{"id":740,"date":"2016-08-31T14:17:11","date_gmt":"2016-08-31T14:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/?p=740"},"modified":"2016-08-31T14:17:59","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T14:17:59","slug":"interview-with-heather-kelley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/2016\/08\/31\/interview-with-heather-kelley\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Heather Kelley"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of our research project<\/a> for the King\u2019s College London Arts and Humanities Festival<\/a>, we\u2019ve been interviewing different curators, designers, artists and architects about playful work for public space. This interview is with\u00a0Heather Kelley,\u00a0a game designer, digital artist, and media curator. She co-curated the groundbreaking 2012 exhibition Joue le jeu \/ Play Along at La Ga\u00eet\u00e9 lyrique in Paris, France, and is co-founder of Kokoromi, an experimental game collective. She\u2019s worked on console games, physical installations, VR and pretty much every area of game design.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

One of her games, <\/span><\/em>Trente Pas entre Terre et Ciel<\/span><\/a> (shown above, and co-created with Oscar Barda of Them Games<\/a>), is a two-player jumping game derived from hopscotch which we showed at Now Play This earlier this year, so we started out by talking to her about it<\/em>.\u00a0This is an edited extract from the full interview, which will be included in our report at the end of the research project.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

US: <\/b>So<\/span> I read something in your talk about making games in institutional contexts (PDF).<\/a> You mentioned there that when you were making <\/span>Trente Pas <\/span><\/i>you spent a load of time trying out different sizes of squares for people to hop in.<\/span><\/p>\n

HEATHER:<\/b> Mmm. So we wanted the squares to convey information inherently, so things like the direction the number was facing and things like that were important because they would say what way the player should be facing at that moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

And they had to be also accommodating of different abilities and sizes of humans. If they were too small like a child-size square it\u2019d be too small for an adult, and it might symbolise that it\u2019s not for them. But if it\u2019s too big then there\u2019s the opposite problem. Kids would think it wasn\u2019t for them. So it was finding this sweet spot between the size of the square and also the distance of the squares from each other, because you want them to be encouraging movement! You want people to hop! But you don\u2019t want them to have to do the long jump to get there.<\/span><\/p>\n

And also because it\u2019s a game for two people the distance between squares was important because sometimes you wanted those people to have to pass by each other very close, and at other times you wanted them to be apart from each other – although they might be holding hands, physically connected but at arm\u2019s length. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

US:<\/b> And do you remember how big they were, the squares? What is the perfect definitive researched tested proper hopscotch size?<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

HEATHER:<\/b> I do not remember! It wouldn\u2019t be impossible to find the actual file\u2026 theoretically the information about that is <\/span>somewhere<\/span><\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n

US:<\/b> Though I suppose it might differ for different courses! <\/span>Trente Pas <\/span><\/i>is such a long course so I suppose you don\u2019t want it to be <\/span>too <\/span><\/i>challenging, or people might get exhausted? But it does seem like if you\u2019ve found out the best size to iterate from\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

HEATHER:<\/b> We did have a sense of how big was good. And to account for the exhaustion factor we had \u201cpause points\u201d so you only had to do one style of hopping, roughly the equivalent of a normal hopscotch length. Then you\u2019d pause, read the next instruction, and do something else. So hopefully we wouldn\u2019t totally wear people out.<\/span><\/p>\n

But in conjunction with the official installation inside the Ga\u00eet\u00e9 we did a guerilla campaign of hopscotch on the streets, and we did a lot of stencilling for that. The game you had at Now Play This is much more akin to the ones we did outside the Ga\u00eet\u00e9, which used the same sort of spray chalk. <\/span><\/p>\n

The ones I thought got the best response were some that were on sidewalks that were pretty narrow, like one that was close to the Mus\u00e9e des Arts et M\u00e9tiers. Because it was right there on the sidewalk, we did notice that people who walked by – children especially – were interacting as they went along.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ones that looked closer to an iconic hopscotch got a little more interaction, as well as the ones that were directly on a path that you couldn\u2019t really avoid.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/b>US:<\/b>\u00a0You did a different\u00a0project in Witten a couple of years ago, the 72 Hour Urban Action project with Invisible Playground, and your team made a maze, is that right? [<\/span>72 Hour Interactions<\/span><\/a> was a project where different groups made playful physical interventions and installations in Witten in Germany over a 72-hour period]. <\/span><\/p>\n

HEATHER:<\/b> Huh yeah! <\/span><\/p>\n

That was a super-interesting project that I don\u2019t get to talk about often. Our first concept was for a physical, traditional maze made out of plywood but with adjustable parts so players could change the maze for other people. And the other designer on the team, Greg Foster, who\u2019s a member of The Larks<\/a>, the theatre group based in Manchester, got the idea to do these more frond-like things instead of plywood, hanging down, and you move right through them. <\/span><\/p>\n

We hung icons among these fronds so that if you just wandered around enough you\u2019d locate them, and they formed a kind-of invitation to explore\u2026 it was called the<\/span> Verlustb\u00fcro<\/span><\/em>, the Lost and Found Office, so you\u2019d get lost and then you\u2019d find things.<\/span><\/p>\n

I liked that as well because we were trying to encourage certain behaviours, and these hanging objects were kind-of like a Christmas ornament, these hanging wooden decorated things.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was to encourage people to explore and not to just blow right through it. It was a really small space but really disorienting. And there were a few different exits – one way in, a number of different ways out.<\/span><\/p>\n

US:<\/b> And it sounds – I talked to Sebastian a bit about this whole project [from Invisible Playground, one of the organisers] and it sounds like the takeup of all the different projects that different groups made was pretty great?<\/span><\/p>\n

HEATHER:<\/b> Meaning what, that the citizens of Witten\u2026 yeah, they really liked our piece which was super gratifying. And it was really great working with people that stopped by while we were building it. It was built with the community in mind and with people randomly dropping by and asking what we were doing and then hanging out because it was a pleasant place to be and they were there already walking their dog…<\/span><\/p>\n

I think one of my most profound moments as a game designer ever was\u2026 well after we built it, of course we were all completely sleep-deprived and exhausted but happy that we\u2019d got it done, and it was the last day, the open day for the city residents to come and check out all the projects. A woman came by in a mechanised wheelchair who was profoundly disabled. She was there with a friend and through her friend she asked if there was a way she could participate. And the architects on the team had made it so that she could – it wasn\u2019t perfect because the ground was uneven but they\u2019d definitely made it wide enough that the wheelchair could fit through, and she could go through and experience it.<\/p>\n

With a lot of the other games made during that project that wasn\u2019t possible because they were about climbing up on things or moving around a lot, and I just remember when she was interested and hovering around the edge, to be able to say \u201cyeah you can totally do this, this is for you\u201d – it\u2019s pretty cliched but that was really powerful for me, that we\u2019d made something that was that flexible and enjoyable for so many people.<\/span><\/p>\n

US:<\/b> A lot of urban play does tend to be very focused on agility, doesn\u2019t it, being able to jump around and run and climb.<\/span><\/p>\n

HEATHER:<\/b> Which is kind of one of my hobby horses for street games and physical games. That was still true with Trente Pas<\/em> when we made it, because Oscar was bringing the physical agility part and I was bringing \u201chey, I have a busted knee, I\u2019m not going to make something that I can\u2019t even enjoy\u201d. Hopefully I would have had that thought <\/span>before <\/span><\/i>I had a busted knee, hopefully it wasn\u2019t only because of that factor! But I go to street game festivals and sometimes it\u2019s all: oh, we\u2019re gonna play Turtle Wushu and Ninja and things that really depend on physically agile movement. Chasing! I fucking hate chasing games. <\/span><\/p>\n

So any time I can make something that\u2019s participatory and physical and spatial and environmental that draws on other interactions\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

US:<\/b> There are other ways of being in a space?<\/span><\/p>\n

HEATHER:<\/b> And interacting with people. Which was another thing about being in the <\/span>Verl\u00fcstburo<\/span><\/em> – it was really like being in a big fog. It had a nice sound, that was one thing, this fwfwwwfwfwfw whispering, and maybe you could hear other people moving. And sometimes you\u2019d come across other people – you\u2019d part the fronds and there they are.<\/span><\/p>\n

And it was the summer and it was breezy so there was an almost leafy sound to the fronds, just blowing in the wind. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As part of our research project for the King\u2019s College London Arts and Humanities Festival, we\u2019ve been interviewing different curators, designers, artists and architects about playful work for public space. This interview is with\u00a0Heather Kelley,\u00a0a game designer, digital artist, and media curator. She co-curated the groundbreaking 2012 exhibition Joue le jeu \/ Play Along at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":742,"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions\/742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathesonmarcault.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}