CFP: Making the City Playable Conference

Making the City Playable Conference – Research Stream
Watershed, Bristol, UK.
September 10-11, 2014

Proposals due April 14, 2014

On September 10^th and 11^th 2014 the Watershed Media Centre in Bristol will host the first Making the City Playable Conference, convened by University of the West of England Visiting Professors Clare Reddington and Andrew Kelly. This two day international conference will bring together future city experts, urban planners, artists and technologists to explore the theme of the Playable City, and what it might mean in imagining and making the cities of the future.

The Playable City

The “Playable City” is a term that has been coined by Watershed in Bristol as a people-centred counterpoint to the idea of the data-driven “Smart City”. The Playable City is imagined as a city in which hospitality and openness are key, enabling residents and visitors to reconfigure and rewrite city services, places and stories. The Playable City fosters serendipity and gives permission to be playful in public.

The idea of the Playable City has been explored in a range of Watershed projects; a series of cultural exchange rapid project development labs with the British Council working with artists, producers and technologists from the UK and East Asia in 2012 and Brazil in 2014, the inaugural Playable City Award, a major commission for a future-facing artwork, which supported development of Hello Lamp Post in Summer 2013, Biketag Colour Keepers - a street game for Bristol Temple Quarter, and Open City: Guimarães - a series of artistic commissions that explored how openness in city governance might improve the social, cultural, and economic lives of inhabitants of the Portuguese 2012 European Capital of Culture. The Second Playable City Award is now open for submissions. 

The Call for Proposals

The Digital Cultures Research Centre is convening a research stream within the Making the City Playable Conference. We are inviting proposals from a cross-disciplinary gathering of scholars who wish to consider the intersection between play and the contemporary city, bringing diverse research knowledge and perspectives to the concept of the Playable City, considering its conceptual value, potential and limits.

Proposals are invited for 10-15 minute research-based presentations or academic papers. The following are indicative themes: 

• Smart City vs Playable City – visions of the urban future
• Playing and Reality – the city as stage for critical re-imaginings
• The Child and the City – children’s play and independent mobility in urban settings
• Play & Mobilisation – the social and political impact of playful interventions
• Parkour and place hacking – playing around the edges of public space
• Level Playing Fields? – creative interventions and social inequality   
• Playing Publics – creative practices as citizenship practices

Please submit abstracts of up to 350 words accompanied by a biographical paragraph. These are due by April 14th. Email materials to playablecities@gmail.com

It is hoped that these discussions will provide the starting point for future exchanges and research collaborations. 

If you don’t plan to submit an abstract, but would like to attend the Making the City Playable Conference, tickets and further information are available here.

The research stream is convened by Dr Michael Buser (Planning & Architecture, University of the West of England), Dr Kirsten Cater (Computer Science, University of Bristol), Professor Jon Dovey (Screen Media, University of the West of England), Associate Professor Mandy Rose (Digital Cultures, University of the West of England) and Dr Angie Page (Policy Studies, University of Bristol).