Tag Archives: objects

toying with the archive

I’ve just been awarded a research stipend by the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at the University of Exeter. Here’s the rationale: My interest in the Bill Douglas collection centres on two categories: Toys in general, and Optical Toys. A particular concern is toys as media objects, both as communication media in their own right and […]

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, edited by Giovanna Mascheroni and Donell Holloway, out soon-ish with Palgrave. Here’s an early version of the introduction: Eight Year 5 children sit around a large table in a primary school classroom. Asked to draw and […]

why so Serious(tm)? playing with LEGO Serious Play

edited excerpt from Ashton and Giddings 2018, At work in the toy box: bedrooms, playgrounds and theories of play in creative cultural work International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation: The appeal of the consultancy programme LEGO Serious Play is in part generated by the tension between work and play. The name itself jams together the Serious and […]

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 […]

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 […]

game tokens

Drawing after a photograph in a New Scientist article about the archaeological discovery in Turkey of game tokens from the early Bronze Age, 5,000 years ago. I wonder about whether this marks a significant shift in the production of artefacts away from the utilitarian or ritual manufacture of individual objects towards the production of […]

distributed imagination

Distributed imagination: small steps to an ethology of mind and media This project will theorise the imagination in postdigital mediated environments. Imagination has at best been regarded with suspicion in critical studies of media communication and communion. Its Romantic and humanist legacy, and its associations with art and children, seem to push it aside as […]

the end of toys

Watch this space for a new project to explore the design, philosophy and lived experience of the toy in children’s postdigital culture. Focussing on hybrid or augmented reality systems that mix physical objects with digital / screen systems, the project will address the actual and virtual dimensions of toys from before and after digital media.