Monthly Archives: October 2017

Mixed Reality Play in the LEGO House

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Children’s playworlds are a complex interweaving of physical and digital dimensions, with the border areas between ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ becoming increasingly blurred. The popularity of apps like Pokémon Go and the growing use of these apps by young children suggest that mixed reality play is an expanding area. In these hybrid spaces, the distinctions between online and offline, physical and digital, real and virtual become increasingly hard to discriminate, with play moving across boundaries of space and time in new ways.

In March 2018 Kate Cowan will explore perspectives on mixed reality play through a short research visit to Denmark funded by the DigiLitEY COST Action. Linking with researchers from the University of Southern Denmark and toy designers from the LEGO toy company, this visit will focus on the newly-opened LEGO House in Billund which aims to bring together play, creativity and learning through exhibits spanning physical and digital forms.

Photos thanks to Patrick Otley and Jill Hawkins

 

The research visit will involve discussions with members of the LEGO design team, a seminar given at the University of Southern Denmark and a visit to the university’s partnership preschool to consider physical and virtual play in classrooms. Bringing together researchers and commercial toy designers, this collaboration will consider the possibilities and constraints of different toys and spaces for play and will investigate the liminal border-areas where physical and digital play are increasingly mixed.

Key insights will be shared through blog posts and a research report for DigiLitEY. You can follow updates from Kate on Twitter @katecowan

Iona Opie (1923-2017)

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It is with considerable sadness that we report the death of Iona Opie (née Archibald) on 23 October 2017, aged 94. Her ground-breaking work on children’s folklore, especially play and games, undertaken together with her husband Peter, has been inspirational to our own research. In particular, the Opies’ archival collection, which Iona donated to the British Library, Bodleian Libraries and Folklore Society Archives, is central to our current project, Playing the Archive, and its predecessor, Children’s Playground Games and Songs in the New Media Age.

We are grateful to have had her support for this work, and glad to have the privilege, like many scholars around the world, to build on her legacy.

Building immersive worlds

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The team is beginning work on the immersive worlds component of the project. The VR and advanced visualisation specialists at the Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) at University College London, Valerio Signorelli and Andy Hudson-Smith, are testing out ideas for VR and AR (augmented reality) worlds. Working with the materials in the Opie Collection, they will help to bring the games and songs of the past to life. In the picture above we are testing a prototype for an augmented reality avatar.