Andrew Sheerin

Rules are made.
to be broken.

I make playful, satirical, systems-based art, drawing upon games, play theory and familiar cultural formats. I like to take the hidden or overlooked rules of political and social systems and make them playable - invite people to see what governs them so they can inspect it, hold it, poke it. CHANGE IT.

My interest in the power of play started with TerrorBull Games - a radical board game publisher I co-founded in 2005 and ran for ten years. Our first game, War on Terror, the boardgame became front-page news, was banned from retail fairs, got discussed in parliament and was even seized by the police and classified a 'dangerous weapon'.

The outsized reaction to War on Terror taught me there was something special about the medium itself. The game was able to open discussion and threaten authority simultaneously. Consequently, I view play as an inherently subversive activity.

After TerrorBull, I became more interested in the fabric of games and play themselves. What constitutes a game? What are the limits of play? How are players shaped by rules inside and outside of games - and what happens when they break them?

I'm interested in:

  • Real-world rules, incentives and measurements of social and political systems.
  • The ways through which power imbalances become ordinary and codified.
  • Whether the Magic Circle protects players from the world or the world from the game.
  • Play as a means of understanding systems and a way systems seduce and recruit us.

While most of my pieces are invitations to play, the nature of games means that simply knowing about the game can change how you think about the subject. Play is virus-like, so be careful what you expose yourself to.

100% True facts about Andrew

  1. Co-founder of TerrorBull Games; 2005-2016.
  2. Notorious for War on Terror, the boardgame, which was seized by the police, championed by Amnesty International and appears in The IT Crowd.
  3. Work held in museum collections including the V&A, Bodleian Library and Imperial War Museum.
  4. Work exhibited at The Berlin Academy of Arts, ICA and various game & art festivals, including Now Play This.
  5. Regularly speaks on play theory including at Nudgestock and Kilkenomics.
  6. Based in London, UK.