During the christmas break I to0k time off from reading theory. Which served me well, as it set the unconscious mind in motion. I sort of needed time to digest the theory that’s been thrown at us already, the work I’ve been making and the comments from teachers from HKU and MaHKU at the december exams.

In january I went back to reading and writing. I spent a lot of time these weeks on the 2000 words essay we’re supposed to hand in next friday.

Two conclusions surfaced after the exams in december: 1. I may have zoomed in on the psychological aspects of ‘play’ too soon. Need to go back, look at the bigger picture of ‘art and play’, develop some vocabulary and theory, then zoom in again. 2. The work I’ve done this half year is interesting, but doesn’t have enough visual interest. I focused on playing with sense-of-touch, see my experiments. I need to have a go at giving my stuff more visual interest, too.

So far, so good. In january, I did develop a vocabulary about ‘play’, helped by eminent theoreticians like Huizinga and Caillois. I found a leading psychiatrist on ‘play’, and started working out a link between play theory and  media theory. My theoretical framework is coming along nicely. I am using a  scientific tone of voice  for my research – the subject itself is playful and ephimeral enough in itself. Overkill to present it as a play, although I may do a translation into a play later on.

As far as the visual aspect is concerned, I started investigating if I can take the strategy of touching with the  fingers and apply this strategy to the eyes.  See some of my recent blogs. The drawings and pictures I made are on the wall at the Tractieweg. I need to travel this road some more before I can start asking questions about its usefulness.

Another topic: during my research I met with the work of Aldo van Eyck, who is the father of Dutch city playgrounds for kids. There’s more to say about him, and I will do so in a future post. Right now he’s inspired me to start looking for ways of making public space into a temporary playground, like he did. This would be a form in which I can deal with a lot of issues  I am interested in at the moment.