Can limits be set to the staged event?

The staged event therefore links war and game. Is this limitless? Can any ‘experienced war’ be transformed into a ‘gameed war’. Where does the simulation end?

In his day, Huizinga formulated a reply to the question. For him, even though game remained outside every moral sphere it loses its meaning and recreational character from the moment “justice and grace enter the equation”, that is to say, from the moment when the point of view of the victim is adopted. This is the starting point in the thinking of Brigitte Adriaensen in answer to the following problem: “What function could game have in the artistic representation of so-called ineffable experiences, that is to say, of an extreme atrocity”? Brigitte Adriaensen chooses to develop her argument using examples involving the Shoah. She focuses on three staged events: the ‘Gestapo Simulation Game’, the film La vie est belle by Roberto Benigni which was released in 1997 in Italy and finally the Lego bricks product known as the ‘Lego Concentration Camp Set’ by the Polish artist Zbigniew Libera. This is a set of three representations of the Shoah which gave rise to a lot of controversy and which raised the question as to whether any staged event is acceptable under artistic or didactic pretexts.  With regard to the three items cited above there is no ready answer because, even though they have been the subject of much criticism, they have not been subjected to any legal process. The public, on the other hand have often given much clearer answers.  

In the case of the ‘Gestapo Simulation Game’ the criticism was initially levelled at the random factor that supposedly games an important role in survival, which the game attempted to translate.  The result of this was that “the gameers survived in much greater numbers than in actual historical reality”(14). On the other hand, through the strategy of the game, it became possible to repeat the existence of the Shoah an infinite number of times, having the effect of reducing it to a banal event. Brigitte Adriaensen concluded from this that “the uniqueness of the Shoah is diametrically opposed to the repetition of the game”. Trivializing the unutterable. This is the accusation that was also levelled at the film La vie est belle, which purports to be a comedy. The key word here is comedy. The aim is to make people laugh because, in the words of Benigni himself, “life is beautiful, and the seed of hope is to be found even in the depths of horror; there is something that resists everything, that resists any kind of destruction that may occur”. This point of view is far from being unanimous. The critics of the film saw in it “a disrespectful and painfully optimistic view of history”. Brigitte Adriaensen notably mentions the scene where Guido, the father, declares his love for his wife by gameing a love song that can be heard all over the camp. Apart from being scarcely credible, this type of scene may seem to be in very bad taste if we think about the ‘experienced war’ and its victims. This opinion did not prevent the film from enjoying great success both on the part of the film critics and the public.

Finally, we come to the work of the artist Libera, the ‘Lego Concentration Camp Set’. In this case the staged event takes the gameer hostage. This is all the easier as the ‘game’ is intended for children, Libera’s installation is part of ‘the art of toys’. It is necessary to confront the “apparent innocence of the toy, associated with the world of children” with its “perverse objective”: playing at building a personalized concentration camp. Contrary to what was asked of the Spectator in La vie est belle, the ‘Lego Concentration Camp Set’ leads the gameer to identify himself with the executioners by constructing a concentration camp and therefore participating in atrocities. The logo of the Lego Company featured on the work which led the firm to take several cases against Libera. None of these were successful and no case was found against the artist as he was given a grant from the company at the start.

A last point needs to be made with regard to the limits to be applied (or not) to the staged event. This point is intimately linked to the question as to who is the intended audience: to whom is the staged event addressed?  Certainly, it is always aimed at a public. The public will be a reader, spectator or gameer. The individual concerned will also be a citizen. Is he or she the master of his or her own identity or merely the object in a game of puppets? Gabriel Naudé in his day answered yes to this last question. The king does not fight against his people. He fights against adversaries that are on the same level as himself and from whom he supposedly has something to fear. The king’s advisor but also the philosopher has the power to subvert. In the words of Sara Decoster(15) the people are only “an element with which something must be composed but which can also be manipulated”. The best way to control the people is to manipulate them.

Naudé evidently thinks within the context of his era. Today a people are no longer made up of subjects but of citizens. Modern asymmetric warfare calls a soldier into duty who is part “of a game whose basic rules he has learned, the rules of combat and survival but which he cannot control”, explains Achim Küpper. He is therefore only a pawn.

(14) Brigitte Adriaensen, “Game as a staging of the ineffable. Recreational representations of war in current didactic games, cinema, art and literature”, in War & game.
(15) Sara Decoster is head of the Germanic and Romance languages sections of the library at the University of Liege. She presents a contribution in War & game entitled: “The double libertine game. From the game by Blaise Pascal on Political considerations on coups d’Etat by Gabriel Naudé”.