Tag: opera

Work now so you can play later

There’s a lot going on at the Leapfrog studio, which explains at least in part why things have gone quiet around here. However, I wanted to take the time to alert you to some upcoming events that might be of interest.

An urban game in the Rotterdam city center

On Sunday September 27 around 50 young people will play an urban game I designed for Your World — Rotterdam European Youth Capital 2009.1 It is part of a two-day event called Change Your World, which enables groups of youth to set up a new ‘movement’ with financial support and advice from professionals. You might want to hang around the Rotterdam city center during the day, to witness what is sure to be an interesting spectacle. More info should show up soon enough at the Your World website.

A pervasive game in the Hoograven neighborhood of Utrecht

Around the same time, from September 18 to October 11, you’ll be able to play Koppelkiek in the Hoograven area of Utrecht. This is a game I’ve created for the Dutch Design Double program.2 To play, you take photos of yourself with others in a range of situations and upload them to the game’s website. It’s designed to subtly permeate your daily life. With the help of our players we’re hoping to create a collection of photos that provide a unique look into life in the neighborhood. Do join in if you’re in the area. Also, we’ll have a playtest on September 16. If you’re interested in playing a round or two, drop me a line.3

Data visualizations of silence

I’m wrapping up some data visualization work I’ve done for the artist Sarah van Sonsbeeck.4 Sarah’s work revolves (amongst other things) around the concept of silence. Alper and I took a dataset she generated during a few of her ‘silence walks’ using a GPS tracker and a sound level meter and created a number of static visualizations in Processing. Some of the output can be seen at the exhibition Een Dijk van een Kust. More will probably be on display at another occasion. Also, I’ve learnt some new tricks that I intend to share here soon.

What else, what else…

  • I’m still meaning to write something up about the work that went into Mega Monster Battle Arena™ but it will have to wait. I attended two of the three shows and enjoyed both throughly. There’s some photos up at the opera’s website.
  • We’re in the process of finishing up the This happened – Utrecht #3 videos. Once they’re all done we’ll add them to the event’s page on the .org site along with the slides. Planning for our fourth event has already started. Mark your calendar for October 26 and subscribe to our newsletter so you won’t miss the registration’s opening.
  • And finally, I’m slowly but surely giving shape to a new venture which will focus on the use of play in public space to effect social change. Its name is Hubbub. The crazy designers at BUROPONY are developing a sweet brand identity and a first placeholder site is up. Stay tuned for more news on that.

That’s about it for now, thanks for your attention. I promise to provide content with more meat and less self-promotion in upcoming posts.

  1. Karel Millenaar, game designer extraordinaire at FourceLabs and a fellow resident of the Dutch Game Garden, has helped me out on this one. [↩]
  2. I’ve asked Tijmen Schep of PineppleJazz, NetNiet.org and the new Utrecht medialab to be my partner on this one. [↩]
  3. Around the same time a lot of other interesting stuff related to design and society will be going on, such as the third edition of Utrecht Manifest, the biennial for social design. [↩]
  4. I was turned on to this gig by the ubiquitous Alper Çuğun. [↩]

Announcing a hybrid game opera for Monster

I never thought I would make an opera. But now I have.

A bit of Monster

In a few weeks time the above market square in the town of Monster will be transformed into an arena where fighters duel each other using their pet monsters. If this sounds familiar, it is no coincidence.

Mega Monster Battle Arena is one of 11 operas produced by Dario Fo to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Westland municipality. Dario Fo specialize in creating music theatre in close collaboration with the local community. They asked composer Daniël Hamburger to create the opera for Monster. The brief was to do ‘something’ with the town’s curious name, and to make it a production that would appeal to youth by referencing games culture.1

Daniël in turn approached me, since he had little affinity for games, and wanted the piece to not only be about games, but to be a game itself. So that’s what I helped do. By turning the game design principle of embedded narrative inside-out, we’ve managed to create a structure in which we can both tell a story using a script, and have performers improvise using game rules. Those rules I designed as a proper game. I could give you those rules and you would be able to play it yourself.

So there will be fights, and they’ll not be scripted. You won’t know beforehand who will win, and neither will we. There will also be a story, about a heroine facing off with a bad guy, in the best game and martial arts film tradition. Sieger M.G. was our third man, the piece’s writer. A rapper turned poet with a life-long games addiction, there could be no better fit.

What’s probably most exciting to me is that on top of the improvisational choreography of the duels, a live band will use a rule set of their own, composed by Daniël, that takes the game as it unfolds as its input to improvise. How’s that for adaptive music?2

It might all go horribly wrong, or it might become a wonderful spectacle. If you are like me and would like to find out which it will be, head to Monster for one of the shows. They’re scheduled for:

  • Thursday 18 June 20:30 (tryout)
  • Friday 19 June 20:30
  • Saturday 20 June 20:30

Tickets are 15 Euro and can be bought at the venue. Once the show is over, I’ll post some more detailed stuff about the actual work I did. Stay tuned.

Mega Moster Battle Arena flyer

  1. There would be tons of kids from local high schools to work with. They also wanted to use the local firemen choir. Oh, and aerial work platforms too… [↩]
  2. One of the sources of inspiration for Daniël was John Zorn. [↩]