Power Game

1974 – 2004

Single card dimensions:

10 x 7.5 cm

A performance event involving a pack of 108 cards each with one word to a side. The words are both random and personal because of the particular way in which they were chosen. Lijn called the cards Keys, and invented 3 different games to play with them: a game of power, a game of fantasy, and game of divination.

First performed in 1974 at the International Festival for Democracy in Chile, Royal College of Art, London in collaboration with Alistair Mackintosh.

A one hour video documentary of the performance Power Game is distributed by Lux in VHS and Beta SP.
LUX, 3rd Floor, 18 Shacklewell Lane, London, E8 2EZ

The performance of Power Game holds a mirror to our preconceptions and our fantasies of power. There is no script, no actors, no rehearsals. Lijn uses people’s normal behaviour and their reactions to the situation in which she places them.

It is a performance event based on complex interactions between language, gender, identity and power. Using playing as an instrument of discovery, Power Game examines a number of interconnected issues.

Place and the centrality of power are clearly part of the structure of the game, which is based on concentric circles: the room, the table, the Bank.

Power Game is principally concerned with language, and the specific way in which individual words are interpreted by different people, depending on their interests and preconceptions.