A few moments of our Trust in Play Graduation Night: lovely faces we missed, crazy hybrid moments and spatial online experiments
Mike Driver

Product Placement

祝日 / Permanent Vacation

oozey mess
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occasionally subtle

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izzy's playlists!

Andulka
wallacepolsom
Cosimo Galluzzi

Origami Around
RMH

titsay

JBB: An Artblog!
Xuebing Du
noise dept.
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taylor price

tannertan36

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@morethangames
A few moments of our Trust in Play Graduation Night: lovely faces we missed, crazy hybrid moments and spatial online experiments
A research on Microaggressions @ students with disabilities in greek universities
I am very proud to be part of this consortium of dedicated and passionate researchers. Being in this project and interviewing students with disabilities on their experiences doesn’t only make me a better researcher, but also allows me to consider my own responsibilities. Responsibilities as a perpetrator of microaggressions towards my students or colleagues. Also Interpretative phenomenological analysis allows me to work with my own biases regarding experience, every single time. It’s Goffman’s Frame Theory allover again, my brain is recalibrating.
creating games all by myself (I wanna be)
People sometimes introduce me as a video game designer, which I super quickly deny. I have helped in the design of more than 25 games, some funfunfun games, some educational, some artistic ones. I have designed playful experiences, but when it came to software I always felt I wasn’t good enough to be called a designer. Even though I had co-designed and sometimes developed more than 10 edu video games. I always had a huge fear in designing and finishing smth of my own. Quarantine and this gorgeous people from the online course Getting Personal: A Hands-On Guide to Making Personal Games organised by the School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe on April 2020, changed that. So it has begun and here are my wee creations, with moremoremore to follow soon.
The premises were all wrong… A pandemic that pushed everyone at home in front of a screen The first days of good weather Multiple Timezones Host the event in a weekend But we decided that we could organize the longest zoom ever anyway: The Solstice’s Games Party was on. The idea: to stay together 10 hours (a marathon) share the result of the last six months of work and resilience by the Nomadic Trainees, open up room for experiments by participants, create rituals together, and have fun! ...
The magnificent matteo_uguzzoni wrote his thoughts on the marathon online Trust in Play Solstice’s Play party with a treasure of insights on hosting open and playful online events, taking care of community and reflection
On Tuesday, March 24, Trust in Play hosted an online game jam to keep our creative juices running, get together and explore how to make the best out of some of the new realities of Coronaworld. Around 25 participants connected via zoom, formed teams to work in smaller groups, assembling at the half way point …
Apply now to become part of Trust in Play – the European School of Urban Game Design!
Are you interested in taking on a major role in the design of urban games and playful experiences in the near future? Are you a recent graduate or emerging cultural practitioner in game & interaction design, urban planning & architecture, activism, art or a related field?
Become a trainee of Trust in Play! As a trainee, you will
join the international training week in Athens in Oct 2019 (travel expenses covered)
receive local and e-training by experts in urban game design, urban planning & cultural organisation as part of one of the three branches of the school (Amsterdam, Athens, and Nomadic)
create your own urban game in a small team with, mentorship, production & development support over the course of 1 year
Trust in Play supports emerging professionals in the field of urban game design, mentoring them to build a sustainable practice and playfully exploring new relationships of trust in cities.
Since 2011 I have been dreaming of a school on urban games design that will focus on the needs of the city and its creatures. In 2019, Trust in Play: European School of Urban Game Design is waiting for your applications!
I am so grateful for the great support of Goethe Institute Athens and our talented and partners, the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Innovathens, Resilient Athens and Edgeryders.
Shared with Dropbox
Click on the title and grab the Resources from a Games Based Learning Workshop for Educators at Stegi in Athens - January 2018
Εργαστήριο εκπαιδευτικών | Παιχνίδι και Εκπαίδευση: παίζουμε, σχεδιάζουμε και αξιοποιούμε | Εισαγωγή στον κόσμο των ψηφιακών παιχνιδιών και της σύγχρονης εκπαιδευτικής τεχνολογίας
~*~ Update ~*~
εργαστήριο “Παιχνίδια στον χώρο: σχεδιάστε συναρπαστικά «υβριδικά» παιχνίδια με τη βοήθεια της τεχνολογίας”
Eris’ log: Autumn Communities
This autumn, seems like a “community weaving” autumn. I think a lot about the different communities of support in our work and daily life. About the different beautiful nods of supportive individuals that weave these different networks and allow us to move forward, to catch a breath when we most need it and heal when the lessons are too hard.
After three weeks of intensive heat, training, sharing and bonding with different types of communities (on creativity and youth empowerment) in Luxor, I flew briefly to Athens to be a supportive node myself and then flew again to Brussels for the kickoff of a new project. I wanted to write down some of my thoughts, before they dissolve. Or maybe so as to allow them to form something new.
Spiralling In September
In Luxor I had the joy of sharing my days with local creative facilitators, listening to their stories and observing the support they offer to one another and to the community. It was a transformative experience for me, it still is, as I process their stories and their openness. As I process my own stories and my own authenticity. Subtle revolutions that work in different levels of understanding and becoming. Connections with older processes and current realisations.
Later on, during the international meetup, the energy shifted to different types of communities, more networking, but still tenderness and tender individuals that support or bring communities together. It was fascinating for me to observe all these bubbles of cooperation, sharing and creativity, throughout cultural differences, gender roles and points of entry. However it was clear that the first week with the local team, provided me with many different insights on the different layers of community building and individual support. The importance of taking care of the individuality within the team, sometimes more than the team itself. The importance of taking care of yourself before taking care of the others, allowing this process to take me along with them to another step. The importance of allowing ourselves to wait, fail and be brave to take another step. You cannot spiral out without making some brave steps within, right?
Spiralling Out October
In Athens I was just in time to say goodbye to a friend that is leaving Greece and is a node of different communities herself. We have found ourselves meeting up and supporting one another in different groups over the years and I have been always admiring her passion , authenticity and deep involvement to every different community. These 4 days, I was also extremely happy to host a dear friend from Argentina that I met a year ago in an intensive academic experience in NY and we have been supporting each other since. Spending time with her was not only a gift, but a reassurance of how lucky I am to meet once and then meet again so many beautiful, giving people.
Leaving back my small tribe in Athens I flew to Brussels. The kickoff was supposed to be a bureaucratic informative meetup, however again it revolved around fostering communities (this time artistic communities). Got me thinking a lot on the notions of creative expression and freedom we need to allow to ourselves and to the networks and tribes we build. I also had the pleasure of catching up with a new friend from the Luxor team. She allowed me to vocalise my thoughts about the wealth of these communities and the privilege of this wealth to us, while sharing her thoughts on the different layers of meaning and needs of these communities.
I returned to Athens were I met with a beautiful artist working with young people on open methodologies of democracy. She helped me understand the importance of feedback and trust on our work. We need a group of peers that will be there to spend time on us and be gentle yet truthful. She also shared her thoughts on the importance of ownership in these projects and on the difficulty of allowing the communities to work without you.
These conversations gifted me with a newfound problem: how to create an ethos of work with different types of communities, based on humane interactions, trust and respect, using open yet sustainable methodologies. As artists, facilitators, managers, producers, educators, designers: How can we help communities to remain sustainable in our absence? Find their own authentic center of gravity without the need for experts, mothers, leaders?
I wonder what November will bring (probably a blog update).
I am currently in Luxor, Egypt in a wonderful training experience on creative facilitation. Learning so much about creativity, authenticity, communities and playful interactions in a multicultural environment. I will share more in a following post
Digital Storytelling for women in Athens: the website
I finally got some time to cook up a website for my new baby. My latest project, is my postdoc research on digital storytelling workshops for women in Athens. I am extremely humbled by these proud and brave women. Forming storytelling circles and sharing their stories. And in these stories, authentic as they are, they reveal their fears and tenderness, while dwelling on memories and self rediscovery. What is even more wonderful, they are not afraid to share them with all of us. I have quite a few stories to upload, so stay tuned.
Art Games in Athens \o/
ART GAMES is a project of the Goethe-Institut in cooperation with Maschinen-Mensch and combines the touring exhibition Games and Politics with a series of game jams at eight stations of the exhibition across the world... and Athens is next! This means that games are developed within 48 hours that go beyond the demands of the mainstream.
The first game jam took place at the end of November 2016 in Mexico City at the Centro de Cultura Digital; the second was held in early 2017 at the Nam June Paik Art Centre in Seoul. Further stations included Boston, Novosibirsk, São Paulo and Jakarta. This year, Athens was selected as the next station and I am excited and proud for that selection, since it will take place under the umbrella of GOETHE is GAME project that I had the pleasure to curate for the past 3 years. This will be the final big event and we are all a bit sentimental about it :’-) it has been a wonderful collaboration.
If you want to get an idea of the games that have been designed so far take a pick . They look awesome and I can’t wait to see what the athenian creative crowd will come up with combining games, politics and artistic expression.
Art Games Game Jam in Athens will take place in Serafio at the 16th-18th of February and the deadline to register is until the 14th of February <3.
LABOURGAMES Game Jam #4 Berlin
Check out some photos of a recent Game Jam in Berlin, that I had the pleasure to facilitate. The jammers were teens and pre-teens, in a greek-german school and were just awesome. Even though the theme was labour and the game could only be tabletop, they came up with interesting hybrid (some augmented reality/location based) ideas and they actually put their thoughts and personal experience in them.
Worked mainly around the idea of futuristic labour situations, when robots had to face the same difficult working conditions and situations of authority and freedom seemed to prevail.
Did I mention that working with teens can be exhausting but it is extremely inspiring? One piece of advice I have to offer is: DO PLAYTEST… a lot! It is probably the time that they claim ownership and the actual game design begins. Almost the same, works with some post-teenagers_never_old_though jammers in their first game jams or collective design experiences, right?
Also Berlin and I, have a secret love affair (I am sorry Athens) and being there during the Transmediale2008 & CTM Festival, made me feel blessed (and ignore being sick… AGAIN). Now I have to be sick again, so enjoy the photos.
Shared with Dropbox
Click on the title and grab the Resources from a Games Based Learning Workshop for Educators at Stegi in Athens - January 2018
Εργαστήριο εκπαιδευτικών | Παιχνίδι και Εκπαίδευση: παίζουμε, σχεδιάζουμε και αξιοποιούμε | Εισαγωγή στον κόσμο των ψηφιακών παιχνιδιών και της σύγχρονης εκπαιδευτικής τεχνολογίας
LABOURGAMES Game Jam #1 Hamburg
Just returned from the first LABOURGAMES Game Jam in Hamburg. It was part of the PLAY17 – Creative Gaming Festival 2017. I love game jams, I love organising and participating, but most of all I think I enjoy observing jamers being lost in their craft. Creating, working and forming bonds and skills over a few days. It is always a surprise to me especially when the facilitation is so smooth and humane (kudos to the as_always_magnificent Sebastian Quack)
This game jam was based around young teenagers who worked with different labour concepts and designed digital, mobile, physical and tabletop games. Some of the games were political, expressing young designers’ thoughts regarding the dystopic future of labour and other games were more educational. I was impressed and delighted with their storytelling abilities and their co-creative ethos. So I returned with +1 hope for humanity.
You can also find some of my thoughts on this interview by the wonderful Corline van Es, our partner from Open State Foundation. Corline not only documented the Game Jam but she is also a wonderful artist, so do check out her lovely bird themed card game. And she also sketched as all, because as I said, she is wonderful.
Did I also mention that the Game Jam she organises in Amesterdam is in two weeks and I can’t wait? Did I also mention that her partner in crime is the magical Zuraida Buter? No? Well, you will get a post about it...
Few photos of our MIAS New Mexico Road Trip, just to get you in the mood (you can definitely call it a teaser)
MIAS 2017 - third and fourth week and falling in love with Cities
Upon our arrival from Boston, we started discussing about issues of cultural and social heterogeneity and taking NY as an example, with scholars and local activists. We had the opportunity to visit Harlem where we discussed about the struggles of the African-American community, Queens where we had the pleasure to participate in a local towns meeting and Chinatown for an inspiring walking and eating (oh the fruits!) tour. Themes of race, poverty, gender, social rights and current political situation were always present in these tours & discussions and it was clear that probably all of us were trying to identify commonalities or differences with the situation in our countries, or in my case with the current European situation.
The importance of creating successful communities and the need to identify and respect different narratives was paramount in our morning sessions and in my afternoon walks in NY. As you would probably imagine, from day one I have been walking up and down NY in an attempt to grasp the morning sessions’ input and the City never failed to deliver. Discussions with vendors, passers by, artists, curators, taxi drivers, new and old friends, added different levels of narrative and meaning, allowing me to demystify or many times to be re-enchanted with the City, its people and public and private spaces. Different layers of meaning, art and absolute randomness are a source of constant inspiration to the wanderer. It seems that my morning lectures were inspiring me to psychogeography endeavours, in the City and sometimes in me as well. In this point I should also speak about the High Line and my Favorite Theatre, but I will write a seperate post about my New Babylon Inspiration.
Take into consideration that we were living in Union Square (I love its diversity and artistic happenings) and I almost never used the subway at night, we were always walking back. The quality of these experiences could only be described by our silence. I was constantly amazed by the little surprises, the burst of creativity, the amount of human presence or absence just a few blocks away. A brief but heartfelt discussion with a ventor, the evening fog, an artist in the park, the discussions of young people on the subway were providing so much information and beauty. A feeling that I also encountered in Brooklyn after some weeks, when I had the opportunity to stay there.
I feel that I could write dozens of papers about my walking escapades in NY and I am sure that I would not be original in any way. It is extremely difficult not to fall in love with the obvious and not obvious public spaces oasis and the unstructured labyrinths of its structured grid. So I will leave you with some visual storytelling and continue in the next post with the unbelievable road trip in New Mexico.