Play Spaces

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According to the Flemish historian Huizinga, the activity of play is signified by its deliberate delimitation from ‘the real’. Everything we play at doing is set aside of what we consider the ordinary. At the same time, just about anything we do can be done as play. In play, we rely on an explicit identification of the time, place, and participants in the activity to establish a zone in which we feel encouraged to try things we do not normally dare to do, or feel comfortable being seen doing. It is common for such "safe zones" to be at the same time both established and transgressed. 

 In this project, we investigate the concept of ’safe zones’ in the context of an emerging hybrid socio-technological landscape. We look in particular at mechanisms that support the mixing and coexistence of play with everyday life in semi-public and public spaces.