Nomic at Transmission, November 29, 2008

A Game of Nomic
Saturday 29th Nov. 2008, 11am – 5pm
With The Salford Restoration Office, and Tom Watson


James Hutchinson and Lesley Young, who work together as The Salford Restoration Office, were invited by Kajsa Dahlberg to get involved with her project The Name Of This Association Shall Be Transmission, as part of the project Moot Points, at Transmission, Glasgow in November 2008.

After some discussion with Dahlberg, some of which was around Transmission’s Constitution and such documents in general, we hit upon the idea of playing a game of Nomic with members of Transmission’s Committee and Membership. We were introduced to Nomic, when Tom Watson, an artist based in Manchester, invited, and The Reading Group we attend, to play. And so we have extended Dahlberg’s invitation to include Watson. To be clear we will not ‘Nomic Transmission’s constitution’. But instead play Nomic, with the aim of refining the Committee’s and Membership’s ability to articulate their ambitions for Transmission through the form of their written Constitution.

Nomic is a game, which mirrors the development of laws and rules, and provides a ‘space’ in which ideas, and their applications, implications and consequences can be played out. In a nutshell, Nomic is a game where a set of players take turns to amend two sets of rules, one set “mutable” (or changeable), the other set “immutable” (or unchangeable). The game always begins with the same sets of rules – which are basically rules about the rules. In sequence each player proposes a rule change or amendment, the other players then debate the proposal, and then vote on whether to accept it or not. This continues until there is a winner – either when a player reaches 100 points or when the rule-set becomes so paradoxical that it is impossible to take a turn. It is unlikely that in one afternoon we will have a winner.

For the game of Nomic on Saturday 29th November at Transmission, each player will need a notebook and a pen and an Initial Set of Rules (see below). For those who haven’t played before, read on for an introduction to the game. We recommended that you read the introduction and familiarise yourself with the Initial Set of Rules. The pages following the Initial Set of Rules contain a more expanded description of Nomic by Peter Suber, who invented the game. This is not required reading, but just for those who are interested.

And, just to say, we are also Nomic Novices – but all the same we thing Saturday will prove to be and interesting day all the same.

Looking forward to meeting you,

Best regards,


James Hutchinson, Lesley Young and Tom Watson