| D O O R S O F P E R C E P T I O N 5 | |
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| on 'Play, Learning, Work, Design' | |
| 26, 27 & 28 November 1998, AMSTERDAM |
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| The Next Doors of Perception will be on "lightness" 11, 12, 13 November 2000, in Amsterdam in the RAI More information on Doors 6: LIGHTNESS |
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Final programme "Don't play what's there", said the great Jazz musician Miles Davis, "play what's not there". We've followed this sound advice preparing the fifth Doors of Perception conference. Play is vital in a knowledge-based economy: we need to learn, to improvise, to try things out. But in design, play is too often limited to the times and tools of childhood. So, what are the rules and sites of future play - not just for children, but for us all? This is the pressing question we will discuss at Doors 5: PLAY, the Netherlands Design Institute's celebrated international conference on multimedia, the Internet, design and culture. The conference will bring together tricksters of all trades: designers, teachers, media managers, Internet entrepreneurs, publishing executives, game developers, toy makers, technologists, computer scientists, journalists, entrepreneurs, philosophers, and students of all ages. The three-day event, which takes place in Amsterdam's historic Beurs van Berlage building, combines an amazing line-up of speakers with short-and-sharp panel discussions, ludic interludes, and gripping eye-candy. Don't miss this unique opportunity to acquire new knowledge, inspiration and connections. Doors 5 is ahead of the game. It's also going to be a lot of fun. Here are the six storylines and the speakers of Doors 5: PLAY. PLAY/TIME: The power of play Play is as old as history. It informs our culture, our imaginations, our experiences. Can we play to learn? Should there be a place for play in work? How might we extend the playing fields of the future? Barbara Maria Stafford, professor of art history at the University of Chicago, and author of Artful Science, will delve into the logics of 18th and 19th century learning machines, drawing comparisons with contemporary computer games. Will Wright, designer of SimCity, and co-founder of Maxis, brings us up to the present with his latest simulation of a family in a house. Rick Prelinger will take us through past worlds of child play and learning, drawing on his famous instructional film and advertising archive. Ranjit Makkuni, a musican, multimedia designer, and researcher affiliated with Xerox PARC, explores the interaction of new and sacred arts. He and the Indian designer Jogi Panghaal will explore past and present interactions between play and the body. GAME/PLAY: Inside the games we play What is so engaging about computer and video games? Parents worry about their shoot-and-slash storylines - but could we design the affective qualities of computer games into learning and work? J.C. Herz, author of Joystick Nation and new media critic of the New York Times, has been advising banks and corporations about just this question. Brenda Laurel, a renowned computer games pioneer, is founder of Purple Moon, the computer game company developing software for girls aged 8-12. Eric Zimmerman, director at Flat Inc. in New York, develops games that utilize artificial life technology. His first board game will be published in 1999 by Flesh Eating Technologies. Tim Wright, editorial director at NoHo Digital in London, co-produced such acclaimed products as MindGym, Blizzard, Movies. Jez San is a director of Argonaut, in London; his company is recognised worldwide as a leader in games development and entertainment technology. Sarah Woods from NCR's Knowledge Lab is finding new ways to make banking more playful. And interaction designer Jan Willem Huisman, a partner in the Amsterdam design group IJsfontein, will show how new forms of tactility can be built into today's computer games. Carl Goodman, Curator of Digital Media at the American Museum of the Moving Image, where the first retrospective exhibition of computer games was organised; he chairs our panel about the captivating qualities of computer games and how we might transfer them to other domains. PLAY/SCHOOL: The design of play in learning "It takes a lifetime to become the child that you should be," said Jean Luc Godard. But vast projects to wire up classrooms seem to be going in the opposite direction. Caroline Nevejan, director of the Society for Old and New Media in Amsterdam, is critical of the point-to-mass thinking behind numerous `wired classroom' projects; she presents some projects that do use multimedia and the Internet in creative ways. Mitchel Resnick, director of MIT Media Lab's Toys of Tomorrow project, studies the way behaviorally enhanced toys can change the way children play, think and learn. Stephen Heppell, director of Ultralab, Anglia University's learning research centre, will describe other innovative ways to use the Internet for learning. Yasmin Kafai, professor of education and information at UCLA, studies computational learning and involves young children in programming. Lewis Bronze, former editor of the BBC's highly acclaimed Blue Peter, has built designs of playful learning in his project Espresso. James Bradburne, head of research and development at newMetropolis, the new technology and learning centre in Amsterdam, will look at the state of play in science centres and museums. Our concluding panel debate, about the hypes and hopes of multimedia and Internet-based education, is bound to be highly charged. PLAY/CHANNELS: Media hybrids and the future of experience Story-telling is an ancient and powerful way to transfer knowledge. But as media and physical environments for play proliferate, a single narrative can now be experienced in multiple contexts. Janet Abrams, editor of the Netherlands Design Institute's new journal If/Then, chairs a discussion on the new experiences afforded by mixing media. Johannes Schadé, professor at the University of Utrecht, describes his research on interactive television for Time Warner Cable in Florida. Femke Wolting, a producer for the Dutch TV channel VPRO, tracks cutting-edge developments in digital media as curator of the `Exploding Cinema' section at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Tony Graham, artistic director of The Unicorn children's theater in London, and Dragan Klaic, director of the Netherlands Theatre Institute, consider the future of live performance in the era of networked media. John Wyver, director of Illuminations Television, in London, and David Vogler, Vice President, Creative, of Nickelodeon Online, New York, compare notes on the potential for play at the intersections of broadcast and interactive media. PLAY/INC: Beyond the infinite game in business Business theory increasingly acknowledges play as an essential element of productive work. How can we extricate ourselves from machine-age economic innovation models, and make work more like play? Charles Hampden-Turner, professor at the Judge Institute of Management at Cambridge University, envisages alternative scenarios for global commerce in a knowledge-based economy, as outlined in his recent book, Beyond the Infinite Game. Uffe Elbæk, Rector of Denmark's Kaos Pilots, the remarkable new business school in Copenhagen and San Francisco, will reflect on the relationship between play and improvisation in work. Danny Hillis, who pioneered the concept of parallel computing as founder of Thinking Machines, and now is vice president for research and development at Walt Disney Imagineering, explores the idea of software design as play. And Gong Szeto, creative partner of New York web design company i/o 360, will explain why `play is the ultimate interface,' even when designing sites for the most blue chip commercial clients. DESIGN/PLAY: The shape of play to come Play is not easily designed - but play can powerfully enrich the design process. Alan Kay, father of personal computing, a founder of Xerox PARC, and now vice president of researchand development at The Walt Disney Company, will explain the distinctions between "Hard and Soft Fun." Toshio Iwai will present the latest version of his `Music Insects' for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Peter Higgins of Land Design, London, will tell us about the `Play Zone' his company is designing for England's Millennium Dome. The young Dutch interaction designer Bas Ording has a unique talent for making dynamic user interfaces fun - and has just been hired for an important project by Apple Computer. Graphic designer Bruce Mau, design director of Zone Books, and an editor of Swerve Editions, will talk about work - and hence play - in the context of a global image culture. Marco Susani, research director at Domus Academy in Milan, together with Kay Hofmeester, a manager at the Netherlands Design Institute, will show highlights of `Presence' and `Maypole' - two of the European Union's important `i3' (Intelligent Information Interfaces) projects. Learning designer Nobuyuki Ueda, professor at Konan Women's University, and director of the Japanese neoMuseum, will discuss new play spaces with Hillel Weintraub who"first thought about the design of learning spaces in first grade while exiled for many hours under my teacher's desk." The conference ends with our traditional open-mike debate chaired by John Thackara, director of the Netherlands Design Institute and conference chairman. LARA Doors 5 will feature a special presentation of `Lara', Krisztina de Chatel's new dance performance, based on the top-selling computer game Tomb Raider. De Chatel's choreography uses Lara Croft's primitive but functional movements to stage Croft's magical adventures, with dancers instructed in real-time by a 14 year old Tomb Raider adept, playing the game on stage. PLAY ARCADE and INTERACTION DESIGN BAZAAR We have co-ordinated a worldwide search for interesting new (and old) computer and video games that will presented in the Doors 5 PlayArcade. Then on Saturday morning, 28 November, students from some of the world's leading interaction design graduate schools, including RCA, HKU, NYU ITP, and Media-GN, will present new work at the world's first Interaction Design Bazaar. PLAY/SPACE According to racing driver Mario Andretti, "if everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough." This certainly applies to our programme team. We have greatly appreciated your suggestions for the programme so far. The main conference programme is full, but we still want to hear from you about real-world projects to do with the design of play in learning and work. You are welcome to send your suggestions to editor@doorsofperception.com and be sure to include the names and contact details of those directly involved. We'll put the best suggestions on the website. PLAY/LEADERS Doors of Perception 5 is organised by The Netherlands Design Institute in Amsterdam (www.design-inst.nl). The programme team is John Thackara (director), Michiel Schwarz, Janet Abrams, and Jouke Kleerebezem (who is also editor of the Doors of Perception website). Dick van Dijk is Executive Producer. Programme research by Tilly Blyth, Richard Rogers and Alexander Wilkie. Our technical producer is Anthony Chapman; venue design is by Herman Verkerk. LEARNING FROM NEWMETROPOLIS On the morning of Saturday 28 November a professional meeting at newMetropolis Amsterdam's new science and technology center will discuss the question: "Sure they're playing - but are they learning?" The meeting includes research into informal learning at newMetropolis itself. PLAYING IT SMART IN ARCHITECTURE Ecology can be an inspiration for playful architecture. Unexpected design strategies will be discussed by engineers, biologists and architects at a workshop during the morning of Saturday 28 November. Organised by the Netherlands Design Institute's Conny Bakker with the Foundation SLA. DOORS OF PERCEPTION WEBSITE Wayne Gretsky, the ice hockey player, once said: "I skate to where I think the puck will be." Be first, too, with news about the conference by checking www.doorsofperception.com for updates on the conference programme, parties, and other events. The site also contains proceedings of our earlier conferences, book lists and other resources. From September, the site will feature a special `PlayEnvironment' created by Michael Samyn at vanRiet online productions, supported by Desk.nl, where you can join a new playful form of online discussion. DOORS OF PERCEPTION BOOK AND SOFTWARE SHOP Our popular conference bookshop will be bigger and better than ever, with special attention being paid this year to games and educational software. The bookshop is selective - but if you would like to suggest we stock a particular title, please email details to our books expert at editor@doorsofperception.com MEDIA PARTNERS AT DOORS We are delighted to welcome Fast Company and ID Magazine as our media partners at this year's conference. IF/THEN TO BE LAUNCHED AT DOORS 5: PLAY If/Then, the Netherlands Design Institute's new journal, will be launched at Doors 5 and celebrated at the conference party on Saturday night, 28 November. Edited by Janet Abrams, and designed by Mevis & van Deursen, If/Then investigates the design implications of new media technologies, as expressed in everyday material culture. An advance radar on ideas generated by the Institute and its partners, If/Then 0.1 will include a review by Andrea Moed of the European Union's `i3' research program on Intelligent Information Interfaces; reports on the Institute's Getting On! series on interface design for public and personal communications; and Independent columnist Marek Kohn on the design of knowledge maps. If/Then 0.1 also has several articles on play; Eric Zimmerman on board games as the social space of play in the pre-electronic era; J.C. Herz on learning from Toys'R'Us; Mitchel Resnick and his belief in `life-long kindergarten;' Tilly Blyth on Iona Opie, the British grande dame of children's playground rites and rituals; Pauline Bax on babysitting an electronic Baby Think It Over `infant simulator.' And artists Uri Tzaig, Martijn Sandberg and Johannes Schwartz contribute specially commissioned visual portfolios on play. If/Then 0.1 will be on sale at a special pre-publication price. DOORS 5: PLAY - REGISTRATION OFFICE Ideëel Organiseren, Weteringschans 269, 1017 XJ Amsterdam Telephone: +31 (0)20 420 1711, Fax: +31 (0)20 626 5845, E-mail: registration@doorsofperception.com DOORS 5: PLAY - GENERAL INQUIRIES info@doorsofperception.com TIME SCHEDULE CLICK HERE FOR THE EXTENDED PRELIMINARY CONFERENCE SCHEDULE Thursday 26 November 1998 08:30 - 9:30 Registration 09:30 - 18:00 Conference Programme 18:00 - 20:00 Reception Friday 27 November 1998 09:00 - 18:00 Conference Programme Saturday 28 November 1998 09:00 - 13:00 Side Events 14:00 - 17:30 Conference Programme 22:00 - Closing Party All main events take place at De Beurs van Berlage, main entrance at Damrak 243, Amsterdam |
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updated 07 november1998 |
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