Trust in Play 2020 - ideas, projects, topics, skills

Nomadic Branch
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Dear EU Nomadics, (@LizzieH @BagelandBalloon @MarinaKy14 @Highfather @KyrAvram @soly)

please share as an answer of this post all the things related to your project for the spring 2020.

Theme: start with the topic that you want to explore, maybe other Trainee are excited about explore it in their cities too

Ideas/Project: if you already have an idea (that maybe emerged during the Athens Jam, but you didn’t develop) write it down here, no need to be too specific, this is more a repository to help each other do some research or collaborate.

Skills: we know already each other a little but it’s always good to remind ourselves about what are the skills that we are able to share and how can we contribute in other projects.

Research: if you already researched something, please create a new post only about it, so we can have a conversation on that space.

Share this before January 15th so we can discuss about it during the preview call.
The goal for that call is to have the teams sorted out and the cities where you want to work also somehow on track, so reach out to each other if you’re interested on discussing about it.

MICA nomadics (@jyow @awhitney @LeaLeroy) we would have a similar discussion live, so fell free to contribute here or not :slight_smile:

RUSTAVI nomadics (@Coll1sion @ReverseG @MariamK) we will also have another conversation about it soon together.

Thanks!

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Heyhey,

I’ll go through the different points.

Themes

  1. Connection: A theme I am always curious about is connection between people and connection between people and their environment. Questions related to this theme: How can we connect with each other in a given space? How can we use a space to connect in a different way? How can I change my connection to a space? How can I create connections between things that have been unconnected before? How can I deepen an already existing space?
  2. Conventions: Social conventions have been the center of my work for the last six years. The unspoken rules of social spaces we move in. They are hard rules in a sense that we sometimes feel overwhelmingly pressured to follow them, and they are flexible at the same time as there is usually no clear power who is enforcing them.
  3. Climate change and grief: I have been deeply inspired by Jim Bendell’s article on Deep Adaptation (find the article here), and I have been thinking of how my work relates to the key aspects of “resilience, relinquishment and restorations”. I have some ideas for this, but none so far in connection with urban play.

Ideas
Some statements that I know I want to stick to:

  • I will not create a competitive experience.
  • I will not create a game that can be won.
  • I will not create a game that can only be played in one right way.

My main idea I have had in my mind since TiP is a little set of cards that you can use to play around the way we behave and see urban space, both in relation to other people and the space itself. My starting point is a collection of things that are already possible to do in urban space, things that are quite generic and can be done almost in any city. Here are some examples: take a walk, sit on a bench, ride public transport, take a beverage, look at stuff, study shop windows, study street decorations (graffiti, stickers, street art) etc.

This cards can then be used to either tailor a city experience beforehand or create on on the go – either for yourself or with others. Say you are two people and then you each play a card after another: First ride the public transport to a certain point, then we look at shop windows there, ride the public transport again, sit on a bench and contemplate what we saw.

This is the basic idea, but the cards can be used in different ways, obviously. And the cards could have different “tiers” in terms of how challenging they are to perform. Tier 1 could be sth like “go for a walk”, Tier 3 “go for a walk and sing a song out loud”.

Skills

  • I have a background in literature and theatre and am therefore quite experienced with text production, dramaturgy, stories, world-building, and character creation.
  • I have experienced a lot with changing social conventions, setting up social experiments, and have a large collection of techniques how to approach social conventions.
  • Not sure how important this can be, but maybe: I have worked in a lot of collective processes and teams, and have a hand for mediating difficult situations between people.
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Hello!

I hope that you are at least as fine as us in Ouagadougou. Recently we got a number of various meetings and discussions that were very inspiring, also in terms of the ideas I would like to share with you and with the community Trust in Play. I will keep it structured:

Theme : body culture, health, movement as a tool serving the population for better life, integrity and cohesion, playful permanent structures (part of urban furniture?)

Ideas/Project : I have applied to Trust in Play with the creative collective JUMP in mind, especially the ongoing long-term project called Pocket Park. I would like to focus on the potential this initiative has.

JUMP stands for “Jeunesse Unie pour un Mouvement Positif (Youth United for a Positive Movement) and it exists since 2009. After number of diverse projects, JUMP managed to open a place called JUMPHUB. The co-working hubs are driving mechanisms in the context of networking and idea developing all over the world. With this in mind, the JUMPHUB was built in Ouagadougou, primarily as an office for JUMP, but also as our meeting and co-working space, our place to develop ideas, to encourage creativity, to promote artistic production, and as a showcase of activities of JUMP and its residents. One of these activities is the project Pocket Park.

The Pocket Park was initiated to unite people from the community to revitalize a neglected public space with the tools that we use and eventually practice professionally – the art and culture. We have developed a formula of workshops “with the people for the people” so that local people can explore, learn and experience art as a city-constructive tool.

During those workshops, I would like to propose also some work on playful permanent structures, as a framework of experimentation to enlarge horizons concerning the project itself and further more.

The results will be presented in form of public exposition. The final exposition is intended as open voting system for the best design to be realized in second phase of the project Pocket Park (people will vote in public referendum). The meaning of the project is also to link art and culture with awareness in various areas, such as respect for the environment, sustainability of urban life, social equality and emancipation, democracy, peace and stability. We can explore deeper also the question of Trust in urban environment of Burkina Faso.

The Project Pocket Park runs since 2018, we have already prototyped some ideas (Pocket Garden); some of the workshops in Ouagadougou were realized too, there is one workshop scheduled with students of architecture in Mekelle, Ethiopia, in March 2020. Up to date we have been preparing the workshop content with the pedagogical board of the school in Mekelle so that it can meet the curricula of their education, but I can probably propose to insert some content about Urban Game Design too.

Skills : Practicing visual art, design, set design, photography and architecture in different contexts, I can offer some analytic and organizational skills in terms of space analysis and installation in various spaces. My academic research on aesthetics allowed me to explore some materials and media with dancers involved in creation on stage and in public space. Studying dance and choreography today, might be also an asset to capitalize :smiley:

Research : it seems I have already mentioned few things about the research we have done in Ouaga during the preparations for the project Pocket Park, I will create a post and insert a link here later.

Have a great weekend!

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Hi all!

Balloon here :smiley:

I won’t be able to attend the first meeting - as I’m currently in South Korea working on a project and Thursday is our opening night!!! I’ll catch you all in two weeks. So here are some notes :smiley: Thinking of you all!!!

Theme : parallel stories/narratives, kalidescope city, who’s city? many sides of the two sided coin, space between

Ideas/Project : I want to build some type of maze or labyrinth out of various colours of string/yarn. Each colour represents a unique story. The players/audience can follow that string to experience the story…not sure yet how the story will be told, perhaps images/cards attached to string. Where stories intersect will be a special playing point.
Cities really blow my mind - there are so many people who experience them in such diverse ways and yet they all co-exist. I’m also very intrigued how such divergent pathways manifest different beliefs, behaviours and politics. ie: the ‘left’ and ‘right’ sides of the gun debate in the USA

Skills : Music - if you need guitar or piano recording/composition I can help! Writing/Facilitation - I can draft up some narrative and bring it to life for you, Movement, theatre performance skills/acting

Research : see these awesome maze photos from some books Bagel had as a kid! Especially the last one for two people.
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Excited by all these ideas … and very jealous of Bagel’s book selection growing up!
Here goes for some initial thoughts…

Theme:

  • I’m interested in how to see public space as a co-conspirator rather than as something soley owned/possessed collectively … Combining animism and street furniture … Thinking about our own bodies, others’ bodies and the ‘bodies’ of objects within urban space.

Ideas/Project:

  • I too am hoping to create a non-competitive game that does not have the mechanism of winning (although I like to make games where there is a clear endpoint that fits with the logic of the game).

  • I’ve been thinking of making a game to be played in urban space that merges elements from a couple of existing games (quoits and human pyramid) in a way that could explore the themes above. I got excited seeing Mark Leckey’s new artwork that overlaps motorway underpasses with standing stones and ley lines. I started thinking about how past civilisations poke through our own, which ended up with the idea of something that plays with the dual meaning of the word quoit (a hoopla/the horizontal stone on the top of a Stone Age structure) and encourages physical interactions/collaborations/balancing with existing physical structures in the urban landscape.

Skills:

  • I’m from a visual art background, so have some experience of fabricating 2D and 3D things out of a range of materials, also small-scale event curation/management.

  • Gamewise my experience has tended towards creating situations that take a familiar dynamic but which encourage people to break established behavioural conventions.

Research:

  • I can put links elsewhere too for further discussion, but there’s this art residency in Georgia not so far from Rustavi that could be an interesting place to develop ideas together before a final game presentation? http://www.garikula.com/en/mission/

  • I couldn’t find any relevant existing events in Lisbon to piggyback on, but if there was a strong wish from people to do something here I’d be happy to try to organise something ourselves.

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Heeeeey! :star_struck:

:nerd_face:
Theme:
Borders / Limits / Visible&Invisible / Coexistence / Collaboration

Ideas/Project:

  • Seing the City as a playground I would love to explore the possibility of creating a game that is based on the one hand on Observation and on the other hand on Co-creation.
  • The game would be more of a playful experience of discovering the city (sensorial) and a progressive creation of a narrative among the players. I eliminate the option of a competitive game! But I would love to have a physical object or intervention as a result of playing the game, and ideally have a different result everytime.(open-ended).
  • Rooftops: I am in love with the idea of creating a game/playful experience specifically for rooftops. I find it a great place for observing and discovering the city. I find it also interesting that being on a rooftop gives you another perspective of the here/there and you have both the sensation of being part of the city but also outside of it (since you can observe very far).
  • The idea I have so far is a card game with guidelines and commands but also using tools (e.g.binoculars, stationary, maps).

Skills:

  • Architect/Urban Planner : interested in life between buildings, public space, sustainable mobility
  • Organised local art and community festivals
  • not experienced in game design. I designed simple playful/interactive installation for festivals

Research:
Last month I joined a group with trainees from the branch of Amsterdam and Athens and the idea is to co-create a game including participants from all the branches. Costas from Athens had posted a message in the platform calling for people who are interested and I joined cause I prefer working in a group. Especially cause it optimises the learning process. Now I am considering creating a small individual project with the themes/ideas above and also keep working with the team from the other branches too. However, if my themes and ideas above are interesting to someone else from the nomadic group then my “small individual project” can grow to become a “group project” too!

Talk to you tomorrow!!!:kissing_closed_eyes:

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The card game you describe reminded me of a game I tried during the Placemaking Week in Valencia last June. Here is the website :
https://www.beentheretogether.cards/

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wow I love the concept and mission of JUMP…Glad you have created a hub for it and that you are introducing different socio-cultural dimensions in your projects :clap:

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Dear All!
it was cool to hear you today!

I have developed the Pocket Park presentation with some more info and links, so that you can imagine better what we are having fun with here in Ouaga.

and now off to Mali! Ciao!

Have a great day!

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Alas, I have very little to say here as of yet!

My skills are in general game design, sound design, graphic design, and creative writing.

I have been studying game design here at MICA for the last four years and have made a variety of different games, including urban games. Those urban games have been more Boffer style LARPs, but I have also dabbled in some Nordic style LARPs as well.

My experience with sound design is mainly in soundscapes and ambience tracks, but I am beginning to dapple in more musical production (but it is too early to really list that as a skill, I would say).

For graphic design, I can design posters, logos, and websites!

And lastly, I love writing different narratives for games, and interactive fiction is a facet of game design that I particularly enjoy!

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Hi Tribe :man:t6:

Theme: I have long been obsessed with the idea of heterotopias; subtle or overt interactions of elements of Utopia and Dystopia as described by French philosopher Michel Foucault. I was hoping that I could draw these out with play and games, to ask the question what are the hidden dystopian elements that support utopias in cities and vice-versa? To give an extreme example, what do the hellish realities of maximum security prisons do for suburbs where the rich are free to raise their children? What interactions could these have and how can we make these more visible and felt through the play and game? It is not meant to be some kind of critical artistic commentary on disparity but rather an appreciation of how these two stark themes co-exist to “drive the engines of civilisation” as Hegel would put it.

Ideas/project: I am not entirely sure about this but I was initially toying around with an idea to make a city treasure hunt game with some speculative futurism baked into it. The treasure hunt structure would help guide the player through a series of experiences that might lead them to feel “heterotopic” impressions of areas they’re exploring. In order to make the game more interesting than the garden variety treasure hunt I wanted to use a wearable technology (vest) that uses haptic feedback to guide the player. So the player only knows where to go by way of small vibrations that they feel on a vest. Vibrations on the right shoulder mean turn right. These vibrations would be sent to the vest from a second player that can see the active treasure hunter as a dot on a map. I would like for the two players to be complete strangers. The whole thing would be tied together by some engaging narrative like "travel back in time to stop Trump’s parent’s from meeting at an undisclosed restaurant in [insert hipster restaurant in dodgy neighborhood] ".

Skills: I can somehow code and make electronics stuff, my strength is thinking about cool shit and I read a lot of transdisciplinary science and cyberpunk. Would love to work with anyone with similar thoughts or just people want to make something cool and fun.

Research: No research yet but my next step would be to see how I can make a lo-fi prototype of the whole thing to see how enjoyable it could be. So my approach here would be to first make something fun and then imbue it with all the philosophical rationalisations later. Would love to collaborate with anyone who loves cyberpunk themes of high-tech and low-life.

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