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Author Archives: Kars

Upcoming lecture on pervasive games at CIID

Final­ly, I get to lec­ture at my favorite inter­ac­tion design insti­tute, the CIID. If you’re in the Copen­hagen area, do come along. Here’s the descrip­tion: It seems that the brave new play­ful world promised by per­­va­­sive/ur­ban/lo­ca­­tive/al­ter­­nate-real­i­­ty games mavens of the past decade hasn’t real­ly mate­ri­al­ized. Gam­ing hasn’t left the liv­ing room much, it still most­ly […]

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Making cultural events more playful

These are sketch­es from a pre­sen­ta­tion that I deliv­ered a while back to a room full of orga­niz­ers of cul­tur­al events and cre­ative agen­cies from Utrecht. This was the cul­mi­na­tion of a study com­mis­sioned by the city of Utrecht, in which we looked at ways of adding play­ful ele­ments to the pro­grams of some of […]

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You’ll find us at Kunstgras 2010

On Wednes­day 2 June you’ll find me at Kun­st­gras 2010; an event where cre­ative entre­pre­neurs from the Utrecht area and beyond meet and exchange ideas. The We Love Cre­atief Utrecht book, which includes an inter­view myself, will be pre­sent­ed there as well. (Many thanks to Karel Mil­lenaar of Fource­Labs for mak­ing that hap­pen.) It’s not often that […]

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A few predictions for the future of urban games

On Wednes­day 14 April I co-host­ed the first Best Scene in Town work­shop on invi­ta­tion of Waag Soci­ety’s Ronald Lenz. The oth­er co-host was The Mobile City’s Mar­ti­jn de Waal. Best Scene in Town is a design con­test where­in par­tic­i­pants are asked to cre­ate an urban game, nar­ra­tive expe­ri­ence or tour using 7scenes; Waag Soci­ety’s […]

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Shaping the city with urban games at Visible Cities #03

Last week I had the plea­sure of being able to speak at Vis­i­ble Cities, which is a series of events on emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies and the city. The third edi­tion looked at urban gam­ing and brought togeth­er archi­tects, design­ers and tech­nol­o­gists to explore how these games can be used to shape cities. Michiel de Lange kicked […]

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Talking about game design at Visible Cities #03

Head over to TrouwAms­ter­dam tomor­row for what is sure to be anoth­er inter­est­ing Vis­i­ble Cities. I can’t think of anoth­er event in NL at the moment that is more at the fore­front of urban­ism and inter­ac­tion design. So I’m pleased to announce I’ll be there to pro­vide a short overview of what we’ve been up […]

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Architects vs. Game Designers — Fight!

If you’re like me and con­sid­er the city to be a play­ground, then I’d love to have you join me in two weeks at the Waag for the first Best Scene in Town work­shop. The aim of this event is to explore the poten­tial of loca­­tion-based media in the city. We’re look­ing for par­tic­i­pants with […]

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What do you get when you cross a game with an opera?

I’ve just added a write-up to the project sec­tion. It’s about Mega Mon­ster Bat­tle Are­na; a cross between a game and an opera com­mis­sioned by Dario Fo, which we were involved with at the start of last year. I still have fond mem­o­ries of this project, it was our first for­ay into the­atre, some­thing I’m […]

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Slides and notes for Transmutation at Raum Schiff Erde 2010

So I’ve returned from a short but won­der­ful trip to Ham­burg (too short, real­ly). Below you’ll find slides plus notes for the talk I gave at Raum Schiff Erde, a con­fer­ence put togeth­er by a group of Reboot adepts. I have to say, I thor­ough­ly enjoyed the laid-back atmos­phere, the curi­ous venue and the nice […]

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Kars Alfrink speaking at RaumschiffEr.de in Hamburg

On Feb­ru­ary 21 I’ll be speak­ing at RaumschiffEr.de in Ham­burg.1 It’s is a lit­tle broth­er of Reboot, a con­fer­ence in Copen­hagen I love for its relaxed atmos­phere, eclec­tic mix of peo­ple and slight­ly coun­ter­cul­tur­al lean­ings. RaumschiffEr.de aims to help design­ers and tech­nol­o­gists become more aware of the many net­works they rely on — peo­ple, tech­nolo­gies, […]

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