Talk – 7 comments
Freedom to Play – Urban Procedural Rhetorics
How to make arguments through play in public space and why the real-time city changes the game.
Freedom, to me, is freedom to play, wherever, whenever, and with whatever I want. Will the real-time city provide this freedom? Or will it make play impossible?
Games can be used to make arguments in a ‘procedural’ way. You create a dynamic model of the point you’re trying to get across, and offer it to players for them to explore. In real-time cities, people can be aware of and react to events that they cannot see, using pervasively deployed sensors and handheld devices. Naturally, people can use these technologies for play. (They already are!) Play for fun, of course, but also play to resist, play as activism - urban procedural rhetoric.
I have some fun stories, some meaty game design theory, and a bunch of sketched concepts to share and get your feedback on. You might find this presentation useful if you’re working on mobile/ubiquitous technologies, if you’re working in games or if you’re politically inclined.
7 comments
Thanks! Slides?
After a few day of decompressing my reboot10 impressions, this is my favourite session. Exciting ideas presented with well designed slides. Very "rebooty" to me.
BTW: Are you planning to publish youre slides? Would be great!
Flash Mob / Flash Party Idea
Hi Kars,
It's Chris Comella. I was at your talk and asked you about unintended consequences (not to discourage of course, but as an interesting thing to consider). Anyway, I loved your talk... so many points I can't list them all. The Amsterdam blank banners, UK UFOs, ARGs, your mobile app/game idea, and Parkour (loved your idea about inviting the founder).
Along the lines of Urban Procedural Rhetorics, ARG, and your mobile app/game, I have got a whacky idea I wanted to run by you. FlashParty.org and FlashParty.mobi are two domain I registered for the idea, which came to me Friday night outside of the Reboot after party at Vega.
A couple of Danish guys (unrelated to Reboot) showed up across the street from Vega with a homemade battery-powered and wheel-mounted music system. They started shouting about "free beer." I was one of the first to go say hi to them and sure enough, they were handing out free beer to get the party started. Then more and more people came and collections were taken up and more beer was acquired and sold at cost. It turned into a huge street scene. A flash mob / flash party. See video clip I made: www.veoh.com/videos/v145284205ycXRRqM.
See this link for more of my thoughts and comments on the general concept:
buzzpal.com/flashparty/forum/index.php?topic=2.0
Anyway, I thought of a game/app/ARG where members register for a mobile web app. The concept could be developed in many ways, one of which is this:
-Members register and download the app to their phones (with GPS or other geolocation technology)
-Members tag beverage stores (good places to buy beer) and good locations to have flash parties (perhaps locations without cameras, but central to the critical mass (see below).
-The app tracks members locations and when enough are in a similar vicinity a critical mass / critical state is formed and everybody in that location gets an alert, saying the Flash Party has gone critical mass in their vicinity, would they be interested in forming a flash party. They ping the app back yes/no (and maybe what they can bring (music/beverages) to get it started.
-Based on the tags (and maybe what people say they can bring -- beer for example), the app calculates and ranks the top three (or whatever) suggested spots for the flash party and stores to buy beer.
-The app asks people to vote on the preferred location. There's a 15 minute (or whatever) voting window. Most votes wins and people are notified. They then confirm their participation and spring into action.
-A flash party develops.
Well, that's the general idea. It could be done in various ways and this original idea can be morphed, but it just seemed kinda cool to me.
What do you think? I personally don't have to time, money, or technical ability to drive something like this, but I'll bet if this app was developed and promoted, it could be a lot of fun. An ARG kind of thing.
Any interest in playing with this idea with me, bringing in others, possibly doing it?!
Cheers,
Chris
Corrected video clip link (had a dot at the end)
Thanks
Rebooters, thank you all for the kind words! I am happy to have contributed in a positive way to your Reboot experience. I will post the slides ASAP, but for now, please have a look at a previous version of this talk (practically the same) over at my blog:
leapfrog.nl/blog/archives/2008/05/27/urban-procedural-rhetorics-transcript-of-my-twab-2008-talk/
Great!
Absolutely loved this presentation. Do I need to go into the details now?
However, a bit later I will go into the details and write my too bits about it and about what it inspires in me.