In Praise Of: Play by Gabrielle Sicam |
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There’s footage from 1972 of Yoko Ono and John Lennon playing chess. The chess set they’re using is painted entirely white, obliterating the appearance of difference between players. It’s one of multiple sets created by Ono, initially displayed at London’s Indica Gallery in 1966. Since then, they’ve travelled across the world under the alternating monikers of White Chess Set and Play it by Trust.
A minute or so into the match, Ono stands and lifts her leg onto the seat of her chair. Adorned in furs, sheer stockings, evening gloves and gaudy rings, she advances her king with the slightest hint of a smirk. By the end, she has placed a pawn on her bent knee. Another is in John’s mouth. Fulfilling the intention of her piece, the competitive motive of linear chess has fallen away. It’s all decorative turns. Play looks like play.
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Imagine (1972) - Directed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono
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Growing up, I loved to play, but struggled with the rules and directives of games. An only child, quiet, anxious, I ran from competition at every turn. I had a brief chess club stint in primary school, which I mostly spent playing the same losing moves and fiddling through other board game sets. I preferred to follow the shapes that bishops and knights drew across the board. I liked their dancing. I was more of a dawdler than a player, a mini-flaneuse, an emergent wanderer with little concept nor regard for strategy or conflict.
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Scrabble became the game I adored and frequently lost. It’s something of a mirage. Deceptive to the bibliophile, Scrabble presents itself as an opportunity to spell very long and impressive words. But that’s rarely how one ends up winning. Too often, a win is achieved by hitting big-scoring squares with unimpressive, well-timed words made up of choice letters. Q-U-I-Z. J-I-N-X.
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The appeal of winning faded quickly into my tryst with the game. A crowd-pleaser at university and on holidays, Scrabble became an opportunity to show one’s colours. I held a weeklong tournament with my lover across every pub we could find in the Isle of Wight. Over white wine at a friend’s house, our bellies full of vegetables from their garden. Late at night with my friends in a Welsh village, catching slivers of each other’s lives between turns. Words reflected players’ tastes and upbringings. To combat FAXUME and AORTA, I thought of Pessoa and played D-I-S-Q-U-I-E-T.
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Once, on a rainy day where I didn’t feel like particularly doing anything, I played Scrabble against myself. I put on an old film and marked the scores in a notebook. At some point, I was ‘playing it by trust’, watching the words fall into each other, tangled in each other’s stems. I spent the game wandering in my own head, and emerged pleased, a little dazed. Games should endeavour to take you out of the world, if only for an hour.
- By Gabrielle Sicam
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