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Alison John's picture

We wanted to do something extra for playARK Festival and Talks 2013, so we decided that this year we would run a hack week that would bring together individuals from different disciplines to develop unique ideas that explore the theme of RECLAIMED.

In conjunction with yello brick, the aim of play:DO Hack week is to create a playful and socially aware experience that utilises creative technology and reclaims traditional approaches to how we live and work within our cities. The week will focus on the idea of knowledge exchange and open experimentation and we hope the week will create opportunities for future collaborations for the individuals involved.

Nine individuals will be working together to develop three prototype projects that will be shared and discussed at the playARK Festival talks (Friday 1st November) and run as an event at the playARK Games Day (Saturday 2nd November)

Our Hackers are:

- Kevin Moss – creative director of Make&See who create branded digital content & experiences. His cross platform stories have been shortlisted at MipTV and Power to the Pixel and won the Media Festival, Channel 4 Digital Art Prize. www.makeandsee.com

- John Collingswood - one half of TaikaBox, a Cardiff-based company specialising in the integration of dance and digital media. www.taikabox.com

- Heather Kelley – designer, digital artist, and media curator and founder of Perfect Plum. Cofounder of Kokoromi, an experimental game collective, with whom she has produced and curated the renowned GAMMA event promoting experimental games as creative expression in a social context. www.perfectplum.com

- Steve Coleman - freelance designer with skills in graphic design, photography, and illustration. In 2010 he undertook a Masters degree that sought to identify the role of play in adult creativity. He researched how play can be used as an experiential method to encourage motivation, flow, focus and engaged behaviour. www.thehourofplay.wordpress.com

- Ben Hyde - creative trainer at Dynamix (a workers cooperative) that focuses on participation, children’s rights, equality, play and much more. He is also a facilitator at Circus Eruption, the UK’s biggest integrated youth circus that uses circus as way of breaking down barriers and stereotypes between young people of all abilities and backgrounds.

- Ravi Thornton - crossmedia fiction author writing for both adults (as Ravi Thornton) and children (as Nesta Philips), with a passion for telling stories across multiple platforms. www.ravithornton.com

- Jorge Lizalde – artist, freelance photographer and moving image maker, born in Spain. Trained in Science and Fine Arts. Speaker of three languages, Spanish, English and French and coder wannabe at night. www.jorgelizalde.com

- Chris Mog - creator and experimenter with open source systems that aim to provide an opportunity for participants to interact with technologies that can help to re-represent and re-imagine place, space and time and our relationship with the world around us. www.chrismog.co.uk

- Andrew Price – technology Director at Moon, a small digital agency of experienced web folks. Working on a 2nd screen prototype for a digital TV manufacturer but past clients/employers include BBC, WAG, Barclaycard, Box UK. On the side Andrew is experimenting and exploring projects involving Raspberry Pi and Arduino.

We will be encouraging groups to document their process and their learnings at key stages of the programme which will then be shared through our blog throughout the play:DO Hack week.

Why Reclaimed?

Over the last five years thinkARK have been responding to social issues within Cardiff. These issues have been centred around ecological issues, community engagement and knowledge exchange. What these projects and discussions have raised is a sense and need to reclaim aspects of our lives. How might we reclaim our urban spaces, or our education systems, how might we reclaim oral storytelling and encourage positive social engagement. Playful approaches have been at the heart of these projects and have played a key part in the creation and development of yello brick. Play is a common language which breaks down barriers and makes connections, can change perspectives that encourage positive social behaviour as it allows people to become active rather than passive. Therefore yello brick and thinkARK have come together to create an opportunity through play:DO for individuals to learn, share and explore through a focused week of doing.

John Collingswood's picture

.... really looking forward to meeting everyone and generating some creative energy. personally i'd like to reclaim october from the preparations for xmas. and november while we're at it....

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