Carceral Projections: The Lure of the Cell and the Heterotopia of Play in Prison Escape

This chapter offers a close reading of the ‘real-life game’ Prison Escape in former P.I. Boschpoort in Breda, the Netherlands. It uses the prison cell as an entry point into understanding the relation between popular imaginations of the prison, the panoptic architecture of the particular prison the game takes place in and the principles of play. The game relies on the metaphorically constructed lure of the prison cell as a fantasy of resistance to panoptic surveillance, but also breaks this fantasy down by reinforcing the scripting power of the prison setting. It mobilises the cell as a heterotopic, liminal space of play offering an embodied, if limited, experience of incarceration which foregrounds reflection on the mechanics of intensified surveillance.