The concept of this project is to render visible and to investigate two viral tendencies in theory and fiction: Modeling, a major strategy of creativity across the arts and sciences, has recently begun to overcome its role as a mere tool or method. It became an epistemic (and aesthetic) agent. Furthermore, its counterpart in fiction has emerged as an important player on the testing ground of post-game narrative: the transgeneric entity of Ludic Art. This ‘meta-genre’ of performative strategic fiction, a cross-over strategy between technology and art, refers (but is not limited) to the invention of the digital game. Thus, while the art of ludic fiction is a cultural technology of modeling, in ludic art the modeling activity reveals itself as an important agent of modality. It ‘plays’ reality. The project will investigate this intricate relationship of both creative agents: 1. by establishing a theory of ‘ludic-literary’ modeling, 2. by introducing types of ludic modeling (in case studies on ‘Notgame’ and on game-related art), and 3. by offering cross-over concepts for a theory of ludic art.

A full-length study is available here.