Scott Eberle: Birth of the Strong National Museum of Play & What is Play?

I was recently introduced to Scott Eberle (not personally). Scott is the editor of the American Journal of Play, and he is also the Vice President for Interpretation at the Strong National Museum of Play. In the course of Googling him, I came across his TEDx* video chronicling some of the history of the Strong National Museum of Play.

The majority of Scott’s presentation centers on wrestling with a single huge question — what exactly is play? He presents a framework for appreciating its subtleties and complexities, attributes and benefits.

TEDxRochester — Scott Eberle — 11/02/09: [youtube]

Once we were all experts at play; as children it was our preoccupation and our main mode of learning. Play was the way we built our muscles, and it was through play that we knitted our friendships. Through play we learned to navigate the social world. We learned the rules. And play helped us imagine our future. Even if we did not grow up to be Jedi knights, or beautiful princesses we learned to envision adult power and responsibility. But imaginative play and rough and tumble play, because they are the work of children, tend to slip beneath our notice as adults. 

Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning.

* In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a new program that enables local communities such as schools, businesses, libraries, neighborhoods or just groups of friends to organize, design and host their own independent, TED-like events.

Superclogger: Rush Hour Puppet Show

Rush Hour Puppet Show:

Joel Kyack, a Los Angeles based artist, is using puppetry to help rush hour commuters stave off boredom. Kyack’s new project, Superclogger, presents puppet shows out of the back of a pick-up truck to drivers stuck in traffic jams. A soundtrack to the puppet show will be broadcast to the viewer’s car stereo. If you live in the Los Angeles area, check Superclogger’s twitter site which gives daily updates on the mobile puppet show’s location.

GAMBIT Research Video Podcast: “Game Design Meets Therapy”

From the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab Video Podcast:

In this episode, GAMBIT Postdoctoral Researcher Doris Rusch explains the research goal behind her summer 2010 game project based on clinical depression.

Doris’ game project is based upon a number of premises. Excerpted key ideas:

• “Depression is the opposite of play”
• “Play is facilitated by security and a sense of personal perspective (meaning)”
• “‘Healthy’ / ‘happy’ means experiencing agency; having some control over one’s life”
• “Depression is loss of many things, among others ‘agency’ — one is turned from agent to victim
• “Gameworld = emotional landscape”
• “Normal object goals: meaning offered by outside world (nogs). They provide a sense of security and stability…”
• “Special object goals: strong emotional resonance. They represent personally meaningful goals / perspectives / interests (sogs)…”
• “Together, nogs and sogs build the basis for ‘play’ and enable the highest level of agency”

Note the Ice Cream

Cool (har) technology to solve the age old problem of getting free ice cream. Pretty fantastic — except for that whole collecting demographic information thing.

Share Happy vending machine dispenses ice cream for a smile (and your soul):

The brainchild of Unilever (the company that owns Ben & Jerry’s, Good Humor, Breyers, Klondike, and Wall’s), Share Happy is a $20,000 Sapient-built ice cream vending machine that takes your picture, using facial recognition to determine if you’re smiling and Photo Booth-esque features (superimposing “funny hats, a mustache, glasses, bow tie, afro hair, things like that,” on your mug) to coax you into smiling. And once it determines that you are smiling, it gives you a free ice cream treat — but not before collecting valuable demographic information by analyzing the image for things like gender and approximate age and asking you to sign away your likeness for promotional use.

See the Share Happy in action [flash video].

Come Out & Play Festival 2010: Get Your Play On (bring your handheld gadgets)

Come Out & Play has been running since 2006. At the time of this post the 2010 weekend event includes 40+ different events and games; the variety and creativity and fun is spectacular. I’ve tried several times to write a sentence that somehow captures it; I got nothing. Go. Look through the list. Then shake your head a little and note the smile on your face.

What I can easily highlight is that a number of the games and events require handheld personal technology like GPS units and smartphones. This is further evidence to me that we are on the cusp of a new trend of technology-infused play that will be both very social and intimately linked to real world settings.

Come Out & Play Festival 2010:

We’re very excited to announce that the Come Out & Play Festival is coming to Brooklyn in 2010. The festival will run June 4-6, 2010…

Come Out & Play helps people rediscover the city around them through play. The festival offers a chance to explore new styles of public games and play. We show how much fun can be had by combining elements like GPS, sidewalks, chalk, smartphones, kickball, SMS, capture the flag, bluetooth, and treasure hunts in a dramatic urban context like New York City. Best of all: the games we feature are not just for kids (though kids are of course welcome)!

Why street games? Why a street games festival, you ask? Fair questions. Well, we like innovative use of public space. We like games which make people interact in new ways. We like games that alter your perception of your surroundings. But most importantly, we think games are great way to have fun.

Each year the Come Out & Play settles in a different neighborhood and explores the limits of play and games in that space. We’ve played among the galleries of Chelsea, played amidst the thriving nightlife of the Lower East Side and navigated the throngs of tourists in Times Square. This year the festival lands in Brooklyn to explore a new set of challenges. We will explore the potential for play in a converted 100-year old bathhouse. We will find ways to engage a residential neighborhood like Park Slope with games. We will discover the playful uses of a post-industrial swath of warehouses and canals like Gowanus. And we’ll make games from the rich texture of a historic public cemetery like Green-Wood.

(via Bernie DeKoven)