About the fishing demo, that’s interesting and i’m sort of agree with you that usually Urban Games are very active and fast, you are playing against the time.
Maybe one way to incorporate that in the game too could be to think it like one of the Checkpoint between the missions, that are spaces and interactions that are calmer, so maybe if the spot where this activity will take place is in the game area we can insert it like that.
About the DIY analysis and citizen science, do you think that is possible to have also some experience that is not tech related, do you have links or suggestions so I can dig deeper on that?
Okay! I’m going to Brussels to scout for a suitable location for the fly fishing in the vicinity of the venue.
What do you mean by citizen science that is not tech related @matteo_uguzzoni ? Something like citizen psychological science?
Another idea that might be fun: seeds bombs or guerilla mycology. Planting plants or mushrooms in public spaces. No effect during the festival, but fun anyway to know that something might be there in a year, can even revisit it at some point.
Yeah, maybe I need some links to example of citizen science, like can you scan air data without devices? Or check water hardness without filters or devices (yes more than tech probably I was thinking about devices)…
Guerrilla actions > great!!
There is not much without devices. Smartphones are usually the lowest tech way. Like this litter tagging project → https://openlittermap.com/
Then there’s many where you are required to send pictures of snails, birds, … to map biodiversity. These biology projects are usually fun and have a community around them, but to be honest, most other existing low-tech projects are low-tech because the organizers have designed them that way. They are a dumbed down version of the actual scientific research and citizens are invited to participate within the (limited) possibilities the scientists carefully designed. Participants are just human sensors or data processors.
This goes against the citizen science we put in the spotlight during the festival, where citizens are active agents in every phase of the research from ideation over planning all the way to conclusions. This is more intense and inevitably involves technology. We’ll have demos in the program so it’s not necessary to put them in the urban game.
That being said, we can also design our own ‘citizen science’ project around anything that can be measured. Think correlating driver friendliness with car price range, checking cleanliness of public toilets, I don’t know. Designing the project can be part of the game, though I’m not sure how hard it is or how long it takes to think up something that makes sense. Would love to see us try though @matteo_uguzzoni !
Not sure. “Wanderaze” I don’t even understand. I am no native speaker myself, but “Drifted” also sounds a bit borderline as “drift” is not a transitive verb. Shame, because I like that one. You might like “adrift” (“alla deriva”).
I think that smartphones are enough (the palyers will use it anyway during the game), and maybe because we are starting the Festival we can also go with the “mapping” approach, besides it’s pretty basic (with humans as sensors/data processors)…then during the Festival they can go deeper and discover all the process. It’s like a tutorial / entry level on the topic.
some citizen science can include cleaning up your favourite environment - but quantitatively! our colleagues from ‘hammerdirt’ had already been cleaning beaches, with a focus on quantitative statistics, but as lifeguards, they were also concerned about skin rashes and gastro-intestinal illnesses that were more frequently occurring each summer. At Hackuarium, we helped them get started on systematic microbial analyses of local waters … (lake and river, and we even recently had an amazing visit to their local sewage treatment plant)
Here are a couple of links: http://www.plagespropres.ch/ http://wiki.hackuarium.ch/w/Micro_to_Macro_Water_Pollution
We repeated the lake water sampling this year, and I hope to be able to talk about our compiled results at the festival…
We printed labyrinth stamped seed bombs for our COP21 Cascade and attached messages to them. It was playful and cheap. http://cascade.network/glitchy-transmissions-from-the-now/ Could organise getting some seeds printed before the Open Village? What would tie in with the theme I wonder?
I love the idea of guerilla mycology - really happy to help with this.
Reading deeper into this thread, fully supporting the emphasis on active agents.
I posted the comment below on slowness a few weeks back (copied it in below). & since then have been having lots of conversations about time - some people emphasising “just doing and doing now” and others emphasising “slow process & the long view”. They feel complementary perspectives: acting fast, but doing so with a vision of the long-term & that some work / relationships / studies / projects bear fruit over serious time. One of the most illuminating points came from a musician who said that to play super-fast musical passages it was necessary to get his body into a very slow state. There’s something here about time mastery.
So I wonder whether there’s a bubble of slowness that can be grown inside this fast-paced Incognito Battleclash idea? @matteo_uguzzoni
Or guerilla mycology/ seed bomb idea? Planting plants or mushrooms in public spaces, record the points they were planted, returning months later - documenting slow process… Seeds planted…
I love the citizen psychological science suggestion. Maybe some of the info collected from the public can be about people’s experience - ie they’re experience living in the area - perceptions of care - support… Human experience as part of the biodiversity. Might all tie in well with the local collective intelligence / local wifi system.
Faranak Mirjalili and me will collect dreams from attendees at the Open Village meeting in morning sessions.
"Part of the cascade project was around slow culture hacks. Activism that emphasises changing the pace of the city and foregrounding presence, vulnerability and the beauty of the earth. The dance groups on the streets for the COP21 shifted me.
Been thinking about action on the streets & since culture is obsessed with excitement - anything too high paced is likely just to feed the machine and be yet another ride on the wheel… For where there is hectic business, there is all the distraction, blindness and madness of this suicidal culture. This sense that “the time is now” can be met by something present. Instead of putting that intense feeling into multiple short-lived projects, to make energy matter. To use energy with real intention. One way of spreading courage and alternatives is to be in total presence. What about an action that expressed a great slowing down into presence during the Open Village? Slowing down the pace of the streets with movement. Done a few things like this before - I led a slow motion walk up Oxford high street in the last decade to protest the Iraq war. So - what about a short workshop and then an action of dancing slowly (in whatever your style) in the streets? Gifting pieces of fruit to passers by? A way of spreading the invitation. I’ve made mistakes in the past about acting before the time is ripe. Doing too much. In rushed ways. Not preparing long enough to really pull it off. There is a mastery to carpe diem - in plucking the day when it is ripe. If that can tie in with urban game you are working on - great - I’m on for this & looking out for times and places for this creative plan."
/// In the wilds of Portugal and little connectivity here unfortunately - will check in with this conversation next week ///
& FYI - there’s a GREAT relevant open call in Brussels (deadline end of October) that could be a place to develop creative instigations further…
From ecological transition to degrowth and the effective use of art
Based on an examination of artisanal practices and new forms of food production, the foundation invites visual artists, curators, designers and chefs to submit a project on the theme of deceleration, that explores concepts for the collaborative economy (recycling, textiles, 3D creation, food…) and has a social impact.
Yeah, a rare call looking to fund exactly this kind of initiative. Happy to join a call on urban game plans towards some prepping b4 October - seed printing etc. @winnieponcelet@matteo_uguzzoni Just ping me when time opens up.
Hi Kate, thank you very much for your suggestion, I think that we could definitely add the seed bombs task in the game or we can ask people to collect seeds and then you can do a lab about seed bombing during the Festival (didn’t have a look at the final program yet so I don’t know if it fits),
otherwise I think that we can create a number of messaged and bombs (multiple of 3) and then simply add it to the tasks that the teams must do. Sorry again for my late reply, i really hope that we can add it
Yes, yes yes!! Noemi is there a way to have “private” conversation with multiple member of the community here in EG or is better if I ask to the Urban game team to talk in Drive? Thanks!
