University of Plymouth PEARL https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk 04 University of Plymouth Research Theses 01 Research Theses Main Collection 2020 Designing Playful Systems Straeubig, Michael http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/15841 University of Plymouth All content in PEARL is protected by copyright law. Author manuscripts are made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the details provided on the item record or document. In the absence of an open licence (e.g. Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher or author. This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the author’s prior consent. Designing Playful Systems by Michael Straeubig A thesis submitted to Plymouth University in partial fulfilment for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY School of Art, Design and Architecture Faculty of Arts and Humanities February 2020 Acknowledgements To the Fabulous Four who have been with me at the centre of this PhD project: Jane Grant, John Matthias, Mike Phillips and Sue Denham: Thank you so much for making this possible. To Emma Whittaker who set all this in motion: I am deeply grateful. To my fellow CogNovians, in particular Chun-Wei Hsu, Pinar Oztop, Mihaela Taranu, Diego Maranan and Frank Loesche: what a journey. I miss you. To all the colleagues and friends who had special impact on this thesis: Anna Abraham, James Brocklehurst, Ruairi Glynn, Yasmine He, Christiane Huetter, Johanna Ickert, Claus Just, James Kennedy, Anya Lewin, Hilary O’Shaughnessy, Sana Murrani, Sebastian Quack, Uli Schuster, Katharine Willis, the folks at Kin design - especially Matt Wade, Kevin Palmer and Tom Harding - to Hong Kong and CityU, to all the players and makers who were involved in my projects and to the many people I met here and on my travels and had the most lovely and engaged discussions with: Thank you. I have appreciated friendly environments such as the 24-hour Charles Seale-Hayne library at the University of Plymouth and PRIME Cafe in Plymouth that provide space to think, communicate and write. My special gratitude goes to the European Union. This work is funded as part of Marie Curie Initial Training Network FP7-PEOPLE-2013-ITN, CogNovo, grant number 604764. i ii Author’s declaration At no time during the registration for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy has the author been registered for any other University award without prior agreement of the Doctoral College Quality Sub-Committee. Work submitted for this research degree at the University of Plymouth has not formed part of any other degree either at the University of Plymouth or at another establishment. This study was financed with the aid of funding from the Marie Curie Initial Training Network FP7-PEOPLE-2013-ITN, CogNovo, grant number 604764. Publications: Straeubig, M. (2015) ‘On the distinction between distinction and division’, Technoetic Arts, 13(3), pp. 245–251. doi: 10.1386/tear.13.3.245_1. Straeubig, M. and Quack, S. (2016) ‘Playful Locative Ensembles in the Urban Soundscape’, PLAYIN THE CITY. Artistic and Scientific Approaches to Playful Urban Arts. Edited by J. Ackermann, A. Rauscher, and D. Stein. (Navigationen - Zeitschrift für Medien und Kulturwissenschaften), 16(1), pp. 85–100. Straeubig, M. (2017) ‘Playing with/as Systems: Short Paper, Discussion and Demonstra- tion’, AVANT. The Journal of the Philosophical-Interdisciplinary Vanguard, VIII(Special), pp. 197–203. doi: 10.26913/80s02017.0111.0018. Public presentation of creative research outputs: Hostile Environment Facility Training: Furtherfield Gallery, July/August 2018, London. Spiel 1: playin’ Siegen festival, April 2015, Siegen. Imperfect VR: Electromagnetic Field, August 2016, Guildford. Off the Lip, October 2016, Plymouth. Royal College of Art, November 2016, London. Space Art and Technology, February 2017, London. Future Imperfect Symposium, April 2017, Plymouth. Doomed Gallery / Antiuniversity Now, June 2017, London. Vivid Projects, August 2017, Birmingham. Games and Simulation enhanced Learning (GSeL) conference, November 2017, Plymouth. Shanghai Maritime University, November 2017, Shanghai. Donghua University, November 2017, Shanghai. Social Fiction Lab, February 2018, Berlin. 35th Chaos Communication Congress (35C3), December 2018, Leipzig. Neurotic: Prototype festival, October 2014, Dublin. Mediacity 5 conference, May 2015, Plymouth. KlingKlangKlong: Playpublik Festival, September 2014, Krakow. Plymouth Book Festival, October 2014, Plymouth. playin’ Siegen festival, April 2015, Siegen. Off The Lip, October 2016, Plymouth. CO2rnwall CO2 Challenge: Fascinate Conference August 2014, Falmouth Balance/Unbalance conference, August 2017, Plymouth (part of Non-Sense of Place). Pedestrian Fitness Initiative for Plymouth: Mediacity 5 conference, May 2015, Plymouth. Balance/Unbalance conference, August 2017, Plymouth (part of Non-Sense of Place). iii Speed Gardening Guerrilla: Malta Festival, June 2014, Poznan.´ Playful Arts Festival, June 2014, ’s-Hertogenbosch (run by Frank Loesche). Balance/Unbalance conference, August 2017, Plymouth (part of Non-Sense of Place). Presentations at conferences: “Can Machines Play?“, Digital Art and Technology Visiting Speakers, 19 January 2015, University of Plymouth. “Can Machines Play?“, Cognitive Futures in the Humanities, 14 April 2015, University of Oxford. “Playing with distinctions”, Researching Games Summit, 23 April 2016, Berlin. “Towards Play Design for Machines”, 20 May 2016, International Symposium on Electronic Art, Hong Kong City University. “How to Perceive the Virtual Image? On the Distinction Between Virtual and Real”, Transimage, 3 July 2016, University of Plymouth. “Playing with distinctions. Towards a Theory of Playful Systems”, DiGRA FDG 2016 Conference. Doctoral Consortium, 1 Aug 2016, University of Dundee. “(How) Does Play Matter? A Transdisciplinary Approach to Play and its Relation to Neurobiology, Creativity and Deception”, joint presentation with Chun-Wei Hsu, Pinar Oztop, Mihaela Taranu. Off the Lip Conference - Transdisciplinary Approaches to Cognitive Innovation, 21 October 2016, University of Plymouth. “Concept and Design of Playful Systems“, Philosophy of Computer Games Conference. Doctoral Consortium, 1 November 2016, University of Malta. “Do Playful Systems Know That They Play?“, Philosophy of Computer Games Conference, 2 November 2016, University of Malta. “Let the Machines out, Towards Hybrid Social Systems“, AISB Annual Convention 2017. The 10th AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy, 21 April 2017, University of Bath. “Do Machines Produce Art? No. (A Systems-Theoretic Answer)“, Art Machines: In- ternational Symposium on Computational Media Art, 7 January 2019, Hong Kong City University. “The Communication Problem“, AISB Annual Convention 2019. Philosophy after AI: Language, Imagination and Creativity Symposium, 16 April 2019, Falmouth University. Word count for the main body of this thesis: 55136 Signed: 15 Februar 2020 Date: iv Abstract Play is a common, yet elusive phenomenon. Many definitions of play and explanations for its existence have been brought forward in various disciplines such as psychology, anthropology, ethology and in the humanities. As an activity apparently serving no other purpose than itself, play can be simply considered a pleasant pastime. Yet its equation with fun has been challenged by artists and scholars alike. Being in a playful state does not warrant extrinsic motivation or being conscious of an external purpose. However, play creates meaning, and scientists are pursuing functional explanations for it. These conflicting observations are contributing to the ambiguity of play and they raise questions about the limits of the complexity that present discourses are able to reflect. This thesis presents a comprehensive, transdisciplinary approach to describe and under- stand play, based on systems-theory, constructivism, cybernetics and practical exploration. Observing play in this way involves theoretical analysis, reflection and critique as well as the practice of design, development and artistic exposition. By constructing, re-contextualising and discussing eight of my own projects, I explore the distinction between theory and practice through which playful systems emerge. Central to my methodology is the concept of distinctions as a fundamental method of observation. It is introduced itself as a distinction and then applied throughout this thesis, in order to describe and discuss phenomena of play from a wide range of different perspectives. This includes paradoxical, first-person and conflicting accounts and it enables discourses that cross disciplinary boundaries. In summary, the three interrelated contributions to knowledge in my research project are: I contribute to the emerging field of game studies through a comprehensive systems- theoretical description on play. I also provide a methodology in which theory and practice inform each other through mutual observation, construction, reflection and critical evalua- tion. Finally, I present eight projects, including a playful system developed in a speculative approach that I call anthroponeutral design. These results represent a novel transdisci- plinary perspective on play that offers new opportunities for further research. v vi Contents Acknowledgements i Author’s declaration