Abstract
Does each generation invent its own ways of playing, or is there a historical connectivity behind play that can be traced backwards through time? Building upon aesthetics of play on the one hand and genealogical lineages of player practices on the other, this paper sketches an argument for the continuity of play, and the connectivity between art, toys, and games, as well as between human and animal play.
The paper is structured both by the aesthetic motives for play (a tentative inventory of motivations for pursuing play of any kind) and by a novel concept of logarithmic time, that simplifies historical reference into arbitrary but carefully structured intervals in order to describe the transitions and developments (whether putative or archaeological) in the player practices that constitute play. The result is a whistle-stop journey 'through time' in order to examine the lineages of play.