Jeroen Beekmans writes: "To inform the world about their (free) Ovi Maps mobile navigation software, Nokia built a house-sized, interactive signpost in the form of a dynamically rotating electronic LED screen, and hung it next to London’s Thames river, 50 meters up in the rainy sky. The gigantic structure allows passers-by to send in a location via text or email and then automatically rotates to the given direction and displays the submitted description (which are called ‘Good Things’ by Nokia, but why?) and the distance to it."
In a manner of thinking, this "sign post" is a related phenomenon, pointing you, in a computer-augmented kind of way, to something I think is worthy of your notice. Nokia's Signpost allows erstwhile anonymous individuals are invited to broadcast their appreciation for particular city sites and services in a way, similar to blogging, that evokes both personal empowerment and public playfulness. The anonymity, accessibility and giant public display all oddly heighten the sense of personal authority - "I can show the world what I like." They also provide an opportunity for a kind of altruism. Unless you're pointing at something you own, you are given the opportunity to advocate places you like - a personal appreciation to share with the world at large and small.
"Based on the simplest form of giving someone directions (pointing) it lets you share the places you love, or tells you about the places others love. When the signpost is live it constantly turns and shows the distance and direction to new Good Things. Submit your favorite cafe, an upcoming concert or a rare record store and the signpost will [apparently] automatically turn in the right direction and the giant LED screen will light up.”
Though all the various games are worthy of your most thorough consideration, one shining, archetypal example is SFZero. According to the article:
SFZero, founded by Kizu-Blair, Lavigne and Mahan three years ago, is a real-world, location-aware game, in which participants cherry-pick tasks to execute from an online hub of user-generated missions. Once a task (burying a treasure box for a stranger) is completed, players document their work (via photos, usually), post it on the Web and rack up points.
"We place a big emphasis on getting out of your house to complete a task, getting into the city and creating things that will enhance the lives of non-players as well as players," Kizu-Blair said.
Very simple concept, endlessly creative, attracting players of all ilk, and a wonderfully transparent web presence for those of us who want to understand what this playfulness is all about.
Did you perhaps see any invisible dogs at Improv Everywhere's Invisible Dog Walk?
An organizer explains:
For those of you who were not there - we passed out over 2,000 "invisible dog" leashes and had everyone go for a nice Sunday walk in Brooklyn. If you were anywhere within a one mile radius of the Bergen St. stop in Cobble Hill today, you would have seen all types of folks very seriously walking their very silly dogs. The invisible dog toy was invented in the 1970s in the Brooklyn factory that served as our meeting point today.
Agent Lorna reports:
I miss my dog. My favorite was a lady explaining it to her child. She said…. "Yes hon, that is an invisible dog, a very rare breed." lol
Tried to buy a treat for my invisible dog at a pet store and the guy wouldn’t let us in. He was a pooper.
At the Barnes & Noble the lady guard asked me what "that" was. I said "My dog." She advised me in the kindest way that I had to leave the second floor because dogs were not allowed up there because of the café. lol
And
Another moment was in the Trader Joes. We were on line and a lady and her son were behind us. (we had 2 maltipoos, Jessica Simpson dog. Her dog was killed recently by a coyote) This boy just got so involved with the dogs. He would pet the dogs and just yell "…but I don’t feel anything!"
Cool thing was watching people step around our dogs when they went up to a shelf to get something...
This is the kind of silliness that I can get behind pretty much totally. It is art. It is play. It is fun. It doesn't threaten. It doesn't invade anyone's space. It provides people with an opportunity to be playful. To be pleasantly surprised. Or to ignore it, and the world, as much as they need to.
Last weekend was Rosh Hashana for some, the end of Ramadan for others, and, for the fortunate few, PARK(ing) Day. According to the folk at parkingday.org:
PARK(ing) Day began in 2005when Rebar, a San Francisco art collective, converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in an area of San Francisco that is underserved by public open space.
Back then the project was named simply PARK(ing), and was devised as a creative exploration of how urban public space is allocated and used. For example, up to 70% of San Francisco's downtown outdoor space is dedicated to the vehicle, while only a fraction of that space is allocated to the public realm. Paying the meter of a parking space enables one to lease precious urban real estate on a short-term basis. What is the range of possible activities for this short-term lease?
Since 2005, the project has grown into PARK(ing) Day, an annual worldwide phenomenon, created independently by groups of artists, activists and citizens.
There were PARK(ing) day eventlets here and there around the world.
The organizers think about PARK(ing) Day as art. Others might think of it as a world-wide pervasive game. I, personally, think of it as fun.
So, I heard about the Sandpit from, wait, no, I heard about the Hide and Seek Festival from my friend the Digital Maverick. And because the Digital Maverick is what he claims to be, I tend to listen carefully to him. And so I go look for the Hide and Seek Festival and when I find it, what do I see but the Sandpit and who should be the very first name cited as one of the Sandpit Who - yes, the very same person from a group called Ludocity who asked me for permission to include some of my "pointless games" in Ludocity's admirable collection of Pervasive Games in which one can find, for example, the rules to HipSync:
Gamers are loaned MP3 players on shuffle play and place false plastic lips in their mouths (to prevent talking). On the game start they all press play on the MP3s, then only by dancing they must identify other players that are listening to the same song and from a group with them. At the songs end you get knocked out if you’re in the wrong group (or if you’re on your own when other people are dancing to the same song as you).
And suddenly I am led to connect back at least a year in time from our last contact, to that very same person, who explains the Sandpit thusly:
It's a regular event for trying out new pervasive games - the sort of thing that Ludocity documents. There are also quite a few games that are a bit more production-intensive, involving more actors or tech - these tend not to make it onto Ludocity as they're a lot harder for other people to run!
We generally get anywhere from 80 to 200 people at each Sandpit; and they play a few different games each, chosen out of the 8 or 10 games that tend to be programmed at each event.
They take place in a lot of different places - partly because it's a good way to find new people to play with and to make games, partly because it's good to play in new spaces. Usually we're in some sort of London-based mixed arts venue, but over autumn we're going on tour to 10 different cities around the UK, with a programme of games that have come out of the last year's worth of Sandpits, plus a new game or two at each venue contributed by a local maker.
The makers are - well, there's no real rules, or consistent patterns. We have a lot of people that come from a theatre background; a few programmers; an experimental composer, a technical writer, an accountant, a film student. Anyone who's interested in making a pervasive game, really.
I curate the Sandpit, so my role is partly making sure the event works as a whole, and the games fit together; partly helping the makers to develop their ideas and make sure that they function as a game; and partly recruiting new makers.
The Sandpit is part of Hide&Seek, which Alex Fleetwood set up in 2007; and a lot of the best games from the Sandpit become part of the Hide&Seek Weekender, an annual weekend of games much along the lines of Come Out and Play in New York. For a general idea of what it's like, there's this review from a player last year, or this year's programme.
I imagine that's much more than you wanted to know, but if there's anything you're curious about that I haven't explained, let me know!
Ah the connections. The connections. Like branches of a river, rejoining. How wonderful to learn of people making the very same kind of games I would be making if I were making games with them or vice versa. Dancing to my own music. With other people. And doing it in public, for art! Ah, public art. And ah public fun. New Games renewed. HipSync in deed. And to learn of it from someone called the Digital Maverick. And to learn I knew of it already.
If you've been watching any of the many well-documented, pervasive play antics of Improv Everywhere, you'll understand why they are being presented with the coveted title of Defender of the Playful. You may even, given such spectacular displays of in-your-face playfulness as in the Frozen Grand Central and Food Court Musical events, wonder why it took us so long to acknowledge their contribution to playfulness anywhere. Clearly, they are breaking boundaries, bringing play where no play has dared to go. And their MP3 Experiments are as least as fun and surprising and play-engendering for the participants as they are enticingly puzzling for their unsuspecting audiences.
But for me, it wasn't until their most recent mission, the Surprise Wedding Reception, that Improv Everywhere demonstrated the kind of playfulness that the award was created for. Take a look at one of their most celebrated, and closely related events, called "The Best Game Ever." This, too, was a surprise, and it most definitely led to the delight of everyone involved, players and performers. But unlike The Best Game Ever, the couple who served as the focus of the Surprise Wedding Reception were not so much surprised as they were invited to play. Though the host wasn't above the minor subterfuge of passing himself as a representative of the Mayor's Office, and describing the event as a "free wedding reception," this enlightened willingness to include everyone, the receivers as well as the givers of the performance, led to something that seemed to me much more inclusive, and, because of that, much more of an accomplishment for all playkind.
And intriguingly commercial. Something so, well, upliftingly fun, and yet so unflinchingly commercial that you'd expect to read about in Elyon, yes, DeKoven's Ad Consumer Experience blog.
It's playful, all right, but it's play for a purpose. Which is OK, actually. Good to see, even, for all it's high-powered derivitivity. It's fun. It sells. So, well, without condoning or condemning, I'd like to at least draw the distinction between that, and this.
Giant Card-wise, there were two major Giant House of Cards-like mini-events. One was depicted here, of course. But the second, more classically tepee-like, somehow, until this moment, escaped our well-deserved collective attention.
I direct your attention to the two "cards" on top. You might note that these cards are basically naked sheets of cardboard, cut to card size. Interestingly enough, it doesn't seem to matter to the giant card tepee constructors, at all, in the least.
Which might make you think next time you decided to make a giant set of cards.
Here, for example, is a game called "The Man Who Was Thursday." It is, in its way, along with perhaps, HipSync, almost all you need to know about why you should be interested in this new site, the first to be devoted to "pervasive games."
Allow the authors to explain:
"Ludocity is a collection of pervasive games, street games and new sports - forms of play that interact with the environment in which they take place, spilling out into parks and city streets.
Some of the games on Ludocity overlap with theatre, painting, dance, and other art forms. Some of them use balloons, lumps of coal, huge sheets of paper, mp3 players, elaborate costumes, and short-range radio broadcasts. All of them have been released under a creative commons license, giving everyone permission to run that game for free, wherever and whenever they like."
Pervasive games are to games what audience-participation is to theater - a playful, perhaps, but sometimes dangerous shattering of the boundaries that separate players from observers. The success of a Pervasive game relies on the clarity of the game and the maturity of the players. Pervasive games tend to border on the invasive, pervasive though they may be. They can be great fun, but they are definitely being played on the edge, so to speak.
That makes Ludocity such a valuable resource. Not just its collection of games, but how each game is presented with great care and integrity, and the site itself written in a Wiki format to allow for participation, consensus, growth, and very much fun.
Jeroen Beekmans writes: "To inform the world about their (free) Ovi Maps mobile navigation software, Nokia built a house-sized, interactive signpost in the form of a dynamically rotating electronic LED screen, and hung it next to London’s Thames river, 50 meters up in the rainy sky. The gigantic structure allows passers-by to send in a location via text or email and then automatically rotates to the given direction and displays the submitted description (which are called ‘Good Things’ by Nokia, but why?) and the distance to it."
So, I heard about the 
Giant House of Giant Cards
Here
This is the kind of silliness that I can get behind pretty much totally. It is art. It is play. It is fun. It doesn't threaten. It doesn't invade anyone's space. It provides people with an opportunity to be playful. To be pleasantly surprised. Or to ignore it, and the world, as much as they need to.