ABSTRACT
The chapter explores the notions of play and game, considering group relations conferences as planned yet unrehearsed seriously playful performances intent on evoking powerful affects, thriving in the uncanny nature of experience—that is, in the paradox between the familiar and the unfamiliar, both conscious and unconscious. It considers the awe-inspiring aesthetic nature of the conference generalized as an “emotional field”, arguing that it is the performative aspect of the performance what causes the impact arising out of living the contradictory engagement of the group(s) together with interventions aware of their own desire for transformation.
