Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Creative boxes


Wow, talk about mixing creativity, play and digital cultures! Have a look at the Box Doodle Project -- you take a cardboard box, play around doing something creative and arty with it, take a digital photo and upload it to the site to create a collective gallery. Thanks for Boing Boing for the link.

THIS is the kind of affordance that is SO POWERFULLY provided by digital media. Makes possible rapidly developing, evolving (and possibly, just as quickly, disappearing) affinity groups. Online communities made possible by shared interests, creativity, play and digital technologies.

We need more of it!


4 comments:

Mary Plain said...

This is facinating and very tempting. Is that something we could say about play- it makes you want to do it too? an inviting quality? or am I talking rubbish? (v tired so could well be!)

Victoria Carrington said...

You NEVER talk rubbish! I think that you may be right about play. It has an invitational/seductive quality. Perhaps also an awareness of the low risk of significant negative consequences? Maybe we will need to different between various types and purposes of 'play'? I've been thinking that one of the reasons its such a slippery concept (from our perspective) is that its such an elastic and loaded term.

More importantly, maybe we should be play at being creative with boxes at our next ESRC seminar!

Mary Plain said...

The low risk thing is interesting. I can remember times, though, when there was an enormous amount invested in getting it right in play. Like when you are a relatively low status member of a group and the high status girl (usually it is a girl) changes the rules and you get it wrong. Another example of play's slipperiness.
And yes, let's have the boxes next time. and lots of glitter!

Victoria Carrington said...

You know, this isn't a bad idea at all. If we're going to think thru some of the issues and interesting aspects of play/creativity and digital cultures, maybe we should actually participate in some way.

Glitter, paste, boxes, feathers, digital camera....sounds brilliant.