PhD Course - Material Play

Organiser(s):
Miguel Sicart

Lecturers:
Bart Simon – Concordia University
Miguel Sicart – IT University of Copenhagen
Anna Vallgårda – IT University of Copenhagen
Katriina Heljakka – Aalto University, Finland

Date(s) of the course:
23-25 April 2014

Time:
9:30-16:00

Room:
TBA

Course description:
This course will explore the relations between materiality and play from a multidisciplinary perspective. Material Play will explore how humans use materials to play, and what characteristics of materiality are more readily used in play activities.
The course will explore topics on toys and interaction design, the sociology of material play, and interaction design as material practice. In a world in which play is increasingly becoming the dominant interactive form of engagement with materials and technology, we need to understand the relation between the creative, appropriative activity of play and its material roots.
The course will propose readings ranging from critical design research to sociology of play and material studies, with the purpose of providing a broad overview of the topic and how it influences different research disciplines.
The course will also serve as a forum for interdisciplinary conversations. To ensure this, the course will not only have plenary discussions of the participants’ papers, but also a workshop in which the participants will explore and engage with the creation of material play in different forms and contexts, from toys to aesthetic objects.

Program:
This is a temporary program. Days 1 and 3 might be exchanged.

Day 1.

• Keynote: Bart Simon
• Plenary discussion of the texts proposed as course bibliography.
• Keynote: Anna Vallgårda
• Pleanary discussion of student papers

Day 2.

• Keynote: Katriina Heljakka
• Plenary discussion of student papers
• Talk: Miguel Sicart
• Closing plenary discussion

Day 3.

• Material Play workshop

Reading list:
(Please notice that each of the keynote speakers will be requested to propose three-four book chapters/journal articles, and so the final reading list will likely change)

• Bekker, Tilde, Janienke Sturm, and Berry Eggen. "Designing Playful Interactions for Social Interaction and Physical Play." Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 14, no. 5 (2010): doi:10.1007/s00779-009-0264-1.
• Bekker, Tilde, Janienke Sturm, and Emilia Barakova. "Design for Social Interaction Through Physical Play in Diverse Contexts of Use." Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 14, no. 5 (2010): doi:10.1007/s00779-009-0269-9.
• Blackford, Holly. "Playground Panopticism: Ring-Around-the-Children, a Pocketful of Women." Childhood 11, no. 2 (2004): 227-249.
• Costello, B, and E Edmonds. "A Study in Play, Pleasure and Interaction Design." In Proceedings of the 2007 Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces. 2007.
• Dourish, P. "The Appropriation of Interactive Technologies: Some Lessons From Placeless Documents." Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 12, no. 4 (2003): 465-490.
• Eriksen, M A, P G Krogh, and M Ludvigsen. "Playful Interaction." In Proceedings of the First International Conference on Appliance Design. 2003.
• Heljakka, Katriina. "Principles of Adult Play(fulness) in Contemporary Toy Cultures." PhD, Helsinki: Aalto University, 2013. https://www.taik.fi/kirjakauppa/images/24c546c61f7b7002e89865511c158d10.pdf (accessed 2013).
• Henricks, Thomas S. "Orderly and Disorderly Play: A Comparison." American Journal of Play 2 (2009): 12-40.
• Kozlovsky, R. "Adventure Playgrounds and Postwar Reconstruction." Designing modern childhoods: History, space, and the material culture of children (2008): 171-90.
• Lauwaert, Maaike. The Place of Play: Toys and Digital Cultures. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009.
• Piaget, Jean. The Moral Judgement of the Child. Simon and Schuster, 1997     
• Waern, A, E Balan, and K Nevelsteen. "Athletes and Street Acrobats: Designing for Play As a Community Value in Parkour." In Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2012.      

Exam:
Participants are expected to submit an 8000 word paper a month prior to the course. Failure to submit this paper will disqualify a participant from earning ECTS points.

Credits:
4 ECTS (based on the requirement of a full paper submission)

Amount of hours the student is expected to use on the course:
Participation: 19,5 (6,5 * 3)
Preparation: 54 (estimated based on required full paper submission: 1 ½ weeks of work)