to give a relational reading of Michael Heizer's City, we look at how many trucks he has used to build it. How much fossil fuel it requires to get there to actually see the site. It becomes as much about the photography on the website as about the actual work. Ah.. Beaudrillard.

game: wallball

equipment: a ball and a wall

# of players: from 2 to alot (4 to 7 is ideal)

rules:

essentially wall ball is like handball or tennis. the players select an order and then hit the ball in the order created. the goal of the game is to be the last player in. there are two rules in the game:

• each player must hit the ball in the order created.
• each player must hit the ball and it must hit the ground and then the wall.

each player is allowed one bounce before they hit the ball. if anything else happens the player is out. just for clarity, a player is out if:

• they hit the ball before it is their turn.
• the ball bounces twice after it has hit the wall and before the player hits it.
• the ball bounces twice after the player hits it and before it hits the wall.
• the ball hits the wall before it hits the ground.

wallball is a game of rhythm and timing. unlike tennis, nothing is out-of-bounds in wallbal and the players can serve as ruthlessly as necessary to each other. this rule presents the crux of the subtlety of the game. because every player generally has the capacity to get the next player out with very little difficulty, it becomes uninteresting. what is interesting is identifying the next player's skill level and serving them something that will be challenging for them to return but not unfeasible. thus people are removed from the game due to typical occasional folly along with the collective desire to up the ante until the serves are too challenging for some players. the dynamic of interplay and conversation that arises from this style of play is very compelling.

the narrative of wallball is a singular and spiraling point of focus in a social context. each player serves the ball to the next player ad infinitum until all players except for one is out. if the game is composed of 5 players which is a near optimal amount, there is enough time to serve and watch the other players serve to each other, observe differences in individual style and still hold a conversation. another subtext of the game is a social pressure to cooperate with the group. this is a result of the lack of an out-of-bounds rule. if a player ruthlessly puts another player out by serving a shot too far away, that player is likely going to suffer the same fate. this is a natural sort of gravity to the game. implicity everyone wants to stay in the game, and if someone is trying to end the game prematurely, that person will most likely be removed so the game can continue in it's spiral count-down pattern.

beyond the internal social dynamic of the game there is an external social field created. when a group plays wallball in a highly populated environment it's common to "pick-up" extra players who see the group in passing. there is also a situationist style appropriation of the space itself, if the game moves into an area not traditionally alloted for game play (for example a food court in a mall).

the other side of the narrative of the game is the indeterminate nature of what the game is being played on. any wall will work, but what makes the game interesting is a wall with some inconsistencies that the players can acquire proficiency in using the site specific idiosyncracies and at the same time be surprised by when their anticipations about the direction of the ball are incorrect. what the players are playing on is also a result of the lack of an out-of-bounds rule. often games will travel from one area to another because of a long shot that was returned with another long shot, pushing the ball further away from the original playing area. this type of event has it's own logic or gravity as the game settles into the most natural area to retain it.

so, the experience of playing wallball is as simple as waiting for the ball to be served to you, hitting it, and watching it go around the circle again. this process goes on until the circle is small enough to constantly engage you and you win, or you are ousted to the sidelines by a more aggressive opponent. in this way wallball engages players in successive layers, starting with low levels of activity shared between many players moving on towards the more active peak of the game between the last 2 players involved.