Book of Games

Carsten Höller invites readers to disrupt their daily lives with 336 mind-expanding diversions. They can be played alone, in pairs or in teams, in the street, in bed, on a train, wherever. No props or materials are needed. Just one body, all senses and a willingness to try something new, thats possibly conceptually or physically challenging, but guaranteed to entertain and to widen the players horizons.

Some games are more obviously daring than others unexpectedly shouting bang! when your drivers reversing into a parking space is sure to elicit a reaction but thats absolutely the point. Other games involve covertly dropping strange phrases into conversation, executing somersaults (without practice), or plucking hairs from your opponents head while they stay poker-faced.

Höllers scientific professional background informs his keenness to create immersive, experiential installations that blend art, science, and psychology. He wants to tease the brain while testing its limitations, through activity and passivity, agency and inertia. He conceived his first game with a group of friends in 1992, during a tedious dinner after an exhibition opening. Since then, he has collected and invented ideas, inspired by friends, life, the Surrealists, and Arthur Rimbaud. All games are illustrated with commissioned or pre-existing artworks and photographs. We find portraits by Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, August Sander, and Nan Goldin next to paintings by Salvador Dalí; snapshots of Joseph Beuys with son and Donna Haraway with dog next to appointed pieces by Christine Sun Kim und Anri Sala; film stills by Chantal Akerman, extracts from Shakespeare as well as treasures from Höllers personal archiveand his mothers.

Edited by Stefanie Hessler and Hans Ulrich Obrist, this book encourages readers to engage in playful yet cerebral experiments that leave them with a sense of wonder, disorientation, and a subtle smirk on their face.