Month: August 2010

Week 166

This week was all about frantically getting things sorted so that I can completely disconnect for a week on starting friday (tomorrow).

  • Putting up the scaffolding for project Fugu; a collaboration with River Institute on an experiment in higher education at the UvA. Hubbub will be designing some ARG-ish additions to its program. I am bringing on board two interns to work with me on this. I’ll have them introduce themselves at the Hubbub blog soon.
  • Final exams at the HKU which is best described as a roller-coaster ride of draining and exhilarating moments. I judged the work of 10 interaction design and game design students, including those I coached myself. Some were very good. There is a show at the faculty on september 10 & 11 called EJECT.
  • Had some meetings about yet another project which I have decided to codename Ika. This is a mix of me coaching a group of HKU students and doing design research in the cultural heritage domain. A hybrid educational model.
  • Various management-type activities for PLAY Pilots. Mostly aimed at helping the Zesbaans / NFF pilot make it into the world and getting the Wip ‘n’ Kip additions for the site up.
  • This afternoon we’ll kick off project Maguro which is about using pervasive games for internal training purposes at a government agency.
  • Tomorrow at 12:15 I will get on this boat to this island and will be very hard to reach for a week. I plan to do a lot of reading, cycling and walking and not much else. Well, sleeping probably. Lots of that too.

So, don’t expect any notes for week 167. I’ll be back to report on #168.

5 things I’m thinking about

You have Alper to blame for this. Alice started it, many followed (some well worth reading) and now the meme has crossed the pond it seems. I know, we’re a bit slow in NL. So, what am I thinking about?

My upcoming holiday, which will be the first break in over a year. I am planning to completely unplug, which I am both dreading and looking forward to. It seems the longer I am self-employed, the harder it gets to just leave work behind for an extended period of time. It seems crazy to be worried about the continuity of my business when I’m only away for a week on a freaking Wadden island.

Today marks the last day of final exams at the HKU and I am lead to wonder about the future of design education as it happens there and at other similar institutes around the world. It often seems too closed off from the outside world, too insular. I am looking forward to tangling with this subject matter more in an upcoming project with River Institute.

Choosing has never come easy to me. In the past I have found it painful to choose between disciplines, skills to develop, projects to work on. And at some point I sort of decided to stop forcing choices and find ways to have them all mesh. I think that finally I am getting to a spot where I am comfortable in not choosing. So now I wonder why that is, what the value of refusing to choose is and what that means for creative disciplines.

I am essentially pessimistic about the future of this world. I have a very hard time conceiving of any future, in fact. Recently I found myself in a workshop aimed at making plans for an event in 2015 and I was totally lost. Having learnt this about myself the next question is how to act – I don’t wan’t to “play dead” as Bruce Sterling would say – so what’s the alternative?

Since it is at the core of my business I am thinking a lot about domains where games could go next. I am thinking a lot about citizen engagement, particularly when it comes to public policy, but I am mostly stumped about making inroads into that area locally.

There you have it.

links for 2010-08-25

  • The Play Ethic: wonderlab
    “they’re just finite (indeed, crappy) little pretexts – alongside other pretexts like gift-giving, sharing/curating, commenting/expressing – to help us engage in the potentially infinite social communication that something like Facebook (or more generally the internet) affords.” One of many gems to be found in this elaborate Wonderlab report from Mr. Kane.
    (tags: Wonderlab Hide&Seek events reports play games PatKane)

links for 2010-08-24

Week 165

So week 165. One of those old-fashioned fragmented weeks that reminds me of why I decided a while ago that I should stop having more than two meetings on one day. Anyway.

Following the weekend of Stekker Fest craziness I had a bit of an off day on Monday. Tuesday I sat down with Ianus and Alexander to make plans for the next This happened – Utrecht. We’ve had a bit of trouble finding a venue, getting financing and everything but it looks like we’re all set. Monday 4 October at Theater Kikker in Utrecht, NL. Save the date.

From Amsterdam I traveled on to Rotterdam and spent some time at Simon’s sketching out the additions to PLAY Pilots for the Wip ‘n’ Kip game data. I also dropped by BUROPONY. They might make something cool for This happened attendees…

Wednesday I had coffee with Thieu and Godelieve at the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam to talk about a new project which I’ve dubbed Fugu. It deals with experimental (game-like) new forms of higher education. I am taking on board two interns to help me out with that. That’ll be an interesting new experience. I also hooked up with Peter, who is now at Adaptive Path Amsterdam. Cool building, they seem to be doing well. Nice.

In the afternoon on Wednesday I was back in Utrecht to talk to Ezra, who is involved with some interesting research into cycling. He’s based in Copenhagen. We discussed ways in which we might use low-tech pervasive urban games to shape cycle use. Who knows, Hubbub might venture there to do some experiments in future.

I finished that day off with a review of a student presentation. Final exams is next week; that’ll eat up a lot of my time.

Ah what’s more? Thursday, more educational work, I attended a kick-off of the new academic year at the HKU‘s school of art and technology. I liked the fact that all teachers were there and sat down to sync their classes and assignments in such a way that they all connected to projects students would be doing. Proper project-based art education. Good to see that happen.

And today I am reviewing one more student presentation and am spending some time with Alper on PLAY Pilots and related bits.

Looking ahead, next week will be about the aforementioned final exams and also the kick-off of project Maguro. I have to say I am running on fumes a bit and can’t wait for next week because on friday I will head to Terschelling for a week and unplug completely.

Almost forgot about Bocce Drift this Sunday. Come along and play.

links for 2010-08-17

  • All Play: Make Believe by Jimmy Stewart
    “It’s the playful spirit of the game that’s more important than the letter of the rules. Which is as it should be. Jane McGonigal says reality is broken and let’s fix it with game, a whiff of formalin in the air. Her lens on the world is rather monocular, fundamentalist in the proper sense of the word. It rarely admits failure and dreams of a superhumanity. But I think I can do no better than make play with people, and forcing them into one game they don’t want to play is like trying to choreograph butterflies.” Pure gold.
    (tags: games play rules success failure makebelieve reality fiction whatif JimmyStewart)

Week 164

I am sat at the studio while around me FourceLabs are putting the final touches to their installation for Stekker Fest. I’ll be there tomorrow to hand out buttons to players. It’s the first in a series of three playful additions to three festivals that I am overseeing – first called project Ebi and now commonly known as PLAY Pilots. As such I can’t wait to see the response of players. On the other hand, I am sure it’ll be great.

The next project in the PLAY Pilots series is by Zesbaans for the Netherlands Film Festival. I had a few more meetings about that one as well, mostly about getting some productional stuff sorted. It turns out getting big screens for a long period of time is kind of expensive. Your learn something everyday.

Last week we launched a first version of the PLAY Pilots website, which includes an online game. This week we’ve started rolling out the first improvements. I have been planning some changes and additions to the ruleset. We’ve also started work on pulling in the Wip ‘n’ Kip game data.

Apart from this, I have been doing some preparation for new projects; codenamed Uni, Maguro and Fugu. More on those as things develop.

Week 162

Slightly overdue so I’ll keep it (very) short.