PLAYFUL ARTS FESTIVAL MAGAZINE URBAN PLAY
‘PLAYFULNESS IS THE SHORTEST ROAD TO HAPPINESS’ 1
CONTENTS
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EDITORIAL
CURIOSITY
AM I TOO POLITE?
URBAN PLAY
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PLAYFUL FOR ALL
THE CITY GOT HACKED!
AN IMAGINARY HAT
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THE COMPLEXITY OF INTERACTIVITY 26
CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS
PLAY IN THE DARK
WHITE MINI EXPLOSION
COLOPHON
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EDITORIAL
In the summer of 2014 something strange happened in the town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch (NL). Groups of people got stuck to each other, walked backwards, made strategic plans to find an angel and became leaders of the weirdest things like ‘sand’. Is this strange or unusual? Or could this be a permanent state of mind, a way of living? Playful Arts Festival strives to give people more joy in life and connect them with people they don't necessarily already know. We like to give everyday routines a new perspective by creating extraordinary experiences in which audience members play the most important part. Thereby inviting participants to share experiences and thoughts on the value of collaborative play.
all ages and nationalities. Through surprising cross overs between art, play and interaction we invited participants to push boundaries together with others. In this magazine you will find articles bringing back the energy of the festival, as well as contributions by writers who emphasise its significance in the emerging field of playful culture and its relevance to the contemporary art festival circuit.
This magazine is an outcome of our second Playful Arts Festival. We made a joyful and in depth program in June 2014 with physical games, workshops about interaction and public space, performances, night games, talks and live music. With the theme Urban Play the historical city of 's-Hertogenbosch turned into a playground for people of
Iris Peters and Zuraida Buter Curators and founders Playful Arts Festival
Our story continues. With this magazine, with open calls, workshops, talks and special guests at different events, we are working towards a new festival with inspiring artists and designers, and we’d like you to become part of this process. Let's play together!
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An invitation to come play sounds like something from my childhood, a blast from the past, but nonetheless still a flattering message. Playful Arts Festival promises to turn the city of Den Bosch into a playground for people of all ages and nationalities and make them experience things from a new perspective. Don’t think about playing a game of chess this weekend, no, it is all about interactive performances, art installations you can walk into, game designs that revolve around you and inspirational speeches about playfulness in innovation and creativity. Like the performance of Nina Boas, who invites visitors into her ‘Conversation Game’ at the exhibition in the Willem II Factory.
A project she has been developing for a while now and that she has given a special twist for the festival. The basis is a game with one visitor at a time, that gives Nina input for drawings. Which she than records, samples and projects, creating a mix of real-life and her own imagination.
Nanda de Block
THE FUEL FOR PLAYFULNESS 4
The power of play and interaction for Nina comes from curiosity and the element of surprise, coincidence will determine the final result. An obstacle within interaction she noticed, is patience. Not everyone is invested enough to ‘play’ from start to finish. Therefore she tries to build in different levels of discovery, fragments that make her work accessible and rewards all types of curiosity. In this piece for example, the first discovery appeals to the visitors’ curiosity of ‘what is going on’, this might trigger the audiences’ wish to join in.
SHE GAVE HER PROJECT A SPECIAL TWIST FOR THE FESTIVAL
Photography: Monique van de Wijdeven
The second discovery is that of the process. How does the sampling work? How will Nina bring the input of her guest to life? I agree with Nina! The Playful Arts Festival triggers my curiosity and I’m sure it will do so on all kind of levels and for all kind of People. Me, I am like a kid again eager to go out investigate and discover!
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AM I TOO POLITE? This Saturday morning, the amazing 72-year old Bernard – Bernie – de Koven (USA, Game Designer, Lecturer and Author) pointed out to his audience, including me, that playfulness is in our genes. Through time though, we learn to suppress it, or be considered childish. That’s why most of us grow up polite, not afraid to play a game, but to play it with conviction and let out our inner playfulness.
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Photography: Monique van de Wijdeven
Nanda de Block
O
During his inspired talk, Bernie tries to illustrate this by small intermezzos of play. Try greeting all attendees in a different way. No simple handshakes, but bows, hugs, winks or anything you can come up with. It is eye-opening to see everyone having so much fun and greeting eachother in extravagant ways under mister de Koven’s supervision.
PLAYFULNESS IS A STATE OF BEING, A WAY OF LIFE!
How then, could it be that when I visited the exhibition afterwards, I seemed to suffer again from this politeness in me? I thought I wasn’t that restrained and quite a participator actually, but still I felt hesitant to start a game when it looked fun but there was no one else playing. Sounds silly right? Luckily I got over it very soon. I remembered Bernie’s words: playfulness is a state of being, a way of life! Also there were a good deal of people there that did take the lead and I just jumped in and really really really enjoyed myself! The festival did a great job of lowering the threshold too. The exhibition is inviting through the works presented as well as by the way they are set up. The people, the works, the location and Bernie’s words in the back of my mind, together they were almost visibly saying: ‘let’s stop being so polite and discover the power of playfulness.’ A dynamic that was unique and surprising and an advice that I will take close to heart.
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Richard Lemarchand
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Photography: Sef Receveur
URBAN PLAY AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF PUBLIC SPACE
Along with storytelling and toolmaking, the playing of games is an ancient cultural form that almost certainly predates settled agrarian communities, and perhaps even the advent of spoken language among humans. The past thirty years have seen the meteoric rise of video games as a pop-cultural phenomenon, and we now find ourselves in the middle of a game Renaissance rooted in newfound expressivity and expanded, diverse perspectives. One of the most vibrant and intriguing domains of contemporary art practice now lies squarely in the world of the game designer.
Much contemporary “art game� work lies at the exciting boundary between play and physical space: in the privacy of our homes, the volumes of a gallery and the geography of the street, all kinds of social and public space are becoming psychically charged at the invitation and interventions of game-designing artists. Festivals that present games and play in a contemporary art context are still quite rare. So I feel very fortunate to have attended 2014’s Playful Arts Festival, which was unquestionably a historic event. Festival directors Zuraida Buter of zo-ii and Iris Peters of Wave of Tomorrow exhibited a wide and deep selection of playful contemporary artwork from around the world stage, displaying great knowledge and confidence in their choices and juxtapositions. The enthusiastic reception and reviews that the festival received from its attendees is a testament to the very high quality of the work shown, and the participatory framework in which is was located.
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Approachable, joyful works like Chantal de Wolde’s Deer and Viviane Schwarz’ innovative physical game Treasure Maze indicated the immense artistic and egalitarian possibilities of tangible play design. Participatory performance art was well-represented at the festival, between Dansnest’s wonderful collaborative dance piece KLIK, the Indie Bird Game Collective’s romantic and gently subversive Lovebirds, the intimate artwork-producing performance of Nina Boas’ Conversation Game, and the inventive, body-stimulating use of PlayStation Move controllers in Edgar Rice Soirée by Thomas Perl, Douglas Wilson, Adam Henriksson and David Kanaga. Meanwhile, cutting-edge work from HKU, The Utrecht School of the Arts, explored the boundaries between the digital and physical world, with projects like Distant Friend, a remote-controlled human avatar, and uMove, a gigantic game controller designed for multiple players to vigorously rock and bounce their way through virtual worlds. Urban play and the transformation of public space were powerful themes of festival, with works like Blast Theory’s acclaimed Dial Ulrike And Eamon Compliant, Plantación
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Revolucionaria’s delightful game of flower-planting, Speed Gardening Guerrilla, and the nighttime pursuit adventures of Weeping Angels by Philipp Ehmann of the play:vienna collective. There are so many more wonderful artworks in the festival that I could mention, but one final celestial highlight was Nathalie Pozzi and Eric Zimmerman’s Starry Heavens. Originally developed for a show at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, this beautifully presented
large-scale art game elegantly combines rich, rules-based play and accessible participatory art to create a profound and reflective experience of personal space, social relationships, hierarchical power and revolutions of identity. As well as presenting work, the festival also provided a unique locus of community for this emerging field, including workshops and presentations by and for a wonderfully inclusive range of practitioners, critics, fans, educators, students and the public. The game designer and author Bernie De Koven, whose work with the New Games movement we use in the USC Games program as an exemplar of highly innovative, transformational and far-reaching play design, traveled from the United States to be present, providing a clear indicator of the importance and value of the festival. I’d like to thank Iris Peters, Zuraida Buter, the participating artists, the staff of Wave of Tomorrow and the festival volunteers for making the Playful Arts Festival possible in 2014, and I hope very much that the festival will become an annual event. Its location in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, accessibly close to important European centers for the playful arts, makes it an ideal location, and I look forward very much to experiencing more of the best of the playful arts in Den Bosch.
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THE WAY I TANGO
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Photography: Zuraida Buter
by Pieter Verhees and Tet van der Donk
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Photography: Monique van de Wijdeven
CONVERSATION GAME by Nina Boas
Photography: Zuraida Buter
by Bernie DeKoven
KNOTS
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POP UP PLAYGROUND
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Photography: Zuraida Buter
by PAF14 Participants
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Nanda de Block
It offered a strong combination of specialization and depth, as well as a lot of engagement and fun. I experienced it to be very easy to get something valuable out of this festival and I think it will suffice to say that many different types of visitors did too.
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Photography: Monique van de Wijdeven
When I walked up to the Willem II Fabriek for the Playful Arts Festival earlier this year, I couldn’t yet imagine what would happen the minute I stepped in. The festival had left room for my imagination, without creating specific expectations on forehand. This was a very good starting point, because PAF seemed to be surprisingly good in stimulating amazement, but also satisfying different needs as a visitor.
I have been to my fair share of exhibits, festivals and alike in the Netherlands and beyond. It is no surprise that they all have their own characteristics and angle, that’s how it should be and what makes them interesting next to each other. On one hand there are festivals that try to open up art to the broader public, people that don’t usually see interactive arts. Think of lightfestivals, like the ones around Eindhoven or Amsterdam and how about the many Museumnights? They are a lot of fun to visit and experience, but if you are looking for that extra edge, that extra piece of information, you will most of the time go home disappointed. They focus on the introduction, the amazement. Other festivals try to open up art by cross-programming more mainstream performances or music with artistic projects, provoking curiosity and engagement through fun. Here as well, most of the time the introduction seems key. On the other hand, of course there are festivals that do combine and search for more depth. A lot of them though, seem to focus on ‘the industry’ and art lovers. It can be safely said that programming a festival for art lovers or a more general public are two different things.
At PAF there were many people in the audience who attend arts academies or work in the creative industry, of course, that’s just how that works. But I also saw families with small children, teenagers and I even spoke to a guy who was just there to drive someone, but got caught up himself. There were parts in the program that were a good introduction, there were parts that gave a lot of depth. But the interesting part for me, was that both seemed to be equally accessible and interesting or fun to all. The scale, the attendance of a lot of the artists, the big & enthusiastic crew, the open talks, and the combination of projects in public space and at Willem II. It created a balanced mix. I was delighted by PAF, because I share this vision and always try to search for this balance myelf. It is exactly why me and my colleague Shevia Limmen started a digital magazine called DOTS, discovering and sharing a world of bold creativity. Arts can open a person up to a lot of new ideas, new futures and it can inspire anyone. Letting someone experience projects, giving them an open vibe and telling them the story behind it, in my eyes can be a source for immense energy and knowledge.
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Photography: Zuraida Buter
Monique van de Wijdeven
Whilst wandering through the center of Den Bosch city during the Playful Arts Festival, you might be surprised to find yourself suddenly in the middle of an interactive game such as Heroes of Today. While devouring a McKroket at the market square a spy might recognize you as a superhero in disguise. Secretly they take pictures of you – but you very well know what is happening. With these pictures the spy is trying to prove your existence. Alternatively, you may have just left the station and get curious about the phone number on a nearby wall. You decide to call. Before you know it you are in the middle of an adventure in which you have to make important decisions. Around noon you walk through the Lepelstraat. Nothing is happening there, apparently... But then a group of people start walking backwards, while keeping the straightest faces ever. Farther down the road you meet more people using the public space as a playground. With chalk they make a track of strange symbols on the road. Then, before anyone can blink they run away!? You decide to go along with all this strangeness because this might be a reality that is much more fun than normality!
VERRE VRIEND by Ernst-Jan van Melle, Richard van de Lagemaat, Ruben van Barneveld and Gerben van Melle
BEFORE YOU KNOW IT, YOU ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ADVENTURE!
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AN IMAGINARY HAT
It is an overcast and drizzly afternoon. I am on my way to the Willem II Factory in Den Bosch. Today is one of those typical Dutch summer days that could use a little more color. A bit of playfulness would be nice as well.
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Photography: Monique van de Wijdeven
Jim Strolenberg
KLIK by Dansnest
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Photography: Monique van de Wijdeven
When I arrive at the factory it is still a buzzing bee hive. Rarely did I see an event which did not include last minute stress. But hey, let’s say that’s all just part of the game! I wander around on the second floor, taking in the scene. It looks promising: big screens, creative light objects and many switches and handles in just as many colors. I am wearing my ‘playful mindset’ -hat, so I am more than ready to play with all of this. Suddenly we are all called over. It appears the floor we are on cannot be used for the festival for now. This is a big blow for the organization, in this last half hour
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before the start of the festival. The search for an immediate solution is intense and they find one! The opening of the festival can take place on the first floor and people can go and visit the second floor’s exhibition in groups of ten. Well, visit, of course I mean they can go and play with the exhibition! Iris Peters and Zuraida Buter, the two organizers, kick off the festival. They explain the unexpected situation to the audience. The people cheer them on and applaud.
THE BEAUTY OF GAMES IS FOUND IN THE EFFECT THAT THEY HAVE ON PEOPLE.
Eric Zimmerman comes on stage. He is the author of Rules of Play. I had imagined him more like a professor. But this American guy has a friendly vibe and speaks eloquently and with a hint of provocation about games. ‘Games are central!’, he says, and ‘Let us be snobs about games!’. Those are just two good one liners from this passionate game designer. What touches me most in his talk: ‘Games are beautiful’. The beauty of games is found in the effect that they have on people.
Dansnest closes the evening with an interactive dance performance. On every beat of the music they change pose. And the beats come faster and faster. Everyone holds a strange object. It appears as a slide show that is being played at high speed. Then the audience is invited to dance/perform along. An old lady poses in total surrender with a watering can in her hand. The rules are simple and effective. And the effect is beautiful. ‘Games are beautiful’, I think to myself. And I imagine the old lady with the watering can and a funny hat on..
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Photography: Zuraida Buter
TREASSURE MAZE by Viviane Schwarz
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SLAM OF THE ARCADE AGE
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Photography: Zuraida Buter
by One Life Remains
EDGAR RICE SOIRﾃ右
Photography: Monique van de Wijdeven
by Thomas Perl, Douglas Wilson, Adam Henriksson and David Kanaga
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Coming into Den Bosch during PAF14, I knew about the collective called Blast Theory and was excited to visit the talk by Matt Adams that kicked off PAF’s Inspiration Day. By presenting three of their projects Matt completely engaged me in the complexity that comes with interactive projects. Why and how do you get people to interact?
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Photography: Blast Theory
Nanda de Block
As a lover of interactive arts and a frequent festivalgoer I knew some things artists deal with, like the investment and attention-span. But Matt opened my eyes to much more dimensions that come with designing an interactive piece. How do you create an environment with agency for the participant but enough context for the piece? How do you invite your players, so that they feel safe to share their personality or thoughts? How do you converge game and real life? And more!
Especially the moral dilemma that he highlighted in the end of his talk caught my attention. Every interactive work has one, and according to Matt it is not about how the player acts to this dilemma, but why she acts like she does. And this ‘why’ is supposedly subjected to a lot of things that I would have never even thought of! Matt mentions a different approach to the dilemma when the game is not in your native language. A new appreciation for the interactive artist and the good interactive project for me.
HOW DO YOU CONVERGE GAME AND REAL LIFE?
DIAL ULRIKE AND EAMON COMPLIANT by Blast Theory
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CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS ieke trinks & Bernard Roddy
Thursday, June 19, from Bernard’s journal
At the shelter for the homeless this morning ieke met Abdelghoui from Morrocco, a handsome young man who looks to be about 25 years old. Abdelghoui was sitting with a friend visiting him, a man who is also Morroccan. Abdelghoui and ieke made arrangements for him to be paid in exchange for performing the occupy action. He will receive 25 euros at the beginning and 25 at the end. ieke is writing out a receipt for him to sign after the action so that she can be reimbursed from festival funds. The evolution of the calls - who agrees to perform, how ieke has met them, the circumstances of the arrangements - seems to reveal something about the original ideas for the four performances, which ieke conceived independent of any socio-economic considerations. I think it is important that it is ieke’s thinking that encounters the Other. There is therefore an advantage to my not speaking Dutch. Something we needed has taken place. ieke said she felt a change in herself. Between 15:30 and 16:30 Abdelghoui stood on the train platform at the central station in Den Bosch and R, as far as we know, met Bram and his family in Empel in order to listen to their doorbell.
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06_ sound recording_Bureau for Legal Advice_2014-06-18
ieke:
What would you think if you were asked to participate in something? Would you agree quickly, or would you do it because of who the person who asks you is?
Woman:
If I were extremely bored or if I could be a great help to the person asking because I happen to have a lot of time on my hands, and if it is the right moment. But I would like to be able to really see the purpose in it.
ieke:
Because you don’t see the purpose in, for the, uh . . .
Woman:
Yes, the point is to want to fulfill the instructions and to show you are willing to spend your time on it. Give this to someone who has time, maybe for example a homeless person!
ieke:
Oh, that’s a good idea. Yes, I hadn’t thought of that. But where can I find them, are there many of them?
Woman:
A lot, here at the open house at the Hinthamerstraat in the center of town, there you can find people.
ieke:
What is the address, because I find this to be good advice.
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Photography: Sef Receveur
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CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS by ieke trinks & Bernard Roddy
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Iris Peters
The Skatehall is transformed into a dark labyrinth. Little lights peep out of the darkness. On. Off. There is the murmuring of peoples voices. ‘We must stick together!’ is the tactical cry of a group of players in search for the little black angel. A voice yells from the side, ‘Don’t forget to call out when you die!’. Up and down diagonal lines form the playground of the Play in the Dark game Weeping Angels. A group of at least 50 people left the Willem II Factory around midnight, marching to the World Skate Center. 20 people can play the game at once.
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Photography: Sef Receveur
The group is divided into teams and they get a short amount of time to discuss tactics. There is the starting sound! One group searches for the treasure, the statue of the dark angel. Another group hunts them down in order to eliminate them. You freeze the moment a flashlight finds you. The group that finds the dark angel wins. The euphoria is immense!
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by Jim Strolenberg
I am on foot walking to the Lucas square. The sun is shining. I arrive at a little playground where people sit peacefully together in a circle, crossed legged on the grass. They are passing on a tap on the knee. Every hand sits on its neighbors knee. One tap on the knee passes the tapping on and away. Two taps makes it come back. I sit at a picnic table and watch the game.
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A little old man takes off one of his shoes. That’s Bernard DeKoven, aka ‘Bernie’. He introduces the next game. He gives his shoe to his neighbor on the right and says: ‘I give you a potato.’ Then he bends over to his left side and tells his other neighbor: ‘A what?’ And to the right again: ‘A potato.’ ‘A what?’ A potato!’ ‘A what?’ ‘Oooooooh! A potato!’
Photography: Monique van de Wijdeven
WHITE MINI EXPLOSION
GOD DESIGNED PUNCH by Cateringa & Kompanen
‘And that’s the game.’ Bernie says. I wonder where the game is in all of this. Until he asks everyone to take off one shoe and give it a name. Any name. Bernie introduces a beat, a rhythm and everyone starts to pass on their shoes at once. Chaos, laughter and the flying around of unintelligible names of shoes are what’s happening. There is the game! The pieces come together for me now. I had this same experience of ‘pieces coming together’ when I walked around the exhibition at The Playful Arts Festival. I stabbed an apple from a horn-shaped basket on a long spear. I held the apple high with the spear and put it into a cube that was hanging from the ceiling. A second later the apple fell out of a high mounted tube. It went all the way down into a vegetable grater with a bowl of powdered sugar beneath it. A white mini explosion on the floor! That was a magic moment. I happily walked out the place with my white sugared punch apple.
...THE MUSIC, THE PEOPLE, THE LOCATION. EVERYTHING COMES TOGETHER.
That night was the ending of the weekend. I walk through an alley and find myself in a little patio next to the city museum where my eyes fall upon a wonderful scenery. There is drinks and laughter. There is live music and people playing the game Starry Heavens by Nathalie Pozzi and Eric Zimmerman. It is an endless game that you can participate in as long as you want. I can easily join in and play along. I give it my all to stay in the game but unfortunately I am out after three rounds. But that’s okay. I enjoy the scene, the music, the people, the location. Everything comes together. Like a white mini explosion caused by an apple. A what? An apple.
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COLOPHON
STARRY HEAVENS by Nathalie Pozzi and Eric Zimmerman
PAF MAGAZINE #1 Concept: Zuraida Buter, Iris Peters Photography: Zuraida Buter, Sef Receveur, Monique van de Wijdeven. Design: Het Eiland Graphic Design & Illustration www.het-eiland.com Text: Nanda de Block, Richard Lemarchand, Iris Peters, Jim Strolenberg, Monique van de Wijdeven, ieke trinks & Bernard Roddy Translation: Leonie de Bot Translation editors: Jonatan van Hove, Alice Randell PLAYFUL ARTS FESTIVAL Urban Play took place from 19 to 22 June 2014 in ’s-Hertogenbosch (NL). The festival featured interactive workshops, an exhibition, talks and performances at the Willem II Factory and play throughout the city centre of ‘s-Hertogenbosch.
PARTNERS Stedelijk Museum ’s-Hertogenbosch, Poppodium W2, Grafisch Atelier, Willem II Fabriek, GlOW Music, Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht and DOTS Digital Art Magazine. SPONSORS/FUNDS Gemeente ’s-Hertogenbosch, Mondriaan Fonds, Stimuleringsfonds voor de Creatieve Industrie, SNS REAALfonds, VSB fonds, Hermes Cultuurfonds. PLAYFUL ARTS FESTIVAL IS AN INITIATIVE OF THE ORGANISATIONS WAVE OF TOMORROW AND ZO-II. Website: www.playfulartsfestival.com Twitter: @playfulartsfest Facebook.com/PlayfulArtsFestival Vimeo.com/playfulartsfestival
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Photography: Sef Receveur, Zuraida Buter / Coverquote: Bernie DeKoven
Special thanks to all PAF partners, participants, colleagues and everyone who made PAF a wonderful celebration of playfulness.