2020
Nansen, Bjørn; Apperley, Thomas H.
The Postdigital Playground: Children's Public Play Spaces in the Smart City
In: Leorke, Dale; Owens, Marcus (Ed.): Games and Play in the Creative, Smart and Ecological City, pp. 116-132, Routledge, 2020, ISBN: 978-0-367-44123-4.
Book chapter Open access
Abstract | Links | Tags: Augmented reality, Children, Mobile media, Playgrounds, Postdigital play, Public space, Smart city
@incollection{Nansen2020b,
title = {The Postdigital Playground: Children's Public Play Spaces in the Smart City},
author = {Bjørn Nansen and Thomas H. Apperley},
editor = {Dale Leorke and Marcus Owens},
url = {http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202102091989},
doi = {10.4324/9781003007760},
isbn = {978-0-367-44123-4},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-11-16},
urldate = {2020-11-16},
booktitle = {Games and Play in the Creative, Smart and Ecological City},
pages = {116-132},
publisher = {Routledge},
abstract = {This chapter examines the integration of children’s public play spaces into the infrastructures of the smart city. While prior research has focused on personal mobile devices, this chapter examines deliberate design interventions that digitally augment children’s play spaces. Drawing on perspectives from children’s geography and game studies to conceptualise childhood play in the smart city, the chapter highlights the sometimes-contradictory relations that emerge. These contradictions arise in the smart city through the digital augmentation of spaces historically and culturally designated as play-spaces. We introduce the notion of the postdigital to emphasisze the blurring of boundaries of digital and non-digital play in children’s play in playgrounds and conceptualise the integration of playgrounds into digital infrastructures in
relation to the broader impact that the smart city has on the uses of public space.
This chapter explores this ongoing integration of playgrounds into the smart city through two recent examples of interactive play designs that digitally augment public playgrounds and parks: HybridPlay, and Disney Fairy TrailTrails. These examples of postdigital play in public playgrounds are analysed in terms of their functionality, representation, and online reception. Operating within along a broader trajectory of smart city infrastructures characterised by the blurring of discrete spaces of sociality, these examples of postdigital play highlight tensions associated with the cultural sensibilities and historical meanings attached to public play spaces, digital technologies, and childhood.},
keywords = {Augmented reality, Children, Mobile media, Playgrounds, Postdigital play, Public space, Smart city},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {incollection}
}
This chapter examines the integration of children’s public play spaces into the infrastructures of the smart city. While prior research has focused on personal mobile devices, this chapter examines deliberate design interventions that digitally augment children’s play spaces. Drawing on perspectives from children’s geography and game studies to conceptualise childhood play in the smart city, the chapter highlights the sometimes-contradictory relations that emerge. These contradictions arise in the smart city through the digital augmentation of spaces historically and culturally designated as play-spaces. We introduce the notion of the postdigital to emphasisze the blurring of boundaries of digital and non-digital play in children’s play in playgrounds and conceptualise the integration of playgrounds into digital infrastructures in
relation to the broader impact that the smart city has on the uses of public space.
This chapter explores this ongoing integration of playgrounds into the smart city through two recent examples of interactive play designs that digitally augment public playgrounds and parks: HybridPlay, and Disney Fairy TrailTrails. These examples of postdigital play in public playgrounds are analysed in terms of their functionality, representation, and online reception. Operating within along a broader trajectory of smart city infrastructures characterised by the blurring of discrete spaces of sociality, these examples of postdigital play highlight tensions associated with the cultural sensibilities and historical meanings attached to public play spaces, digital technologies, and childhood.
relation to the broader impact that the smart city has on the uses of public space.
This chapter explores this ongoing integration of playgrounds into the smart city through two recent examples of interactive play designs that digitally augment public playgrounds and parks: HybridPlay, and Disney Fairy TrailTrails. These examples of postdigital play in public playgrounds are analysed in terms of their functionality, representation, and online reception. Operating within along a broader trajectory of smart city infrastructures characterised by the blurring of discrete spaces of sociality, these examples of postdigital play highlight tensions associated with the cultural sensibilities and historical meanings attached to public play spaces, digital technologies, and childhood.
2019
Leorke, Dale; Wood, Christopher
In: Media Theory, vol. 3, iss. 2, pp. 63-102, 2019.
Journal article Open access
Abstract | Links | Tags: Anthropocene, Digital infrastructure, Locative media, Materiality, Mobile media, New media art, Speculative design, Speculative futures
@article{nokey,
title = {'Alternative Ways of Being': Reimagining Locative Media Materiality through Speculative Fiction and Design},
author = {Dale Leorke and Christopher Wood},
url = {https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202001031033},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-12-20},
journal = {Media Theory},
volume = {3},
issue = {2},
pages = {63-102},
abstract = {Following the ‘material turn’ in media studies and a growing intersection with posthuman philosophies, theorists and practitioners in the field of ‘locative media’ have recently sought to make more explicit and visible the underlying material infrastructure and processes of location-aware technologies. These approaches, we argue, concentrate on two, interrelated layers of locative media materiality: the ‘infrastructure’ itself and its socio-political consequences; and the material relations between human and non-human elements that act upon one another to create the ‘performance’ of locative media. These approaches offer a vital and necessary challenge to the predominantly human-and user-centric focus of existing locative media studies. To date, however, they have been focused on rendering visible the infrastructure and performance of locative media as it presently exists; and stillremain centred around the human body as the site and metaphor for understanding this materiality. In this paper, we further complicate this human centricity around the infrastructural and performative layers of locative media to challenge and reimagine the role of the human in locative media art and practice. Drawing on the traditions of speculative fiction and design, we propose fiction, design, and world-building as methods for developing imaginaries and alternative futures that expand the potential for locative media to be reframed from a non-human centric perspective. Such an approach emphasises creativity and imagination, in addition to purely empirical knowledge of locative technologies and processes; and allows for a more speculative, playful, and questioning approachto this materiality, taking into accountnot only ‘what is’ but also ‘what could be’. Through a discussion of two experimental projects undertaken by one of the authors of this paper, we advocate opening up locative media studies to encompass speculation about its alternative and future potentialities.},
keywords = {Anthropocene, Digital infrastructure, Locative media, Materiality, Mobile media, New media art, Speculative design, Speculative futures},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Following the ‘material turn’ in media studies and a growing intersection with posthuman philosophies, theorists and practitioners in the field of ‘locative media’ have recently sought to make more explicit and visible the underlying material infrastructure and processes of location-aware technologies. These approaches, we argue, concentrate on two, interrelated layers of locative media materiality: the ‘infrastructure’ itself and its socio-political consequences; and the material relations between human and non-human elements that act upon one another to create the ‘performance’ of locative media. These approaches offer a vital and necessary challenge to the predominantly human-and user-centric focus of existing locative media studies. To date, however, they have been focused on rendering visible the infrastructure and performance of locative media as it presently exists; and stillremain centred around the human body as the site and metaphor for understanding this materiality. In this paper, we further complicate this human centricity around the infrastructural and performative layers of locative media to challenge and reimagine the role of the human in locative media art and practice. Drawing on the traditions of speculative fiction and design, we propose fiction, design, and world-building as methods for developing imaginaries and alternative futures that expand the potential for locative media to be reframed from a non-human centric perspective. Such an approach emphasises creativity and imagination, in addition to purely empirical knowledge of locative technologies and processes; and allows for a more speculative, playful, and questioning approachto this materiality, taking into accountnot only ‘what is’ but also ‘what could be’. Through a discussion of two experimental projects undertaken by one of the authors of this paper, we advocate opening up locative media studies to encompass speculation about its alternative and future potentialities.
Innocent, Troy; Leorke, Dale
Heightened Intensity: Reflecting on Player Experiences in Wayfinder Live
In: Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, vol. 25, iss. 1, pp. 18-39, 2019, ISSN: 1354-8565.
Journal article Open access
Abstract | Links | Tags: Digital games, Game design, Location-based game, Materiality, Mobile media, Play and public space, Playable cities, Psychogeography, Urban codemaking, Urban play
@article{Innocent2019,
title = {Heightened Intensity: Reflecting on Player Experiences in Wayfinder Live},
author = {Troy Innocent and Dale Leorke},
url = {https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202101131253},
doi = {10.1177/1354856518822427},
issn = {1354-8565},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-02-01},
journal = {Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies},
volume = {25},
issue = {1},
pages = {18-39},
abstract = {Location-based games use smartphones and other location-aware devices to incorporate their players’ actions in everyday, physical spaces – the streets and public spaces of the city – into the virtual world of the game. Scholars and designers of these games often claim that they reconfigure their players’ relationship with the people and environment around them. They argue these games either engage and immerse players more deeply in the spaces of the game or distance and detach them from the physical environment through the screen interface. To date, however, relatively few detailed empirical studies of these games have been undertaken to test out and critique these claims. This article presents a study of the 2017 iteration of the location-based augmented reality game Wayfinder Live, in which players use their phones to search for and scan urban codes hidden across Melbourne’s laneways, alleys, and public spaces. Players of the game were interviewed and invited to reflect on their experience. This article relates these experiences to the design and development of the game, particularly to five play design principles that characterize its approach to haptic play in urban space. We begin by outlining these principles and the motivations behind them. Then, drawing on an analysis of the player interviews, we evaluate the impact of the game on their perception of the city.},
keywords = {Digital games, Game design, Location-based game, Materiality, Mobile media, Play and public space, Playable cities, Psychogeography, Urban codemaking, Urban play},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Location-based games use smartphones and other location-aware devices to incorporate their players’ actions in everyday, physical spaces – the streets and public spaces of the city – into the virtual world of the game. Scholars and designers of these games often claim that they reconfigure their players’ relationship with the people and environment around them. They argue these games either engage and immerse players more deeply in the spaces of the game or distance and detach them from the physical environment through the screen interface. To date, however, relatively few detailed empirical studies of these games have been undertaken to test out and critique these claims. This article presents a study of the 2017 iteration of the location-based augmented reality game Wayfinder Live, in which players use their phones to search for and scan urban codes hidden across Melbourne’s laneways, alleys, and public spaces. Players of the game were interviewed and invited to reflect on their experience. This article relates these experiences to the design and development of the game, particularly to five play design principles that characterize its approach to haptic play in urban space. We begin by outlining these principles and the motivations behind them. Then, drawing on an analysis of the player interviews, we evaluate the impact of the game on their perception of the city.