Prelude to Impossible Worlds - Biennale.no

Paul Wiersbinski: Spaces of Control and Play (2013)

The talk uses the speaker’s childhood play and stories about chess to argue that games model human behavior and immersion in ways that can heal, enchant—or even unhinge. It then connects chess, AI, and computer gaming to modern power and economies (including virtual goods and influence attempts via games), and pivots to contemporary art as another “virtual” immersive space. From there it claims that today’s psychological and social models are too simplified, so new interactive “game-like” systems could measure deeper wants and skills through behavior rather than questionnaires, while still lacking the real risks of lived reality. The piece ends by contrasting constrained physical cities with nearly unrestricted digital worlds, suggesting that virtual reality may soon become less limited than everyday life and eventually feel bodily and totalizing.

Medium
Video Talk / Lecture

Links (to additional info)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2mV3GzJSBQ

Last updated: 2026-08-06 03:09:34

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