the city is already a playground
The city is already a playground. Creative projects to turn urban spaces into playful installations or events are often predicated on the implicit assumption that the city is not already playful. That urban centres are cold, alienated places just waiting for artists, architects, designers and cultural producers to bring their creativity and imagination to bring […] more…
toying with the singularity
I’ve added a draft of ‘Toying with the singularity’ to the Publications page – a chapter for The Internet of Toys: practices, affordances and the political economy of children’s smart play, edited by Giovanna Mascheroni and Donell Holloway, out now with Palgrave. Below is from an early version of the introduction: Eight Year 5 children sit around […] more…
smARtmurals
A project I have been involved in – smARtmurals for Southampton City Art Gallery – opened on Thursday 22nd February in the Spark Building at Southampton Solent University, with AR-activated posters also installed around the Cultural Quarter. Testing ideas for attracting new audiences to the Gallery’s modern art collection, and led by Dr Alex Reynolds, the painting Deer Dog by Dan […] more…
Smart Mural playtest
watch this space for information about the Smart Murals project for Southampton City Art Gallery, and for research findings on playtesting. more…
talking about the playful future
A talk at the University of York’s Theatre, Film & TV Department‘s research seminar series on October 11th. Taking the Lightbug project to design interactive playground equipment as a case study, it coveredconcepts and approaches for researching the temporalities of design for postdigital play: Design is by necessity future-oriented, even the most everyday and banal new object or […] more…
digital ideas workshop…
… at Southampton City Gallery. More news on the resulting projects to follow. more…
transforming creativity
With Dan Ashton I have recently set up the Transforming Creativity Research Group at WSA. We are waiting for the official website to be launched, but have a news and events blog up and running: https://transformingcreativity.wordpress.com/ We have already run the After VR: the archaeology and potential of immersive media symposium, and Dan and I […] more…
future of toys… network ideas
The central theme of the proposed activity is the future of toys in a digital media culture. Taking recent developments in ‘hybrid’ toy and game design and the ‘Internet of Toys’ – systems that integrate physical toys with digital game technologies and networks- the following questions will be asked: What are the implications for game […] more…
you could vibrato it
A quick cut and annotation of a microethological study of the testing of Alphasphere at the Pervasive Media Studio some years ago. I’ve put it here as reference for a workshop on haptic play at RMIT this week. I’ll explain more here later. more…
pythiatechnics
What is the temporality of the design process? There is a moment of production, a blank period of distribution and installation as the object goes out into the world and that’s it? There is however at least a dual temporality in production: the actual processes of design, consultation, marketing, etc., and the anticipated, virtual time […] more…
design and the black box
Designing for playful media and games presents a particular challenge – not for designers, but for the study of design. The most useful critical resources in this study are those that draw attention to process of the development of systems, and that render problematic any straightforward idea that there is a simple process from conception […] more…