{"id":687,"date":"2016-07-29T09:25:42","date_gmt":"2016-07-29T09:25:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/?p=687"},"modified":"2016-07-29T09:25:42","modified_gmt":"2016-07-29T09:25:42","slug":"one-easy-step-the-research-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/29\/one-easy-step-the-research-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"One Easy Step: The Research Continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve now spent two weeks putting different things in the Quad at King’s College London – from hopscotch courses to plastic telescopes to big cardboard frames – as part of our research into public play<\/a>\u00a0for the upcoming Arts &\u00a0Humanities Festival.<\/p>\n

Today is our last day of observations before we start sitting down and sifting through everything we’ve discovered. And there’s a\u00a0lot\u00a0<\/em>to go through.<\/p>\n

For example, look at the different sets of footprint trails<\/strong> above. We started off with one very simple trail, then got progressively more complicated – and each time the trail got more complicated, we found we had many more players. Barely anyone tried out the first version, maybe two people in five hundred – but dozens of people paced along one of the final routes.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"dots\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We’ve found that if\u00a0we put something\u00a0new\u00a0<\/strong>in the Quad, somewhere between 20% and 40% of the people who walk through will acknowledge it – usually just by turning their heads to have a look.\u00a0Unexpectedly, staff members who walk through daily are more likely to look, and tourists least likely of all – the thing that’s drawing the attention isn’t the object itself, it’s the\u00a0change<\/em>. Something that’s been there a few days gets many fewer people peering at it.<\/p>\n

And who’ll actually play with the\u00a0new thing they’re turning to look at? Well, there’s a whole lot of variation depending on what that thing is – and what our potential player is doing. There are a lot of different ways to engage with the sort of playful public art we’ve been trying out, for example:<\/p>\n