Ubicomp: Mobile blogging, tagging, message play

Eric Paulos
children don't play to learn, but they learn from play
during play, we open our minds to novel interpretations
experiement with new skills
adopt different social roles
play: scop of current activity is more ambiguous
expectations about ourselves and outside world relaxed
open to discovery

the downsides of play...
...used as a "cure-all" like duct tape
...excused from critique
...not as fun as you think
...cannot be forced

Marc Smith: Playing games with social computing
- Aura blog: annotation repository
-- "supermarkets are museums to barcodes - everything is a machine-readable object"
-- labels are produced through an intensely political process
-- ubicomp gives us an opportunity to break into the space of the label
-- "every object has a story to tell, and this object says, 'if you eat me, you will die'"
- social implications of ubicomp
-- laminated reality
-- the world is a webpage
-- annotation, navigation, personal safety, marketplaces
- play
-- non-instrumental?
-- education?
-- informal?
-- self-expressive?
-- exploratory?
-- preliminary / foundation for wokr?
-- fun?
-- ...SUBVERSIVE?
- studies of collective action and cooperative
-- tech changes "friction coefficient" of how people associate
- swarm power
-- cooperation in populations as an ecosystem of strategies
-- technologies of cooperation
-- collective action in cyberspace
--- cheap, global coordination
--- nobody predicted the emergence of these tools
- if it's on the net, it's on your phone
- reputation systems, history, and the shadow of the future
-- search goods and experience goods
-- technologies lubricate social friction by changing the costs and benefits
-- changes how we project our identities and history
-- "Yhprum's Law" : systems that work that should not (the opposite of Murphy's Law)
--- ie, eBay
-- history and reputation matter. a lot
- sociotechnical political issues
-- intimate details spread widely
--- owning and controlling the digital me
--- DRM Digital Restrictions Membrane: by bottling culture, we make it rot
-- Living insecurity

Barry Brown : play in work / work in play
- looking at crossovers

- "under the paving stones - the beach"
-- under the facade of everyday life, a world of passion and romance
-- 1968 France: strike, revolution, play!
-- play is not a residual category, it's the stuff of life

- "We don't want a world where the guarantee of not dying of starvation brings the risk of dying of boredom"

- work relies on non-work for it to be bearable

- work tools cause excitement because they're new ways of playing at work
-- mobile phones: for business and flirting
-- laptop: work on the move and download movies

- design concept by Andy Boucher

- virtuous virus that emailed random doc from your harddrive to a random person in your address book

- work in play
-- play also involves and depends upon work
-- tourism, maps, information
--- the pleasure comes from taking the work and making it enjoyable
--- the romantic journey, the Parisian metro
--- "getting there is half the fun"

- go-karting: serious work
-- forums outside work serve all sorts of purposes outside the work
-- leisure activities connected with work can make work bearable (and unbearable)

- designing for the boundary
-- encourage and promote subversion and play in the workplace
-- move what we have learnt from supporting work into supporting play

Nina Wakeford
- using sociology to make different social objects
- mundane experiences as play
- playing with cities
- play is a very recent concept, esp. for children (Victorian)
- sociology of contemporary childhood
-- children as active agents and experts
-- reappropriations of technology and interfaces
-- cultural and institutional restrictions on play
--- ie, playing in the bedroom with the computer b/c it's "too dangerous" to go outside
-- gender play
- play and adulthood
-- playing as work (the dot com ideology)
-- play as creativity
-- play as lacking accountability
-- play as not "the real thing"
- the real work of mobile play
-- looking at images of mobile technology and advertisements
- photo blogging
-- weblog as tool for knowing the city and the internet
-- what is a bloggable event?
-- playing around with mundane images and delays
--> instant blog phone
- 73 bus study
-- orienting oneself around objects found on buses
- creating play in urban space through online community
-- geocaching
- play is always doing other work
-- writing graffiti in the city
-- warchalking
-- trading of Everquest bodies on eBay
-- developing SMS vocab

Bill Gaver : everyday play
- the Sims: games and entertainment are important in everyday life
- Can You See Me Now? from Equator
- more interested in activities that aren't explicitly identified as games
-- play is not just a matter of fun and games
- LUDIC engagements: homo ludis; playful humans
- designing to support ludic activities
-- alternatives
--- information appliances that support different values
--- the Detour Guide : a guidebook that gets you lost
--- Dawn Chorus: training birds to sing your favorite songs
--- Prayer Device: shouting prayers into the sky
--- Telegotchi : interacting with the tamagotchi telepathically
-- productive realities (w/Dunne, Hooker, Kitchen and Walker)
--- promoting new visibility for seniors
--- by showing slogans on benches

- tactics for creating ludic engagement
-- imply exaggerated or strange roles
-- use ambiguity, imprecision or openness
-- make "how" clear, but leave "why" undefined
-- ex: the Key Table

- play as ludic engagement
-- non-utilitarian
-- self-directed
-- mutable

---

Discussion
EP: what are the pitfalls of creating "playful objects"
BB: We haven't talked about games. Maybe because we're "serious academics"?
EP: "in-between" spaces used for play
MS: mining the interstitial times
BG: companion to Key Table engaged with "in-between" work activities. That's the functionality of play. It's an attempt to work out potential approaches before settling on one.
NW: interesting places for play are places that are not pre-designed for play. "Doing the game" vs. "playing with the game."
MS: work involved in play -- is our culture just totally obsessed with work?
BB: Mac seen as too cartoon-like - being too playful can cause problems
EP: distinction btw. gaming and play?
MS: playful element like frosting on system
NW: how many of the demos were games?

Elizabeth Churchill: when does play get difficult and involve hard emotion?
BG: "play is work" misses what makes play special. by calling something "play" you can sneak in subversion
NW: what is the woman in the key table video playing WITH? The household, the table, the family
BB: Getting dragged off to football matches
Nicole ?: "play" vs. "flow"
MS: Maybe fun is best expressed as being in the "flow state"? Play is that period of engagement in the world where risk-taking is encouraged
Jane McGonigal: troubled by absence of games on panel. use games as entryway into technology.
BB: OSX: swirly interface
BG: mucking about is important because it has long term effects, b/c you learn from it and it changes your perspective. his design takes different structures (than games) to encourage play
Mike Boyle, U of Calgary: Role of fantasy in ubicomp and play?
BG: people fantasize all the time. but it's the way ubicomp is deployed. games help us take more slippy perspective. use ubicomp to add layers of fiction onto everyday objects. i might find out that cereal is not just genetically modified but eaten by...Harry Potter.
BB: "Dress for the person you want to be"
MS: demos link you to non-real world
Rob Hague, Cambridge: mobile phones cut down on games?
NW: playing Tetris on the bus
BG: tired of focus on gaming in social situations. tired of idea that we need to be together for something to be valuable
Sha Xin Wei, Georgia Tech: Reminded of Fluxus experiments. Objects and infrastructures. Can we play with our infrastructure? Like the play of language with grammar and syntax [texting is teenagers dancing with words]. play constrained by infrastructure; playing without objects. does it have to be predicated on devices? Playground designer (Loren Hendricks?) using multiuse materials for play.
MS: what about audio processing? object is interaction
BB: a flatheaded screwdriver is better than a phillips head because there are more uses.
NW: what happens when the infrastructure breaks down? how do we design for breakdowns?
BG: desirability of seamlessness and "seamful" system: using gaps and breaks as resources for activity. using difficulties and breakdowns as oppty to explore.