ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to distinguish virtual place from virtualized place. It considers a range of philosophers who have worked on play, and argue that both place and virtuality are made possible by play. Understanding play will help to clarify the creative moment in the virtual and help to understand the possible lines of flight that virtual place might take, beyond simply representing material or imagined space. In virtual place, there is the possibility of surprise. Virtual place as play means opening a space for thinking. The play of virtual place exists in a world that is real but virtual. Virtual place might refer to the coming-into-presence of place as mediated by visual and other stimuli. Digital virtual places are not single representations of external reality. Digital virtual places furthermore engage in the political, social, racial, and gendered world and do so in a manner that blurs the boundaries of the digital and the physical space.
