Experimental Interaction (2014): Digital Games and Embodied Play

The computer needs to come out of the box, so much is obvious. Tangible computing is a tendency that is visible on the mainstream consumer market for about 10 years, and in the academic and artistic discourses at least for 20. Many people enjoy tangible interaction. Touching, moving, acting, collaborating. This is a clear tendency in games. But why? Why go tangible?
The course establishes connections between phenomenology, tangible interaction, and play. It follows a range of thinkers from Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty, who highlight and develop different aspects of phenomenology, to Suchman, Dreyfus, and Dourish, who apply ideas of phenomenology to computer interaction. Since the 1980's, an increasing awareness and influence of phenomenology in digital media design can be spotted. Phenomenology turns out to be a powerful approach to creative work within the domain of interactive systems.
In the course, participants discuss, analyse, design and create artworks, interactive installations and games. The course does not propagate particular design guidelines but attempts to introduce phenomenology as a generative language to discuss what is happening in everyday life, artworks, interactive installations, and games; to explain and analyse and to make and design.

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Student works

Daniel Cermak-Sassenrath. Experimental Interaction: Digital Games and Embodied Play, Course, ITU, Copenhagen, Autumn 2014.