Game Changers

Games are composed of rules; changing the game is equal to changing the rules. A ‘Game Changer’ evokes activity; and, of late, has been  connected to advertising slogans, as well as management parlance. A Game Changer is that body or force that intervenes in existing rule systems and introduces a novel rule. Sometimes these novel rules may negate former rules, but not necessarily so. New rules, however, necessarily affect the emergence of alternative ends of the game. Although the appearance of change may surround us, it is only by excavating the driving rules of a game, where substantial ‘game change’ can be said to have occurred. In reappropriating ‘Game Changers’ from management-speak as the title for PAM 2018, we dive head-first into the ongoing provocation for art’s role in contributing to alternative desires for the collective public life, outside the prefabricated ones of late-capitalism that entrench us in modes of competitive individualism.