Pervasive Play

A series of posts exploring the increasing presence of gameplay merging the virtual and physical.
These posts are from my journal on MA Multi-Disciplinary Printmaking. 

I will be posting new articles each day. To keep up to date with posts please follow the blog - see the right sidebar.

In this series:

1. Intro
2. What is Pervasive Play?
3. The New Aesthetic
4. The Internet of Things
5. Affective Gaming
6. Around the Table
7. Big Games
8. It's Not All Fun & Games
9. Keeping it Fun

Intro
We have been seeing an increasing presence of gameplay that brings together the virtual and physical in the attempt to lead to improved play experiences and memories.

The types of outcomes discussed in this series of posts are specifically created by artists and artist groups who are using play as part of their practice and experimentation. A game should be considered an artform.

Due to the interactive nature of gameplay, an artist is not always delivering a message or a story, but the player is given a platform to create and respond with their own ideas and outcomes from the base provided by the artist. This is where my interest in the subject begins. I am making links between gameplay and digital art practice, where artists use developments in technology and question the way we work and the tools we use.

There are no set definitions of pervasive play and it is clear that ideas are varying from different people - including myself! With this there has been experimentation, testing and lots of fun projects pushing the boundaries of what pervasive play can be.

The idea of Pervasive Play is not new. The aim of this series is to outline and share my research working towards a project proposal based around games as art. If you are interested or are working on something similar please get in touch.

The examples used are within the last 12 years. From a technological point of view this timescale does not make this research entirely recent. However, as a whole they form a strong base of understanding where the themes have come from and where they are growing.

Read more at Part II – What is Pervasive Play? 

Interested?
Please let me know by commenting, tweeting or getting in contact.
To keep up to date with posts please follow the blog - see the right sidebar.