The university entrance exam is a rite of passage in South Korea. This is a time when many young South Koreans are temporarily emancipated from the traditional pressures of collective belonging, providing a social break that allows self-reflection. This in-between demographic, or trans-youths, are neither children nor adults; they are also situated on the delicate border zone between digital natives and digital immigrants in Prensky’s (2001) term.This paper reports on a research project that is investigating the mobile play culture of transyouths in Seoul. Drawing on in-depth interviews with trans-youth, I analyze their search foridentity through urban social networking. The discussion illustrates the self-searching ofSeoul trans-youths, arguing that technological, socio-cultural and environmental (urban) contexts frame how mobility and ubiquity are (re)created in Seoul, one of the most connected, densely populated and rapidly transforming metropolises in the world. The research providesan unprecedented insight into the lives of trans-youth, in turn illuminating the role of Seoul asa new urban social network.
in this workshop we propose to explore new approaches to bring about real environmental change by looking at the success of empowering technologies that enable grassroots activism and bottom up community participation. Ubiquitous computing is transforming from being mostly about professional communication and social interaction to a sensor rich personal measurement platform that can empower individuals and groups to gain an awareness of their surroundings, engage in grassroots activism to promote environmental change, and enable a new social paradigm – citizen science. This workshop brings together fresh ideas and approaches to help elevate individuals to have a powerful voice in society, to act as citizen scientists, and collectively learn and lobby for change worldwide.
I gave a talk titled Playful Smoothness: The Other Side of Science in the City at the CCi conference as I mentioned before. One of the questions came from Jason Potts, who’s been working on the economic side of things within a broad domain of Creative Industries at CCi - I find his research very interesting (see some of his writings here) though I usually try to stay away from writing about economy and politics (i’m sure they can be very exciting but right now there are many, many, and many other things that are more interesting and appealing to me to write about).
His question was whether we could have systematic approach to ‘play’ - in other words, could we provoke an occurrence of play in a systematic manner? I responded with the acknowledgement that it is actually impossible for us to grasp the notion of play with our existing conceptual framework so ’systematizing’ play or rather bringing play into play may not be a productive thing - it’s simply impossible. And our attempt at that process should be considered as a ‘game’ not play in its entirety. In that respect, my answer was no, it’s not play (it’s a part of it - conceptually subordinate to play). What I didn’t mention was Caillois’s notion of the ludus and paidia continuum; a game, as a form of play that involves operative rules (governing system) it’s a ludic form of play and yes, in that respect, we can in fact systematise the process of play. Furthermore, in order to nurture creativity, and particularly innovation, the interplay of ludic and paidic play is crucial. As I argued, the space where we play is in the seam of fantasy and reality: the folding of re/deterritorialization. And that’s exactly where the space for creativity can be found. On a pragmatic level - designing such a system or control mechanism - what’s accentuated here is the need for an idling space (as Yeun Bae Kim - at Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology - mentioned as the most crucial element to provoke ‘fun’ in HCI during my interview with him; and also seen in the case of play activities such as parkour, which can be perceived as a userled spatial reproduction).
Humans, by default - for ontological security as I argued in the paper - look for ways to create an idling space, a playground where creativity can flourish. Such a place is built, sustained, and destoryed then rebuilt with creativity itself. To better support this human aspect we must avoid a monopolic configuration, which is something hard to achieve today, so on a more practical level, we should avoid an oligopolic system when it comes to creative industries. In this respect, I support what can be called a micronodal system - a dynamic network economy of micronodes (such as SMEs and individuals). And I’ve been long excited by microeconomic developments and a firm believer in the notion of ‘patient capital’ (see Jacqueline Novogratz’s article here).
Network technologies speed things up. No doubt about that. However, making a transformation, not a trend or a quick wave, takes patience as it involves an en masse of individual conceptual and action inputs. The majority rule still prevails today for a collective change but the size of the majority gets bigger in a network society as people have means to continue debating and even hindering the transactional channels of the action node/s for the change. And of course, we see a greater potential in creating positive transformations for the world. Therefore we need access to more creative minds and share ideas to move forward together. I believe in Bataille’s notion of economy that on a macro-level we as humanity have an inherent ‘excess’ and therefore must share/obliterate it for a peaceful continuation of humanity.
So then what can we do to create not an impossible smooth utopia but a stimulating playground for us? Here I suggest a term playpolis to loosely refer to an ideal form of urban environment: a seductive, sustainable, and creative city of integrative techno-social networks. A systematic approach - politics most importantly in this context - should ensure that small nodes can actively be connected in the bigger network and that there is an idling space in the place of interaction (localised contexutalisation and entrepreneurality of informal economy for example) while very importantly, ensuring the environmental sustainability. We know that environment vs economy is a stupid comparison. Writing this on a beach of Lesvos, I can’t feel more strongly about this.
The activity of play, according to Huizinga, ‘proceeds with its own boundaries of time and space’ (ibid p.13). This creates what is commonly known as the magic circle, which, as with any combination of time and space, takes account of other such combinations, or realities, germane to the player’s current context. With the rapid advancement of media and communication technologies in contemporary society, such layering of realities transpires more quickly, evidently, and variously than ever before. Today, the notion of playground appears to resonate closely with mediaspace, ‘a dialectical concept encompassing both the kinds of spaces created by media and the effects that existing spatial arrangements have on media forms as they materialise in everyday life’ (Couldry & McCarthy, 2004, p.2). Therefore, any play activity needs to be perceived as a multifarious phenomenon, and thus requires considerations to techno-social contexts of the player and of the time and space in which the activity takes place. Here, new media technologies function as toys with and through which the inter-relations between micro- and macro-realities are constantly (re)constructed.
This paper presents a unique case of Seoul: one of the most connected, densely populated, and quickly transforming metropolises in the world. More specifically, the paper looks at the realisation of and desire for play of Seoul residents who are neither children nor adults, but are socially placed in between these two realms, and the role new media technologies play as a coordinator in this process: everyday play culture of trans-youths in Seoul and new media technologies as toys.
This paper investigates intersections of play, technology, and ontological security within the contemporary East Asian city, based on reflections and observations of play from my fieldwork in 2007– 8 with ‘trans-youth’ in Seoul. Trans-youth are those who are neither children nor adults; In the Korean context, they are those between the ages of 18 and 24, situated on the delicate border zone between digital natives and immigrants in Prensky’s (2000) term. Taking the ontological position, it would seem that given the opportunity, most people would choose to live a pleasurable life over one lacking it. Although ‘pleasure’ is non-universal — for instance, this necessitates certain fundamental material requirements — desiring pleasure has been common across geographical and cultural boundaries throughout human history. Similarly, most people would prefer the next moment to be a more pleasurable one than the contrary. Pleasure in this sense is inherently interrelated with possibility and pressure, together which create a phenomenon of play, a fertile soil for creativity that could bring about transformations necessary for the development of human history. Therefore, change and pleasure are ontological necessity for each other. In this respect, Bataille’s (1986) argument – though essentially confined to the domain of eroticism, which, nevertheless, he perceives as a fundamental element of humanity – that ultimate joy ensues the (unsustainable and thus illusory) overcoming of discontinuity has some validity.
How does this notion translate in the present era of capitalism, rapid urbanisation and networks? One way of answering this question would be to examine the rules of the current ‘economy of desire’ (Petrescu, 2005, p. 46), which encompasses not only financial but also emotional and socio-cultural domains. How then do we conceive the intersections of play, technology, and ontological security in this context? My research suggests that the embeddedness of change in ontological security has increasingly become more manifest with the embeddedness of mobile technologies in everyday life. Here, network technology provides a flexible means for reterritorialisation in the techno-social ecology.
Huizinga (1955) sees play as a pleasure provoking phenomenon and the primordial soil for human civilisation, rather than ‘the other’ of the ’serious’ human life. This paper shares his view and reflects on the concept of ‘urban play’ (or play in the everyday urban context), with particular considerations to ubiquitous technology, an increasing fixture of contemporary cities. Taking Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) notion of the smooth/striated space, it is argued that as an essential fabric of everyday life, urban play allows users of the city to (re)create smooth spaces in conceptually striated urban space. This thus accentuates a need for interdisciplinary approach that combines macro- and microscopic perspectives to understand the value context of the city, which can inform the design and development of desirable and sustainable urban communities.
i was able to attend the first day of the ATOM conference and even had a chat with mizuko ito over coffee last saturday (much indebted to you, john!). had been waiting excitedly and expectantly for the moment i finally get to see her, so it almost didn’t feel adequately real to me as i was watching her in front of the audience in z 411, qut gardens point on a summery brisbane saturday. there have been numerous surreal moments recently. perhaps dienna was right; huge changes that i can’t even conceptualise may already be happening right now. fun surreal times.
// mizuko ito @ atom 2006
mizuko ito was the very first keynote speaker at the conference. her talk was basically a condensed version of her past-present works, ranging from the social life of the mobile and children’s media mix, through to the most recent study of purikura. her background is in anthropology, and her technosocial approach views the youth as fluent natives of digital world. i guess this is why so called “post-structuralist” research is most appropriate in studying the youth of today. the individualised, fluid shift in the “power geometries” of today is more organic to youth - living in nagara (while-doing-something-else)-hood.
her emphasis on viewing youth social practices “not incomplete or immature but fully competent as the fluent natives of digital world” reminded me instantly of the film “hana to arisu (hana & alice),” which i think captures beautifully the seemingly (in adults’ eyes at least) loose sense of temporality, or the temporal language of youth. this, to me, sounds clearly like “play.” this fascinates me - and this is one of the main areas that i’m hoping to find out more about through my phd. the idea of play manifested/experienced/created for and by youth through mobile media. to achieve this, i thought i could take a similar approach to that of mizuko’s. to capture the everyday use, these methods were taken:
Close “direct’ observations of people’s activity in divers locations rather than reported usage.
Interpreting user experience by analysing subjectve reports 9interviews) in relation to observational data
i would love to do interviews (rather than survey and focus group, taking the advice from randy kluver and barbara atkins) and also observations of mobile interactions in the space young people occupy voluntarily (hang-outs) and for pragmatic reasons (subway). but the problem is, i may be a partial speaker of the language of youth, but i don’t speak any chinese and my japanese is laughable - yes, this whole language barrier thing may be breakable but not when you have extremely limited resources finantially and time-wise. i need to speak to someone… hopefully, well, definitely before my confirmation.
anyway, meeting mizuko ito was one of the highlights of this year for me, and i thoroughly enjoyed it. i’m very thankful of john who kindly took me there, and of mizuko who, despite her crazy schedule, generously spared enough time to talk with us over coffee. i also had an embarrassing moment with her as well - i was walking out of the campus and ran into her who was walking into the campus for the conference after our coffee session, and she asked “are you leaving?” to which i replied “yes, i need to get some apples…” i’m sure i had a great impression on her as a serious and dedicated scholar. hahaha! well, if this helps, i usually don’t eat apples and the only apples i eat are from this particular stall at the west end markets, only on saturday mornings (but the apple guy wasn’t even there that day… :( ). ah- excuses.
