Arbeit und Spiel

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Abstract Work and play are often regarded as opposites: play as people’s freedom and ability to spend their time as they choose, and work as being subordinate to it as a means to an end. As play can be repeated without any serious repercussions, this has earned it the reputation of lacking seriousness, whereas the purpose of work, which focuses on the usefulness of its outcome, is linked to people’s concerns about their livelihood. However, on closer inspection this apparent gulf in the nature of work and play disappears, particularly in their most highly developed forms, with the result that intense streamlining of play can turn into work, as can occur in high performance sports, or a complex work process can produce autotelic moments and a momentum which lend it a play-like character. Other technological developments are also a reason for us to fundamentally rethink the relationship between work and play, particularly with regard to adaptive systems in robotics, serious games, forms of creativity used in corporate culture, scientific experiments and their settings, online role playing or commodifying irrational and non-goal-oriented aspects of daily life which have traditionally been excluded from the notion of productive work, including those that have been created by new environmental and biotechnologies. The nature of each means deployed as well as the setting, varying or abandoning of goals can determine or change both the character of work and play and their relationship to each other.