The Dearth of Play in Contemporary Society 
 
Shim posited that it is dangerous to institute a profound cause and uniform ideology for a community in today’s society, and that any attempt to establish an individual identity in conjunction with these would be impossible. On the contrary, he believes that the identity of an individual can take form when the individual engages in amusing play. 
In sociology, play is a crucial element in the process of shaping an individual identity. Participating in play means that an individual has a role, and all of the participants reach an agreement to maintain certain rules. Interestingly, although the participants must follow these rules, at the same time, they are able to change the rules according to their needs; thus, newly altered rules again come into existence as a common promise. In other words, the rules of play are not hard and fast, but in fact reside in the process of transformation and establishment created by the participants’ spontaneous participation. Johan Huizinga wrote in his book Homo Ludens that play is not merely a collateral cultural activity; rather, it functions to satisfy the free expression and community life that individual’s desire. However, he explained that following the 1950s, play fell to the periphery beside labor and work, and these days it is difficult to locate the role of “one who plays” among contemporary human beings in the spheres of society, economy, and culture. He expressed that in this type of society, poetry is the last bastion of play, and that poetry proclaims the transformation?that is, the variability?of images and symbols.  
 
Community in Art, Art for Community
 
In discussing poetry as the last remaining stronghold of play, we can empathize even more with Shim’s words that “literature dreams of the possibility of community and exists as words and actions that pursue the community of possibility within the narrow and faint blank space of writing.” Of course, this is not to speak of an empty hope that art can become a stronger medium than other practices, or that art could reveal its power belatedly. Rather, he acknowledged this limitation and assigned meaning to the things one discovers when observing community in art and art for community?for example, the manifestation of a new sense that disrupts the established sensory order; the tension create by practical art within an institution; or a new kind of integration that replaces aesthetic completeness. Consequently, we are struck with the notion that, through art, we encourage people to listen together attentively to what they are not used to hearing and to observe together what they are not used to seeing. Perhaps this could represent the beginning of a “free and open community” in art?