Friday, January 24, 2003
Hard Fun
Karlin Lillington's Wired article Who Says Science Can't Be Fun? describes a Media Lab event called "Hard Fun," explaining that the term came from "a small boy trying to explain the difficult pleasures of programming a Lego Mindstorms robot."
I think that the idea of "Hard Fun" may be key to understanding what the Media Lab is all about.
"It's not that play shouldn't be fun, but at its best, play is in fact a lot more. Play is really the wellspring of activity."
This is the message of Kenneth Haase, acting director of MIT's Media Lab Europe in Dublin.
In a way, it's a sad commentary on our culture that we have to justify fun in terms of anything other than itself. In another way, it's a powerful and well-grounded observation, especially coming from such a well-funded academic R&D center like the Media Lab, where it clearly and consistently pays to play...as long as something comes out of it.
Lillington goes on to quote MIT Media Lab founder and chairman Nicholas Negroponte: "As a lab, we've always looked at playing as one of the most proficient means of learning and acquiring knowledge."
As a person, I've always looked at playing as one of the most proficient means of having fun. Not to belittle learning and acquiring knowledge. They, too, often prove to be proficient means of having fun.
OK, OK. Any validation of fun and play is of great value in a culture where fun and play require validation. And the fact is that the kind of fun being had in the Media Lab has resulted in incontrovertible evidence that fun of the hard kind can be a most profitable endeavor.
"As an example," Lillington notes, "Negroponte pointed to a chair with special body sensors designed by MIT students for a magic act in Las Vegas. That technology has now been worked into about 60 percent of baby seats for cars."
Lillington also cites composer Tod Machover, who has worked with the MIT Media Lab to develop a series of innovative Music Toys. "We've lost many of the aspects of what it means to put together the concepts of 'play' and 'music.'" This is a profound and poignant observation from someone who has in fact created some wonderfully tangible testimony to the play-music connection.
I seems to me that, as a culture, we are on the brink of losing our connection to play itself. From banning free play and playground access to chronic overscheduling, we are removing ourselves further and further from our source. Machover and Haase and Negroponte, with their validation of Hard Fun, are contributing a great deal more to our society than innovative technologies. Hard Fun might prove to be the only kind of fun that our culture can readily embrace.
Thanks to CoWorker Gerrit Visser for the link.
I think that the idea of "Hard Fun" may be key to understanding what the Media Lab is all about.
"It's not that play shouldn't be fun, but at its best, play is in fact a lot more. Play is really the wellspring of activity."
This is the message of Kenneth Haase, acting director of MIT's Media Lab Europe in Dublin.
In a way, it's a sad commentary on our culture that we have to justify fun in terms of anything other than itself. In another way, it's a powerful and well-grounded observation, especially coming from such a well-funded academic R&D center like the Media Lab, where it clearly and consistently pays to play...as long as something comes out of it.
Lillington goes on to quote MIT Media Lab founder and chairman Nicholas Negroponte: "As a lab, we've always looked at playing as one of the most proficient means of learning and acquiring knowledge."
As a person, I've always looked at playing as one of the most proficient means of having fun. Not to belittle learning and acquiring knowledge. They, too, often prove to be proficient means of having fun.
OK, OK. Any validation of fun and play is of great value in a culture where fun and play require validation. And the fact is that the kind of fun being had in the Media Lab has resulted in incontrovertible evidence that fun of the hard kind can be a most profitable endeavor.
"As an example," Lillington notes, "Negroponte pointed to a chair with special body sensors designed by MIT students for a magic act in Las Vegas. That technology has now been worked into about 60 percent of baby seats for cars."
Lillington also cites composer Tod Machover, who has worked with the MIT Media Lab to develop a series of innovative Music Toys. "We've lost many of the aspects of what it means to put together the concepts of 'play' and 'music.'" This is a profound and poignant observation from someone who has in fact created some wonderfully tangible testimony to the play-music connection.
I seems to me that, as a culture, we are on the brink of losing our connection to play itself. From banning free play and playground access to chronic overscheduling, we are removing ourselves further and further from our source. Machover and Haase and Negroponte, with their validation of Hard Fun, are contributing a great deal more to our society than innovative technologies. Hard Fun might prove to be the only kind of fun that our culture can readily embrace.
Thanks to CoWorker Gerrit Visser for the link.
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