From a session at the Next Library 2015 conference:
"During this playful and energetic session, you will get to try various games such as Turtle Wushu, Massive Multiplayer Thumb-Wrestling and maybe the (almost) famous Danish Clapping Game. We will also engage in an intense “play jam”, where participants get together in small groups to create a game or play activity in a short amount of time. You will learn how how easy it is to start making very simple, yet very engaging games and play activities in a way that can easily be adopted in most settings.
The session is framed as a conversation about the role playfulness as a catalyst for transforming libraries"
3. This is what I’m most proud of: The
CounterPlay Festival
#NextLibraryPlay
4. We build on the claim that
playfulness is important everywhere
& for all people!
#NextLibraryPlay
5. The Plan
#NextLibraryPlay
When you
play, plans
may
change!
10.00-10.10: Introduction
10.10-10.30: Let’s Play!
10.30-10.45: A bit of background
10.45-11.15: PlayJam
11.15-11.30: Wrapping up
27. "it's wrong to think of playing as the
interruption of ordinary life. Consider
instead playing as the underlying, always
there, continuum of experience”
(Richard Schechner)
#NextLibraryPlay
29. “To play fully & imaginatively
is to step sideways into
another reality, between the
cracks of ordinary life”
(Thomas S. Henricks)
#NextLibraryPlay
30. “playful behaviour and playful
thought can generate radically
new approaches to challenges set
by the physical and social
environment”
(Bateson & Martin)
#NextLibraryPlay
31. Playful people does not
seek order or equilibrium,
embrace the constant
movement
#NextLibraryPlay
32. “Playfulness means taking over a
world to see it through the lens of
play, to make it shake and laugh
and crack because we play with
it”
(Miguel Sicart)
#NextLibraryPlay
33. What does this mean – for
libraries & all of us?
#NextLibraryPlay
34. The most important thing is not more games
or (amazing!) playgrounds or…
#NextLibraryPlay
52. #NextLibraryPlay
I also mentioned:
• Bernie DeKoven
• Brian Sutton-Smith
• Copenhagen Game Collective
• JS Joust
• Ludocity
• Miguel Sicart – ”Play Matters”
Editor's Notes
Around 2012, I started thinking a lot about these things, and I started considering what to do.
I wanted to create a space, where people could explore not just games, not just play, but the notion of playfulness. I wanted many different people to come, and I wanted a space, that was in itself playful. Not just talks, not just workshops, not just an expo, but a playful atmosphere and strangers meeting in play.
With the festival and the more recently founded NGO, we assume that being playful is important in education, in our jobs, in culture, and in our lives in general.
We care less about games and play than we do about the way humans are humans with each other.
That’s the core of it.
What happens when people’s attitude towards the world is a playful one? What happens when you cultivate communities around playfulness?
It’s too big, I know. It can’t be answered. In fact, I think it’s a mistake to look for one answer, one solution. We need to keep experimenting, that’s all we can do.
As an important note, I consider libraries absolutely central in this effort along with formal education and other initiatives.
…but why ”playfulness”, many people ask.
Why should we care about ”play”?
Why challenge the widespread notion that play is for children? That it’s the antithesis of serious business?
It’s too big, I know. It can’t be answered. In fact, I think it’s a mistake to look for one answer, one solution. We need to keep experimenting, that’s all we can do.
As an important note, I consider libraries absolutely central in this effort along with formal education and other initiatives.
”he world faces global challenges, which require global solutions. These interconnected global challenges call for far-reaching changes in how we think and act for the dignity of fellow human beings””
I’m really inspired by this. It just feels even more pressing these days, but what can, in general, be more important than improving the conditions for more people to create the life they want?
…but why ”playfulness”, many people ask.
Why should we care about ”play”?
Why challenge the widespread notion that play is for children? That it’s the antithesis of serious business?
I came into this field thinking games had a huge potential impact on the way people learn. I was very optimistic just 7-8 years ago, I even decided to become self-employed & try to build a career on that belief.
…but, sadly, games are not the ”silver bullets” some people (me included) have been hoping. Games are not shortcuts to better learning or, as other would have you believe, changing the world.
If we simply use them as tools, little will change.
Like in this picture, games often make people turn to the screen and forget what happens around the screen. What are people actually doing? With the game? With each other?
That’s what’s interesting. Like a person I admire (Miguel Sicart) says: don’t make games, make people play.
That’s my hypothesis, at least.
Based on experience, research, conversations, a lot of playing and a lot of staring into thin air, thinking about it, I’m as convinced as ever.
It’s not about having fun, or escapism or easy solutions. It’s about the very, very hard task of being human.
Take this recent photo of a Danish policeman and a little Syrian girl.
It’s a pretty harsh situation, but the sincere playfulness of both of them creates a strong bond. I don’t think it’s escapism as much as a shared experience across a big cultural divide. That girl is probably one of the refugees who actually feel welcome here.
First: playfulness is not something with a beginning and an end.
It’s also not limited to children, and it’s not merely training for life.
It’s a part of a life. An incredibly important part of being human.
Play and being playful is a lot of things, and nobody has been able to define it in a satisfying manner.
As Brian Sutton Smith wrote: ”when it comes to making theoretical statements about what play is, we fall into silliness”
That’s part of the allure of playfulness.
Play opens the world. Play challenges the world we think we know, allows us to see it in another light.
Play is questions.
In a more specific manner, play is often linked to innovation and creativity. Basically, we can’t come up with new approaches to ”saving the world” with playing with ideas.
Being playful is engaging in an oscilating movement, back and forth. Being playful is accepting paradoxes and accepting both order and disorder.
Playfulness can inspire us to not simply accept status quo.
It can support the idea that every single one of us can take over (part of) the world.
I’m very interested in the subversiveness of play. I want to go out and make the world crack.
Games are great, games are a part of our culture and I definitely think they should be made available by libraries. I also love the playground surrounding this building, and I absolutely hope more libraries would create physical spaces for play. We shouldn’t forget our bodies!
…but that’s not what it’s about or where you should focus your effort.
My argument would be, that libraries become better equipped to staying as important as ever if they’re adopt playful approaches and attitudes.
If you agree that ”being playful” is an ideal, how do we get there? How do libraries, as part of their core effort, help people become more people and – consequently – better equipped to be in this chaotic world?
If you agree that ”being playful” is an ideal, how do we get there? How do libraries, as part of their core effort, help people become more people and – consequently – better equipped to be in this chaotic world?