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Du Flâneur au traceur: playful bodies in urban spaces

  • Mattia Thibault EMAIL logo and Eero Tarasti
Published/Copyright: November 14, 2022

Abstract

This paper investigates how play practices affect players’ relationships with the urban environment through the bodily movement and performances that characterize them. Building on a definition of playful behavior derived by semiotics of culture, we investigate urban play from the perspective of motor praxology to outline how movement is central for the experience of the players. We then concentrate on the role of semiotic valorizations in different urban contexts, notably the famous typology of Metro users by Floch and different kinds of ludic mobility. Finally, we combine these two perspectives with the zemic model realized within existential semiotics in order to create a typology or urban players as well as urban playful enunciation modes.


Corresponding author: Mattia Thibault, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland, E-mail:

Funding source: Academy of Finland

Award Identifier / Grant number: 312395

Acknowledgements

This project has received funding from the Academy of Finland Flagship Programme (337653—Forest-Human-Machine Interplay [UNITE]) and the Academy of Finland funded Center of Excellence in Game Culture Studies (grant No 312395). Additionally, the authors would like to warmly thank Tuomas J. Harviainen for the fruitful discussions and sound advice.

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Received: 2021-10-10
Accepted: 2022-05-05
Published Online: 2022-11-14
Published in Print: 2022-11-25

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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