11.06.2019Thought Leadership | Playable City Melbourne

Playable cities connect people and place in creative ways. They allow people to reimagine the city, not to just to see the city-as-it-is but to experience the city-as-it-could-be. Through this playful approach, the role of public art may be expanded to be participatory and interactive, and to explore the creative, linguistic, cultural, social and urban diversity of many cities.

Augmented reality is often engaging but should also be provocative – challenging our perception and understanding of public space. Its role becomes one of transformation and defamiliarization – allowing us to see our world in a new light.

64 Ways of Being explores emotive and evocative augmented reality encounters in public spaces. Each way of being is a live, realtime, interactive encounter that is intimate, particular and participatory – the player being there makes a difference.

This city-wide activation uses the city as a material for creating ways of being and to draw people into these experiences through the liveness of play. Via a co-creation process this public art commission aims to weave together the many different stories that contribute to Melbourne’s civic identity. Ultimately it is a platform for experiences and will be open to new locations after its launch in 2020.

We start playtesting in November this year, follow @64waysofbeing to join the play community!