igfest - Sept 10-13, 2009

igfest is Bristol's very own interesting games festival - street games, outdoor spectacles, mass social interaction, the reclamation of public urban spaces for play and adventure. Last year saw its successful birth with 23 games and over 1000 players. This year its back and is bigger better and more diverse.

Our games are different. These games are all about unique connections between people and places. We play games in and with the real world. We play games in the city, on the streets and in unusual buildings and places. Some game are high tech and some are no tech. Some games last for minutes and others hours. Some are rich and challenging and some are just senseless fun.We believe games can be as exciting and engaging as the cinema or theatre. igfest is a chance to play some of the best games from artists and game designers from across the world.

Should you need more evidence of the breadth and depth of the playfulness intimated thereby, you might note the presence of Circle Rules Football amongst igfest's panoply of invitations to functionally festive fun.

link via our own Wacky World Championship Correspondent

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

Treehouse Gallery

The Treehouse Gallery is "an innovative public project featuring a free daily program of events, arts, musicology and activities in Regent's Park, London." See, for another example, their collection of Foraged Pigment Paintings, yes, that's right, paintings made from pigments "...found in and around Regent's Park. The sources for the paints included blackberries, elderberries, mud, brick, nettles, madder root (the only one not foraged locally), st. john's wort, elder leaves, elder flowers, and bark. Sarah and Anna boiled these ingredients to extract the various colours and added a mordant to create watercolor paints for a children's and adult's painting workshop. Along with traditional brushes, forks, spoons and sticks were also used as unique mark making tools."

Days are workshop-filled. Maria Tsartsali, for example, will host "an art installation made with real leaves of the London Plane tree, inviting anyone from the public to come and paint leaves with latex to re-imagine them, once they have fallen, and for you to take away yourself into other spaces and contexts. They can be a wallpaper or a curtain stuck with blu-tack, a rug or anything you wish. The idea is to highlight the beauty of nature and recreate the natural environment in an interior setting. They need to be handled delicately." And "Eco-activist and award-winning poet Mario Petrucci will be talking and reading from his moving and thought-provoking work. An experienced and powerful performer, he has written brilliantly about Chernobyl, while being described as creating 'Poetry on a geological scale... a new track for poets of witness.' Poetry that is as connected to the big eco-issues as it is unforgettable."

I learned of this particular wonderfulness through a particularly wonderful cyberfriend named Digitalmaverick, who told me to be sure to check out the exemplarly awesome work of Dougald Hind who blogs about the Treehouse Gallery and many playful, social activistish things. Dougald calls himself a "former busker, door-to-door salesman and BBC journalist. Co-founder of School of Everything. Thinking about practical, imaginative responses to future scenarios. Inspired by deep thinkers and storytellers such as Ivan Illich, John Berger and Alan Garner."

I love the web.

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

Come Out and Play - right this very now!

	Day in the Park* Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 12 PM Location: Heckscher Fields in Central Park near 65th St & Central Park West entrance Notes: family friendly, cerebral, theatrical
Wanna play hooky from the streets? Solve big puzzles and complete missions to win a day in the park.

	BlockBall Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 12-2 PM Location: Festival HQ at the The Tank (354 W 45th St. between 8th/9th Aves) Notes: cerebral, extreme, new-sport
A real-time game of spatial strategy that plays at the speed of sport.

	F Be I, See I A* Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 12:30 PM Location: COaP Times Square HQ, Broadway Pedestrian Mall @ 45th St Notes: hi-tech, cerebral
F Be I, See I A is Urban Capture The Flag without the sweat. Celebrating peer-to-peer communication in its purest form, players move carefully into the enemy team's territory as groups of under cover Field Agents connected to each other through two-way radios.

	The Following* Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 1 PM Location: COaP Times Square HQ, Broadway Pedestrian Mall @ 45th St Notes: hi-tech, cerebral, extreme
One gang following the other in a hunt for the secret base - which will outwit the other?

	Outdoor Cham Ball* Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 1-4 PM Location: Heckscher Fields in Central Park near 65th St & Central Park West entrance Notes: extreme, new-sport
Each game will last approximately 30 minutes. Multiple games will be played.

	Paparazzi* Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 3 PM Location: COaP Times Square HQ, Broadway Pedestrian Mall @ 45th St Notes: hi-tech, cerebral, theatrical, extreme
A GPS-driven cat-and-mouse game of ambushes, paranoia and scandalous photos.

	Jamson Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 3-5 PM Location: Heckscher Fields in Central Park near 65th St & Central Park West entrance Notes: extreme, new-sport
Jamson is the backyard game of the future that will leave you wanting to play again and again.

	Circle Rules Football Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 4 PM Location: Heckscher Fields in Central Park near 65th St & Central Park West entrance Notes: theatrical, extreme, new-sport
Circle Rules Football is a new, action packed team sport played on a circular field with a giant yoga ball.

	Adrift Atlantean* Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 4 PM Location: Brooklyn Waterfront (see registration page for info) Notes: family friendly, cerebral, theatrical, extreme
A wayward Atlantean must return home, but hasn't the courage - only you can help!

	Picky Sticky Pollen* Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 5 PM Location: Heckscher Fields in Central Park near 65th St & Central Park West entrance Notes: family friendly, cerebral, theatrical, active, blown up video game
Be part of a hive! Competing hives direct crazed worker bees as they scurry to pick up pollen in this colorful lawn game.

	CryptoZoo Playing Workshop* Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 5 PM Location: COaP Times Square HQ, Broadway Pedestrian Mall @ 45th St Notes: family-friendly, theatrical, extreme, new sport
A secret world of strange and fast-moving creatures

	Diva Dutch Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 7-9 PM Location: South of COaP Times Square HQ, Broadway Pedestrian Mall @ 44th St Notes: family friendly, theatrical, extreme
The New-And-Improved-For-2009 Diva Dutch operates like a regular schoolyard game of jump rope/fashion show/hip hop freestyle/dozens.

	Pitfall! Live at the Tank Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 7-9 PM Location: Festival HQ at the The Tank (354 W 45th St. between 8th/9th Aves) Notes: theatrical, extreme, blown up video game
Play a real life version of the classic Atari game Pitfall.

	Player Party Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 8 PM - midnight Location: Festival HQ at the The Tank (354 W 45th St. between 8th/9th Aves)
The Come Out & Play player party will feature more games, a comedy performance, a DJ, a raffle for awesome prizes, and beer. Help support Come Out & Play with a $5 donation.

	Groove Moove* Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 8 PM Location: COaP Times Square HQ, Broadway Pedestrian Mall @ 45th St Notes: social experiment, theatrical
A NYC dance off

	The Great Whale Hunt* Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 8 PM Location: Festival HQ at the The Tank (354 W 45th St. between 8th/9th Aves) Notes: hi-tech, cerebral, extreme
An all-night puzzle hunt.

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith