Risk-as-Pleasure
25
Colour delineates play in mental space: purposeful and exploitative; in
nature colour is used as trickery, designed by perpetrators to communicate
important life-and-death information, to deceive, attract, and to signify danger.
Dr. M Kasperbauer of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Coastal Plains
Research Centre^ discovered that plants react to far-red, a colour beyond human
vision, as if threatened by a rival, spiraling high and boosting the production of
chlorophyll and protein in their leaves. In the insect world, femme-fatale
lightning bugs decode the semaphore of their rivals in order to lure and steal
odier females’ mates.
For humans, the choice of colour in casinos and in game design and
furnishing has been subjected to psychological and intuitive interpretation.
Tradition is categorical: green and red is always used, blue is incidental. Chinese
superstition extends equally to colour as in numbers and symbols. In the new
casino parlours in Macau, Feng Shui is a prerequisite in the logistics needed to
make players feel at ease.
In Feng Shui (wind water) and according to Chinese philosophy, one’s
success is determined by five areas of influence (the first two are not within the
control of any individual, therefore the other three should be understood and
developed to optimum levels®):
Yiming EryunSan feng Shui Shi daode Wu dushu -
destiny
lucky and lucky eras
art of placement
virtue
background, culture, education, experience,
exposure
Feng Shui is recognized in the western world now by other than the advocates of
superstition. Astrological elements are strategized by complementing conditions
and settings to temper and harmonize impulsive spirits and desires. Energizers
and enhancements in the environment are instrumental to comfort and poise.
Play is bounded by freely accepted rules and is conducted in an orderly
manner, promoting “social groupings which tend to surround themselves with
secrecy and to stress their differences from the common world by disguise or
other means.”^ Caillois goes further by descr X