A cabinet of ludic curiosities — interactive experiments, algorithmic games, and toy AIs that explore the boundary between play, ritual, and computation. Enter the occult arcade: automata in a crypt, procedural divination, machines that learn by playing.
Ubi machina ludit, homo spectat; ubi homo ludit, machina discit.
“Play is older than culture, for culture, however inadequately defined, always presupposes human society, and animals have not waited for man to teach them their playing.”— Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens
“Games combine equal portions of freedom and invention with obligation and rules. Play must absorb the player, but it must do so freely.”— Roger Caillois, Man, Play and Games
“Games are the most elevated form of investigation.”— Albert Einstein
“In a game, just as in a language, the meaning of a piece lies in its use.”— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations