ITU launches new Center for Digital Play
The new Center for Digital Play at the IT University of Copenhagen will serve as base for research in computer games, creative AI, design, and digital culture.
Anders Sundnes LøvlieHanna Elina WirmanLisbeth KlastrupMiguel SicartPaolo BurelliAbout ITUDigital Design Departmentartificial intelligencecomputer gamesdesignsocial media
Written 24 October, 2022 11:31 by Theis Duelund Jensen
On November 24, ITU will host a launch event for the university’s new Center for Digital Play. The event will take place on campus and will feature talks by head of the center Miguel Sicart, as well as Associate Professors Paolo Burelli, Hanna Wirman, Anders Løvlie, and Lisbeth Klastrup.
According to head of the center, Miguel Sicart, Center for Digital Play builds on the already established success of the world-renowned Center for Computer Games Research which Sicart has led since 2020. Central to the new center is the concept of play as a way of understanding technology, society, and culture.
“The center is based on four research groups that all tackle digital play and the way play informs technological, societal, and cultural development,” says Miguel Sicart. “Our hypothesis is that play is at the very core of digital life and culture. This is obviously the case in gaming culture, but it is also true for many other aspects of how we interact with technology and act in the digital worlds we inhabit.”
The four research groups attached to the center are Games, which will continue to focus on computer game related research, Creative AI Lab, which will focus on Machine Learning and AI by examining fundamental AI problems, Media, Art, and Design, which specializes in digital technology in the culture industry, and Digitalis which examines digital life and social practices online.
Relating to machines
”In the center, we will be working with technological as well as cultural aspects of digital play,” says Miguel Sicart. “One of our core strengths is that we are an interdisciplinary center comprised of researchers working in the fields of humanities, social sciences, and computer science. We all have a common goal which is to understand technology and society through the lens of play.”
The way in which we interact with the digital technologies that surround us demonstrates how play informs our world. “Take smartphones. If you own an Apple device, you may ask Siri to tell you a joke and she will. Why is that? Telling a joke is in no way required for a phone to be functional. The reason is that it helps establish a relation to the device. It ceases to be a thing and becomes a projection of your own personality,” says Miguel Sicart.
That is also why research into play as a “relational mode of being” is important. It is much easier to accept data collection in connection with, for instance, facial recognition if the way we interact with the technology is via funny, customizable filters on a social media platform. Miguel Sicart hopes that the Center for Digital Play may add ethical perspectives on the development of technology:
“The ethical side of digital play is very important to us all in the center because play may be instrumentalized and used to legitimize problematic technological practices. Ultimately, we hope to help nuance our collective understanding of what it means to inhabit a digital world like ours.”
Theis Duelund Jensen, Press Officer, tel: 2555 0447, email: thej@itu.dk