there is no good reason to think that utopians would not play such games, we conclude that Suits’ claim about the lack of engagement with art in Utopia should be rejected.