[Dutch-chapter] Playing the Urban - De Balie Amsterdam

[Maaike Lauwaert]

Dear all,

On behalf of the Maastricht/Amsterdam digital games research group I  
invite you to "Playing the Urban" at the Balie, Amsterdam on March,  
the 31st 2007.

Hope to see you there!

Best wishes,
Maaike Lauwaert.


------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
-------

Playing The Urban

31st of March 2007

De Balie, Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10, Amsterdam – www.debalie.nl

Entrance is free but please make a reservation by sending e-mail to

Mediastudies-fgw at uva.nl.



PROGRAM

13-14h Mobile Learning Game Kit

Speaker: Jan Simons (Associate Professor New Media Studies,  
University of Amsterdam)



The Mobile Learning Game Kit project is a cooperation between the  
Department of Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam, the Media  
Lab of the Hogeschool Amsterdam, and Waag Society. It is funded by  
SURF Netherlands. The aim of the project is to develop an educational  
game based on wireless and mobile media that allow students to gather  
information or ‘add’ information to specific sites. The MLGK should  
make it possible to transform an urban environment into a source of  
learning and a site for research in ways that are beyond the reach of  
traditional learning methods.

  In the ‘proof-of-concept’ stage of the project we are developing a  
pilot for the Media Archeology course in the Masters program of  
Mediastudies. Students of that course have gathered information and  
developed the content of a first iteration of the game which will be  
played by first year undergraduates. The game focuses on the  
Nieuwendijk in the center of Amsterdam. The Nieuwendijk, a shopping  
street which runs from Dam Square to approximately Central Station,  
has hosted about 15 cinemas at different locations in different  
periods during the twentieth century. None of these cinemas have  
remained but they have left their traces in the Nieuwendijk. The type  
of cinemas and the filmprograms they offered developed along with the  
social and cultural dynamics of this street, which, in turn, were  
partly determined by demographics and city planning. With the game we  
want to build a virtual reconstruction of the Nieuwendijk, which will  
make these developments visible and accessible, In the pilot we focus  
mainly on the post WWII period, when the Nieuwendijk was the centre  
of an emerging new youth culture.



14-15h PlastiCity: A Game for Urban Planning

Speakers: Mathias Fuchs (Senior Lecturer, Programme Leader in  
Creative Technology, University of Salford) and Steve Manthorp  
(Special Project Manager, Bradford)



This presentation introduces a recently developed game for urban  
planning. The game, based on the architectonic visions and challenges  
of British architect Will Alsop is demonstrated, its features are  
explained, and a variety of planning processes, strategies and  
problems are shown in detail. The presenter demonstrates how to  
rethink and rebuild a city, using special wands (tools) to change the  
city centre of Bradford (England). The technology and the gameplay of  
the UNREAL modification are demonstrated in gameplay and - on demand  
- at a scripting/ programming level. Critical analysis and  
discussions investigates the potential, constraints and possible  
improvements of the urban planning tools currently developed.



15-15h30 break



15h30-16u30 Logo Parc (Jan van Eyck Academy)

Speakers: Logo Parc (Daniël van der Velden, Katja Gretzinger,  
Matthijs van Leeuwen, Matteo Poli, Gon Zifroni)



Logo Parc is a research project on design and public space, carried  
out at the Jan van Eyck Academy, Post-academic institute for research  
and production in fine art, design and theory. Commissioned by  
Lectoraat Kunst en Publieke Ruimte/Gerrit Rietveld Academy and  
Amsterdam University, and Premsela, Dutch Design Foundation, Logo  
Parc’s original goals were to seek out the role of art and design in  
the symbolic regime of Amsterdam’s prime construction site, the South  
Axis (Zuidas), where the economic and financial interests of The  
Netherlands are concentrated in a dense area of offices efficiently  
connected to transportation and information flows. From a critical  
interest in the emergence of the ‘public-private partnership’ as the  
hegemonic formula for today’s public space practice, Logo Parc is now  
the site for a criticism on South Axis. At once, this criticism is  
aimed at the conceptions of public space that reveal themselves at  
South Axis, and at the role that design and art play in nevertheless  
sustaining its ‘elan’. One of the outcomes of this position is a  
virtual model of South Axis, now titled Discursive Surface, that will  
be presented at De Balie in the context of Playing the Urban. Logo  
Parc research team: Gon Zifroni (spatial designer/game designer),  
Matthijs van Leeuwen (graphic designer), Katja Gretzinger (graphic  
designer), Matteo Poli (architect/editor), Daniel van der Velden  
(graphic designer/writer, advising researcher design).



16h30-17h30 On display: PlastiCity and Logo Parc







Playing the Urban is organised by the research project  
Transformations in Perception and Participation: Digital Games with  
the support of NWO, Maastricht University and the University of  
Amsterdam.





-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: ProgramPlayingTheUrbanFinal.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 109744 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mail.digra.org/pipermail/dutch-chapter/attachments/20070313/228a6067/attachment-0001.pdf 
-------------- next part --------------