After further reading of 'Alien Phenomenology or What it's Like to be a Thing' and the conversation during yesterday's tutorial, I been looking into the author, Ian Bogost. I watched an interview he did for Chicago Humanities festival discussing his book 'Play Anything'.
Bogost, I (2017, July 24). Play Anything [Video]. Chicago Humanities Festival. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRx8X8nMlo0
Throughout the interview he explains about his theories and ideologies around the concept of 'play', 'fun' and 'games'. He describes 'play' as the 'process of manipulating the capacities of something' - to use anything within its capabilities, and therefore play applies to anything. He also suggests that, 'if dance is the aesthetic to human movement, and literature the aesthetic of language, then games are the aesthetic form of material constraints'.
The interview provoked me to think about my last university project, the research centre for technical textiles in which I placed a lot of emphasis on the contrast between work and play. In the interview he speaks about the relationship between the two - and how thinking about work and play as opposites is, in his opinion, 'dooming' - that when play is seen as the manipulation of limitations and constraints, you realise that they are not opposites... you can make even the most menial tasks fun through turning them into a game. He references heavily that 'play' is an experience. The concepts he is discussing here made me think about my current project and how I can take precedent from my previous project. In the future I am proposing that we are posthuman - in the sense that we are merged with technology, and aim to create multi-sensory experiences - if I work on the notion that play is an experience, then maybe certain streets of Huddersfield become games that we see through our posthuman lens.
Maybe the streets are low footfall, or maybe they are popular commuter routes. Then the journey becomes a kind of game - taking 'arbitrary and pointless moments' and turning them into a problem to be solved, turning them into an experience. In terms of the building - if these games concentrate on providing an experience and are based around problem solving, I can relate this back to climbing - a sport in which problem solving is one of the core concepts. The same concept could be adopted for some other sports - skiing? How would I incorporate the technology into this building? The idea needs developing further/thinking about in more detail.
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