Vague Terrain

[Antonin Fourneau / moripadSmall / 2009]

What is PlayLab?

PlayLab aims to explore the context of games and video games as a space for creativity, experimentation, learning and reflection. It also aims to create an environment that leads to collaborative work in which different disciplines come together.

PlayLab's activities are proposed as an open and participatory research process from which one can approach video games, a phenomenon that is becoming more extensive and influent in Contemporary Society, and explore its critical potential, its learning possibilities and its capacity to create social spaces that go beyond the purely commercial and standardized.

PlayLab is also interested in the history of Games and video games as it examines its possible genealogies and studies its social, cognitive and psychological effects characteristic of video games today.

Workshop Details

Coordinated by: Flavio Escribano
Call for collaborators: December 14, 2009 through January 20, 2010
Presentation of selected proposals: January 21, 2010
Teachers: Mar Canet, Antonin Fourneau and Abelardo Gil-Fournier
Venue: Medialab-Prado - Madrid, Spain

PlayLab Call for Collaborators

The roll of the collaborator is crucial in the Medialab-Prado's workshops' statement and development process, as these workshops are constituted as a horizontal collaborative work environment, knowledge interchange and theoretical-practical training among teachers, authors and collaborators.

Collaborators can join any of the developing teams that will carry out the selected proposals, depending on their particular interests and skills, thus contributing with their knowledge and skills and at the same time learning from the other group members and from the leading tutors: Mar Canet, Antonin Fourneau, and Abelardo Gil-Fournier. According to the open call guidelines, collaborators' names will be acknowledged in the final prototypes. Medialab-Prado can issue a diploma to collaborators after completing the workshop.

Work groups will start to set up through the PlayLab forum, where interested people can contact authors and other collaborators. Following the presentation of projects on the first day of the workshop (Thursday, January 21, 2010), work groups will be finally defined.

During the first part of the workshop (January 21 - 24, 2010) teams will start developing the prototypes. Afterwards, we encourage teams to continue working in an independent way, so once they get to the second part (February 4 - 7, 2010) they will be closer to finish them.

If you wish to take part in a work group, register on the Medialab-Prado workshop page.

[via: Benjamin Baker-Smith who will be joining the VT blog team as a contributor in 2010]