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.

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.