Intermediate Things

Steffen Wittig (1)

1 University of Kassel

This article seeks to explore how imaginary objects, such as toys, may become something real in such a medium as the "game". To this end, two assertions are made which focus on the question of how things, that are only called imaginary, become something invariably real. Firstly, this paper proposes the thesis that imaginary things become real objects, within the "game", through a certain subjective attitude of the player, which Huizinga would denote as 'holy earnest'. Secondly, the mode in which an imaginary thing is articulated, for Huizinga, as real in a game, the 'holy earnest', appears to be very close to Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic perspective of how we constitute ourselves through the binding on the 'gaze of the other'. This article concludes with Sartre in the thesis, that the 'gaze of the Other' articulates us as subjects, only in the form of an objectification, which is always imaginary as well. So we perceive ourselves in the objectifying 'gaze of the Other' only as subjects.

Keywords: Huizinga; Lacan; Sartre; game; toy; gaze; subjectivation

Domains: Psychology

Steffen Wittig. Intermediate Things. 8th International Toy Research Association World Conference, International Toy Research Association (ITRA), Jul 2018, Paris, France. ⟨hal-02083797⟩