INTERVENTION

IDEAS FOR MY NEW RESEARCH QUESTION:

- As play seems vital to children when they're growing up, why does it fade with adults? Is it a social construct that adults don't play or is something else going on?
- What happens if we put elements of play in an "adult" environment?
-What can we learn from children and apply it to our daily lives?

Inspiration for my intervention:

Making the pedestrian crossing fun:

First idea for making crossing the pedestrian crossing into a game:

First visualisation of my intervention, I'm going to test this by sending it to multiple people and asking them what they think and if they would do the challenges.

QUESTIONS THAT COME TO MIND

What colors/words do you use? Play sounds childish and game to serious. All pink would be considered feminine etc. How do I make the intervention as neutral as possible?

How do you create an environment in which individuals dare to do as adults/alone this alone?

FIRST REACTIONS:

Enrica, female, 21 years old
Hey! I really like the idea of an audio assignment while waiting at a crossing! I think if people really pay attention and stop thinking about what other people think, they’d enjoy doing it. Hopefully the assignment will bring that out of adults as well.
Maybe a game to interact with other crossing, would also be a fun excersize. ‘Pretend to be a monkey’ personally I would feel too awkward to play an animal, and also wouldn’t know as easily to move like a monkey.
But I like the child play like fantasy and imagination at a crossing, that’s a great place to force people to stop and play for a small moment

Quinty, female, 20 years old
Nice idea! not sure if i would do it when walking alone.. perhaps with friends around. It’s really triggering you to get out of your comfortzone, which is a challenge for personal/mental growth.

Naima, female, 24 years old
I like the idea of putting a little bit of play into day to day activities. It could also help bring a little bit of connectivity between people, but I don’t think I would dare to do it when I’m alone. If I would be with one or more people I might do it though, since it does sounds like a small and funny thing to do. For me to do such a challenge while by myself it probably would depend on who would be on the other side/next to me: a formal looking business men (this would prob be a no) or a chill mom with her child (a maybe yes) and on my mood that day

Puck, female, 20 years old
First I want to say what I find the stigma that you have to stop playing and "you have to grow up" etc. is so annoying.
Like that at a certain age you have to stop playing with Barbies, and then you have to stop playing pokemon otherwise you are a nerd etc.
But to be honest I don't think I would join the game if it would be a real thing.
Mostly I am a bit in a hurry or I don't want people to look at me (more) haha.

Dennis, male, 22 years old
Okay, so I like the game you created. I don't really like the introduction you wrote tho. Don't get me wrong, it's nicely writen and all that but the there is a proven answer to the question you're asking here and it has nothing to do with social construct or other unwritten rules. If I remember corectly kids experience the world they percieve more intensely due to the fact that they get more oxigen to there brains then grownups. It has something to do with the way your skull changes when you get older but I don't remember the exact reason. I do think it's a great way to get people out of there normal systematic routine tho. In some sense a way to wake them up for a moment so they'll realise that they're alive and not zombie bitchez.

FEEDBACK YIN YIN:

You're talking to adults, you want to trigger their "kids brain" and with this intervention you are taking too much control over their actions. It would be better to make it smaller/more simple, by making prompts to spark play. Like for instance, only write "the floor is lava" on the ground by a pedestrian crossing and see what happens. Some children like to walk on the edge of the sidewalk, you can write "don't fall off" on that edge as an example. For your final intervention you could design a list of prompts like these and test 1 or 2.

2-12-2020

"THE BLACK STRIPES ARE LAVA" TEST

13:00
I got some looks while writing on the crossing with chalk, some boys on a bike said: "Ohh, is the floor lava?". i took a break from writing because a car came and I saw a little girl laughing before crossing and played the lava game happily, even though I hadn't finished writing. When I was done one little boy and his mum noticed me and my writing, the boy said hi and played the game. Some adults smiled at me but didn't play. I take a seat on a bench close by to observe.

13:15
I'm observing the crossing from a distance and lots of adults cross it but don't really notice the "lava" writing. The chalk faded a bit because of the cars but you could still read it very well.
13:17
Wow! A woman, I guess she's around thirty, crossed the crossing in a fast pace only touching the white stripes. When she was done crossing the road she started walking at a normal pace again, she played the game!
Most other adults still don't even really notice the writing. A little boy was also playing the game while holding his mother's hand.
13:20
A couple probably in their late twenties played the game while holding hands. They walked the white stripes slowly and in sync, while laughing. A grown man in his fifties mindfully only touched the white stripes, he also played the game!
13:25
A little boy played the game while holding his fathers hand.
13:30
Some people suspected that I wrote the words and smiled at me when passing me by, I'm still sitting on a bench close by observing.
13:40
A couple with their little daughter, who probably couldn't read yet, passed by and the mom played the crossing game the second half of the crossing so the girl would play along. A man and woman in their late twenties played the game. The man shouted: "Run!" to the girl but actually didn't, they walked only touching the white stripes.
A big group of girls around 12/13 didn't notice the words, they were either talking or on their phone.

MAJOR INSPIRATION FOR MY INTERVENTION: Harmen de Hoop.

Harmen de Hoop is a visual artist who makes anonymous and illegal interventions in public space. He works on the notion of ‘place’ in the contemporary city, the behaviour of individuals or groups, and the conflicts of interests in public space. He addresses the passer-by without using the existing language of the art world. His interventions are made by re-contextualizing existing signs or objects, adding them to a location in an unexpected way and by doing so questioning ‘normality’. The work is often about the functionality of materials and objects, or about rules and regulations and the way people behave in the public domain. With this he tries to let people look at themselves in a different way, often with a sense of humor. Before he makes a work he visits and photographs an unlimited number of locations in a chosen city until he finds the right site for his intervention. From 1998 onwards the majority of his works consist of carefully planned actions in public space. As with his interventions he confronts an unprepared public with actions that comment on social, political and philosophical issues.

Mindmap with ideas for the prompts after my feedback session with Yin Yin.

The first prompt ideas I made after deciding on using them for my project. I thought it would be fun to make "characters" out of objects. "Play me" "Swing around me" phrasing the goal of the intervention like this make the objects used, like a lamppost and fence, come to life, adding more imagination to the playing experience. I also designed all the prompts in the same style so people will know they belong to the same project if someone spots more than one in the city.

TESTING THE INTERVENTION
"THE BLACK STRIPES ARE LAVA"

FINAL INTERVENTION PROPOSAL: PLAYING PROMPTS IN AN URBAN SPACE

LOCATION OF THE TEST SITE

I came back to the location later to try and film the crossing, as I thought it was to obvious at first. I managed to get some shots of the prompt in action.

One more, seeing people do the challenge made me happy as well. I really enjoyed going out of my comfort zone and testing this prompt.

WRITING DOWN THE WORDS "LAVA" ON THE BLACK CROSSING STRIPES WITH CHALK

I observed from the bench you can see.

My apologies, there is a sound recording that automatically plays when entering this page and I can't seem to turn it off. After one play it will stop automatically :)

All the pictures used to visualize the prompts with I made around, in the area or in the playground I observed at the beginning of this project. The prompts broaden the play space, it shows what I have observed in my research as children use the whole area around the playground to play. The area around the playground is an urban space, in the middle of Rotterdam with lots of cars and people on the go. Just to clarify.