Lizzie Wa Design

Plan this week: 

• Look at context 
• Process and methodology 
• Work out my Aim, Objective and Purpose
• Define my Audience
• Explore the history and theory underpinning my project idea 
• Think about logistics and resourcing plan 

Deciding on my question

Despite being slightly uncertain if my question was the right path for me to take, I decided this week to commit to the exploration of play as a way to help people reconnect in a post pandemic world. I often find deciding on a project the hardest part, as there are so many options and it hard to know if you’ve selected correctly. But now I have decided to take this idea forwards I am excited about beginning to research and investigate the subject further.  

Competitive Context

I started to explore other designers who work in the field of designing for play.

Mikiya Kobayashi create a playground for adults and children alike. It was designed to be welcoming and encourage playfulness. A special soundtrack was composed especially for Playscape by Japanese sound designer Masato Hatanaka, to create a happy playful atmosphere (De Klee 2018). I think the idea of bringing sound in to the design is very interesting and something I had been considering already. 

Sound often creates powerful emotional responses in people that others senses can’t create. So it will be interesting to explore the role sound could have in my project further. 

On Space Time Foam

https://studiotomassaraceno.org/on-space-time-foam/

This exhibition by Studio Tomas Saraceno encourages adults to engage with it and play. 

“At the HangarBicocca in 2012 , Saraceno conceived a large transparent membrane (which he amusingly calls la lasagna ) that visitors can get into. Folded in three layers, it is suspended at 25-metres above the ground, providing a radical bodily experience.” (Mind the Interior 2019)

Numen/for use 

Numen/for use create instillations that inspire interaction and play. They create large hanging structures in different materials that allow people to climb through and explore inside of them. 

Playful benches

Turning something as ordinary and practical as a bench into an experience and a way to make someone smile. I like this idea but fee like it could be taken even further to make the benches into things you have to interact with and play with. Or translating this idea of making ordinary and practical items into items for play.

Corita Kent

Believed in a playful design process. Befriending a child and seeing the world through their eyes. 

“It does not matter that this is all familiar territory—the same house, the same rug and chair. To the child, the journey of this particular day, with its special light and sound, has never been made before. So the child treats the situation with the open curiosity and attention it deserves,” she continues. “The child is quite right.” (Corita and Steward 2008). 

Another piece of advice is to look long and hard at shadows cast by familiar spaces and forms: “After about five minutes you will probably think you’ve seen everything. But then after 15 or maybe 27 or maybe 58 minutes, it’s like an explosion and you see thousands of things you never knew were there.” (Corita and Steward 2008)

She told her students to carry  piece of cardboard with a rectangular hole cut into it, so they could look through it and curate their own views without distraction. 

She believed the best solution to creative block was play. She created the word “plork” to show the importance of it to her. “We tend to think of play as abstract, without a goal, and somewhat irresponsible—while work suggests a goal, is specific, and honorable,” Plork is the combination of the two. (Gotthardt 2017)

“Make a toy. Make it something you want to play with—just to please you.”

(Corita and Steward 2008)

If you are able to find joy and beauty in the everyday world, the creative spirit will be freed and art will flow. 

“Playing allows you to slip into working, from which you can easily slip back into playing,”

(Corita and Steward 2008)

“Then come those marvelous and rewarding moments when you are making and you are not conscious of thought or anything outside.”

(Corita and Steward 2008)

Greyson Perry

“Art is serious play.” 

(Perry 2013).

“a chance for children to glimpse their own creative power.” 

As we get older it can be harder to create because we become more self conscious

“I lost my ability to play at the same time I made the decision to be an artist.” (Perry 2013).  

Creating a project plan

I looked back at my project plan for GDE740 to remind myself of how I created it. 

For that plan I took inspiration from Peter Phillips ‘Creating the Perfect Design Brief’. I like how he split the project into phases and then clearly listed what would be achieved during that phases.

“Sit down and make a list of all the apparent barriers to your success”

Peter Phillips (Phillips 2012)

I found that this worked as a good basis for my project plan last time so I think it would be a good place to start again for this project. However I found my plan last time was not quite specific enough, so this time I will try and add more content into it. 

My research question 

In a post-pandemic world, how can play help us reconnect with others?

Aim, objectives and purpose

My aim for this project is to help people to reconnect after the isolating affects of the pandemic using the bonding effects of play. After two years of being isolated from each other, increased feelings of uncertainty and worry, many people have found themselves changed by the pandemic. We are currently in a very different time and navigating uncharted waters as we try to return to normality and reconnect, while feeling at time unsure how to do it again. My project aims to explore this issue and find ways of helping people to reconnect and play. 

My objectives with this project are:

• I want my project to reach people without them having to search it out. 
• I want it to bring a smile to peoples faces and entice them to interact with it in some way. 
• I want them to leave the design feeling a bit happier and more connected than they felt beforehand. 
• I want to help to remind people how to connect. 

The purpose of this project it to reduce feelings of loneliness, isolation and anxiety around social interaction in adults. To help improve their lives in a small way and bring them some fun and happiness. 

Audience

My audience for this project may become more defined as I explore the subject area further and decide to focus on a more specific area. To start with however, my audience for this project would be adults of any age who have felt the isolating affects of the pandemic and want to feel more connected with others.

People who have become more isolated since the start of the pandemic. Possibly due to increased home working, group activities being cancelled, feelings of fear and anxiety. 

For example. Young adults who have missed out on social interactions while at college and university. New parents who have been unable to join parenting groups. 

History and theory

Play has long been explored as an interesting idea by creatives. One example of this is the innovative creative teachings of Corita Kent. There is a lot of research into play as an idea, the benefits it has on children and on adults and its often overlooked importance to our lives. There is also a lot of research around about connection and loneliness and the effect this has on us. I plan to bring these ideas together to explore how play can be used to boost feelings of connection between adults. In a world that is slowly emerging from a pandemic that forced millions of us to isolate from friends, families and colleagues this project will explore how to support people in coming back together. We are still in many ways in an unprecedented time where we must now try and find our way back to the way we used to live, but where we also have the opportunity to evaluate and if needed to rewrite how situations are approached. 

Framework and methodology  

The methodology I plan to use during this project will be based on researching through play and iteration, influenced by Eric Zimmerman’s process based methodology (Zimmerman 2003).  I also plan to use Corita Kent’s idea of ‘Plork’ within my process whenever possible, utilising play and a playful way to approaching my question and ideation process. 

Research 

I plan to undertake my research in a variety of different ways and within a few different areas.

I plan to undertake a significant portion of research myself, as I am looking at something so focused on right now, there will not be much research about pandemic and post pandemic experience for me to draw from. I also think that interacting with others throughout this project will help me to create a really relevant and exciting outcome. I plan to collect this research:

• Through play itself – trying activities and evaluating my experience of them
• Watching and observing others at play in public spaces
• Interviews with people about play and connectivity during and post pandemic
• Asking others to play and interviewing them about their experience 
• Interviewing people about the barriers that stop them from playing
• Speaking with industry experts if possible. 

There is a lot of research around play and human connection that I will be able to explore. 

I will look at books, journals and articles around the subjects of:

• The effects of play
• The importance of connection 
• How people connect with each other successfully 
• The links between play and connection
• Specific lack of connection during the pandemic 
• How designers utilise play. 

I will then use what I have found to create a research-based written submission alongside my designed outcome. 

Logistics and Resourcing

I am still unsure as to what my outcome will be as I plan to let my process of research and exploration direct me towards the best outcome for my question. 

Potential issues/obstacles 

• Difficulty in finding a good outcome to create 
• Difficult to measure the sense of connection people feel  
• May struggle to realise my outcome if it turns into an instillation or exhibition of some kind

Define Play

An important part of this project will be defining what play means to me and what definition or area of play I plan to use throughout my project. 

Play – Verb.
To engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose.  – (Oxford languages) 

Johan Huizinga defines play as “irrational” (Huizinga 1950)

He says the four main characteristics are

1. Play is a voluntary act- its free and , in fact, is freedom.
2. Play is not an “ordinary” or ‘real’ activity
3. play is secluded and has limits (time and place) it begins then its over. it can also be repeated.
4. play creates order; it is order.

this is summed up as the “magic circle” a space where people can think and behave differently to how they would normally. Its an activity with no material interest and no profit. (Huizinga 1950) 

Roger Callios – defines play as:  “play is free, seperate, uncertain, unproductive , governed by rules and make believe.” (Caillois 1962)

He defines four types of play.

• Agôn – competitive play where you either win or lose.
• Alea- a game of chance. agon is about skill and this is the opposite – its randomness and fate
• Mimicry – defines by imitation and pretend- dominant category for young chidlren. this kind of play has no boundries.
• Illinx- when player is in some type of vertigo or disorientation. (Caillois 1962) 

Both of these definitions come from over 50 years ago when play was very different to how it is now. With the rise of digital play and the ‘metaverse’ the kind of play I am interested in is much more similar to the ideas of Huizinga and Callios. I am interested in physical, real world play. Play as a state of mind and a way of interacting physically with the world and with other people. 

Ethics review

Looking over the integrity and ethics handbook, I competed the checklist to see what level of risk my project had. 

Research Ethics Review Check List
Part 1: High risk categories
Will your project involve clinical trials? No
Will your project involve the use of human blood or other human tissue? No
Will your project involve administering any drugs, placebos, food stuffs or drink to participants? No
Will your project involve the participation of NHS and/or Social Services staff, patients, equipment and/or facilities? No
Will your project involve participants who are particularly vulnerable? (e.g. refugees, prisoners, victims of violence) No
Will your project involve participants who are unable to give informed consent? (e.g. children, people with learning disabilities) No
Will your project risk causing psychological stress or anxiety or other harm or negative consequences beyond that normally encountered by the participants in their life outside research? No
Will your project involve actively deceiving the participants? (e.g., will participants be deliberately falsely informed, will information be withheld from them or will they be misled in such a way that they are likely to object or show unease when debriefed about the study) No
Will your project involve accessing and/or storing data that comes under the Official Secrets Act and/or poses a risk to National security? No
Is there potential for your project to have unintended harmful consequences (e.g. military use of technology / ‘weaponisation’ of artificial intelligence)? No 

Part 2: Medium risk categories 

Will your project involve participants? Yes
Will it be necessary for participants to take part in the study without their knowledge and consent at the time? (e.g. covert observation of people in non-public places) No 
Will financial inducements (other than reasonable expenses and compensation for time) be offered to participants?  No 
Will your project involve collecting participant data (e.g. personal and/or sensitive data referring to a living individual)? Yes 
Will your project involve accessing secondary data that is not in the public domain (e.g. personal data collected by another user)? No 
Will your project involve accessing commercially sensitive information?  No 
Could your project have negative environmental impacts (e.g. disturbance of natural habitats; damage to, or contamination of, buildings/artefacts/wildlife) No

My project looks to be relatively low risk, but as I want to include other people within my research and development process, I need to submit and ethics review and create a consent form. 

Ethics Review Form: 

Consent Form: 

Draft Project Proposal

I combined the above information into a draft project proposal to submit for feedback.

Reflection

Deciding on a question to take forwards for this project was difficult but an interesting process. From working out what i am interested in and what kind of subject i would enjoy researching, there was a long way to go to ensure i could craft that into a good research question that would set up a successful project. Not looking forward to the outcome of my chosen project feels quite strange and unsettling as it cases worry that i wont find an interesting outcome. However, I am committed within this project to not jump ahead and thinking of an outcome until I have undertaken a decent amount of research and explored processes to help with creative ideation.

Reference list

CAILLOIS, Roger. 1962. Man, Play, and Games, Etc. London: Thames & Hudson.

CORITA and Jan STEWARD. 2008. Learning by Heart : Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit. New York: Allworth Press.

DE KLEE, Katie. 2018. “Adults and Children Encouraged to Play in Mikiya Kobayashi’s Whimsical Park.” Dezeen [online]. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2018/08/19/playscape-mikiya-kobayashi-playscape-tokyo-japan-design/.

GOTTHARDT, Alexxa. 2017. “How to Free Your Creative Spirit, according to the 1960s’ Most Radical Nun.” Artsy [online]. Available at: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-free-creative-spirit-1960s-radical-nun.

HAM, Derek A. 2016. “How Designers Play: The Ludic Modalities of the Creative Process.” Design Issues 32(4), 16–28.

HUIZINGA, Johan. 1950. Homo Ludens a Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press.

MIND THE INTERIOR. 2019. “WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER STOP PLAYING – Playscapes for Adults.” Mind the interior [online]. Available at: https://mindtheinterior.com/playscapes-why-you-should-never-stop-playing/ [accessed 12 Feb 2022].

PERRY, Greyson. 2013. I Found Myself in the Art World. BBC Radio 4. November 5, 2013. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03g9mn1 [accessed 12 Feb 2022].