Hi everyone! Was so nice to see some of you at the graduation Zoom last month.
Just a quick update about how my dissemination event went…
I originally organised to launch a Portuguese version of my game as part of a local festival here called Bluefest, organised by the non-profit arts organisation Colectivo a Postos. This was due to happen on 21 November. Earlier that same week, the Portuguese government called a state of emergency and introduced a strict curfew, which meant no one could leave their houses after 13h00 each weekend and no one could leave their municipality. The festival programme was presented online, through Colectivo a Postos’s website and social media. I prepared a digital booklet of the rules for people to download and play themselves (www.artecontinua.pt/bluefest2020.html). I changed the name (originally ‘Quoits’) to ‘Jogo dos Arcos’, which is a play on the Portuguese phrase ‘jogo do arco’ (hoop game) and ‘Paço de Arcos’ (the town where I live, on the periphery of Lisbon), and removed the balancing element to make the game more social distancing friendly.
I also created physical versions of the booklets and distributed them around independent local shops in Paço de Arcos. Each participating shop was given a poster to display in their window, to encourage more people to discover these local businesses, as well as a bundle of booklets to give away for free.
The game offers a Situationist-inspired way to discover the local area (both the outdoor infrastructure and commercial infrastructure), whilst people are prevented from leaving the district. The images I used in the booklets are taken from the Situationist Times issue on rings and my own drawings. The local businesses that took part were: Jomarsil (hardware shop), Céu Florista/Mercado Municipal (Ceu’s florist shop at the municipal market), Padaria da Vila (the town bakery), Spica (artisan bakery) and Telelux (kitchen supplies).
The photos show the booklets and posters in the local businesses and me playing a round of the game through the town.
