Image courtesy of Victoria Tillotson

Recife: The Playable City part one kicked off on 8th January at Watershed in Bristol. In collaboration with the British Council and Porto Digital, we were delighted to host a diverse group of 20 artists, creative producers and creative technologists from Pernambuco (Brazil) and the United Kingdom for 10 days at Pervasive Media Studio. Through a series of presentations, workshops, talks and making, we challenged the group to consider how playful interactions might change the way we inhabit and interact with our cities. We asked them to look past a corporate drive to make cities smart and think about what the joyful, yet still meaningful, implications of using technology in our environment might be.

With a cohort that includes choreographers, programmers, theatre producers, games designers and more besides, we’re truly excited about what collaborations between these practitioners could bring.

There was an arc of thinking to the design of part one. This was the first time the group had met, and other than the information in the application pack, the first time they were asked to really engage with what the term ‘Playable City’ could mean in the context of Recife. So we began with a series of exercises over four days, which enabled exploration of the concept, introductions to Recife and a chance to know each other better. You can find out more about the individual workshop sessions on our Recife: Playable City site.

Having collected together talented artists and producers from the UK and Brazil, the first few days sought engage thinking around play and urban space, moving beyond structures and boundaries that are often thought to define urban landscapes.

Image courtesy of Tine Bech

Week two saw the participants split into mixed project groups (each group including artists, technologists and producers from Brazil and the UK), to begin exploring and prototyping potential Playable City ideas for Recife.

On their final day in Bristol the group took over the Pervasive Media Studio’s lunchtime talk. This was a great opportunity to engage the public with the intense creative process the group had undergone.

One early prototype, called Sonic Branch, is a tree with interactive leaves where each person touches two leaves to trigger sounds. As more people play a wider range of instruments can be heard. Telescopes to a Beautiful City opens up an alternative experience of the city through a telescope/kaleidoscope that when placed in the eye, triggers memories and images in the form of stories of the city told by the citizens. We also heard about the potential of Aquatic Pathways to help Recife overcome some of its traffic issues; the possibilities of doorways placed throughout the city; games in bus stops; and enchanted forests that promote social cohesion.

Image courtesy of Natasha Chubbuck

The audience response was overwhelming and the Studio was filled with people who had come to see the groups introduce their ideas. After this everyone got to play with the prototypes, which was a chance for the groups to receive feedback from a broadly skilled audience that included artists, technologists, arts professional and the general public. Filipe Calegario reflected on how useful this was in his proejct blog, saying that it was 'very interesting to see how the participants interacted with the telescope'. Natasha Chubbuck adds: 'It was fantastic at one point to see PM Studio residents and the public making a human chain around the room to see how far they could go and still make sound, and playing the 'branches' with noses, foreheads, elbows and feet!'

Our Brazilians have now had a taste of city life in Bristol, for the UK participants the second sprint in Brazil is about getting under the skin of Recife. It is about the culture of the city, its people and their relationship to the places, issues and opportunities that are part of living in Pernambuco today. During the second sprint the ideas generated in Bristol will be developed further, culminating in a public showcase of work in Recife.

There's a lot to develop between now and April but the participants will continue to work on the ideas in the meantime using Skype and social media. We’re extremely excited the things to come and we hope that you follow our progress along the way by using our hashtag: #playablecity, visiting our Storify (rounding up tweets etc from the programme), and reading and commenting on participant journals.