The great urban games: rationalization of play, leisure and capitalism

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between society and leisure in the urban space. It presents a review of leisure supported by David Harvey, and Guy Debord: capitalism and city, and the society of the spectacle. It presents a way of questioning how functionalists bases fail to promote leisure and how the play actives and give space to rethink leisure and public space. It presents Vilém Flusser's ontology of the human being of post-history, homines ludentes, as the foundation of being in contemporary times. It also presents the theory of the rationalization of play (ludification) (Grimes;Feenberg, 2012). We also present two Brazilian cases of study which analyzes games in public spaces as socio-spatial dynamics that question the functional use of the city.