Playful Highlights
November 3, 2009 – Libby Davy – Print
Ta to Richard (Biff) Birkin and all at Pixel-Lab who made Playful happen. Highlights for me were:
Alfie Dennen & Paula Le Dieu
Their new project Bus-tops, and will create a london-wide networked canvas of LED displays on the roof’s of bus shelters that anyone can create art and games for. Bus-Tops was the winning entrant in the London arc of the Artists Taking The Lead fund, an Arts Council and London Olympics public art project.
Katy Lindemann
Behaviour change through play. Slides etc here.
Chris O’Shea
Shelter Air Guitar Championship 2008 from Chris O’Shea on Vimeo.
Who? Chris O’Shea sits somewhere between artist and designer, creating experiences that playfully challenge our perception of spaces and objects.
What? He will talk about creating installations full of charm, joy & wonder, including police lights, chickens, giant hands, air guitar, xray torches, spinning mirrors and music boxes.
Molly Ränge
storytelling, pedagogy and creation of learning contexts in a post digital age. http://www.fabel.se
Daniel Soltis
Who dat? Daniel Soltis is an interaction designer at Tinker.it! and a graduate of the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University. His work focuses on physical computing, large-scale interfaces, and playful interactions….urban and pervasive games.
GPS puzzle box made for a wedding present was a highlight.
Two reviews of the day here and here.
Feedback would be – lets walk the talk and make it more fun and interactive next time (eg Kaos Pilots and Sandpit/Hide & Seek), and make sure the non-gamers feel welcome in the first 10 minutes. Also consider getting someone along from Reggio Children if we could be so lucky.
Thank goodness for the Moral Compass folk (eg. Molly, Katy) who helped us work out the big Why? on it all… lots of smarts and loveliness in the room – people that could really make a difference in the world. Still not convinced online life/games are going to help us all to share and be happy. More mention of directing our efforts towards Climate Crisis solutions would also have been welcome.
Who would a keynote Moral Compass person be, with a playful style? Alain de Botton comes to mind…
[...] Libby Davy Suw Charman-Anderson Roo Reynolds Leila Johnston Lawrence Chiles [...]
[...] written about it: Suw Charman-Anderson, Leila Johnston, Howard Pull, Adam Davis, Lawrence Chiles, Libby Davy, Daniel Soltis and more, plus the official record: part 1, part 2 and part 3. October 31, 2009 | [...]
Wow. Had a great session this morning with our Bea (8 going on 18). We were talking about the ethics of the Chicken Tikka we had last night.
(We try and only eat ethically sourced meat http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6295747.stm. Now maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think the local Balti House is going to give a flying bhaji about the torturous conditions battery hens lives and die in.)
Bea pipes up with “I bet KFC” is worse… then goes into shocking detail about battery hens. I had no idea she already knew so much. nor that she could handle knowing so well.
Bea totally loves animals, like most kids, But she still loves bangers and mash. And bacon pancakes and… like most of us.
We’re trying to get out the door to school, but she reeeallly wants to show me the online platform game she learnt about all this from.
Peta’s Super Chick Star
http://www.kentuckyfriedcruelty.com/superchicksisters/index.asp
It’s already helping get results, with the help of Super Mario Brothers and Pamela Anderson.
It got us to thinking how cool it would be for her to talk at Playful next year. About gaming from a kids perspective. About stuff that matters, like what you’re going to bombard her head and heart with.
“I like it because it’s basically as good as Mario Brothers and because I don’t want chickens getting hurt. I’m learning stuff.”
She’s totally up for researching “the ethics of gaming from a kids perspective” and working on this over the next year and giving you an experience to remember.
Want to hear what she’s got to say?
[...] Some great ideas here… Gamers, geeks, artists, educators and activists come together. Posted by libbydavy Filed in Open House 2009 Leave a Comment » [...]