Ludic Liberation is a practice of collective play aimed at revealing & releasing internalized limitations.

The purpose of ludic liberation is to make the familiar strange, and in the process to uncover a deeper, medicinal truth that has been veiled by the illusions and contradictions of living in civilization.

Modern society is inherently contradictory, filled with tensions and conflicting orders, paradoxes, and double binds.

“Winning” society’s games requires us to suppress many of our natural desires, instincts, feelings, and forms of self-expression. Our social world has been shaped by oppressive ideologies such as patriarchy, capitalism, statism, colonialism, racism, hetero- and neuro-normativity, and more, all of which corrupt free, open, and playful forms of relating.

Although Ludic Liberation may experiment with big ideas and concepts, it  is not a form of deconstruction or critical analysis. It is more like existential drag – a way of playing dress up to expose humanity’s elaborate costumes. Ludic Liberation is flirty and fun!

Ludic Liberation is always collective. Even when an individual plays a solo Ludic Liberation game, they are playing with the whole world. Strangers, trees, birds, words, city buildings…. all become aspects of their game. 

Some Ludic Liberation games are played inside one’s own mind. But even then, the person is playing with their internal collective, which is made of voices, images, and influences of the world. Part real world, part spirit world, part collective unconscious. It is impossible to play alone, because everything is in everything.

Ludic Liberation is an infinite game. The goal of an infinite game is not to win, but to keep playing.

We Play to Remember We Are Always Playing.

Every kind of “game” is not necessarily a form of Ludic Liberation. Just like every kind of sitting is not a form of meditation. Many popular games don’t help us become any freer from our oppressions, but only temporarily distract us from our free, divine activity, or through their seductive features drag us even deeper into our illusions and addictions.

Ludic Liberation is inspired by: transformational social therapy, emergent strategy, complex systems theory, pleasure activism, situationists international, non-dual shaiva tantra, quantum physics, cognitive science, experience design, popular education, theater of the oppressed, existential kink, alchemy, ritual and magic, post-humanist philosophy & lo-fi aesthetics.