[ecrea] Call for Proposals - Playable City

Call for Proposals - the Playable City

On September 10th and 11th 2014 the Watershed Media Centre in Bristol 
will host the first Making the City Playable Conference, convened by 
University of the West of England Visiting Professors Clare Reddington 
and Andrew Kelly. This two day international conference will bring 
together future city experts, urban planners, artists and technologists 
to explore the theme of the Playable City, and what it might mean in 
imagining and making the cities of the future.

The Playable City

The “Playable City” is a term that has been coined by Watershed in 
Bristol as a people-centred counterpoint to the idea of the data-driven 
“Smart City”. The Playable City is imagined as a city in which 
hospitality and openness are key, enabling residents and visitors to 
reconfigure and rewrite city services, places and stories. The Playable 
City fosters serendipity and gives permission to be playful in public.

The idea of the Playable City has been explored in a range of Watershed 
projects; a series of cultural exchange rapid project development labs 
with the British Council working with artists, producers and 
technologists from the UK and East Asia in 2012 and Brazil in 2014, the 
inaugural Playable City Award, a major commission for a future-facing 
artwork, which supported development of Hello Lamp Post in Summer 2013, 
Biketag Colour Keepers - a street game for Bristol Temple Quarter, and 
Open City: Guimarães - a series of artistic commissions that explored 
how openness in city governance might improve the social, cultural, and 
economic lives of inhabitants of the Portuguese 2012 European Capital of 
Culture. The Second Playable City Award is now open for submissions.

The Call for Proposals

UWE Bristol's Digital Cultures Research Centre is convening a research 
stream within the Making the City Playable Conference. We are inviting 
proposals from a cross-disciplinary gathering of scholars who wish to 
consider the intersection between play and the contemporary city, 
bringing diverse research knowledge and perspectives to the concept of 
the Playable City, considering its conceptual value, potential and limits.

Proposals are invited for 10-15 minute research-based presentations or 
academic papers. The following are indicative themes:

Smart City vs Playable City – visions of the urban future

Playing and Reality – the city as stage for critical re-imaginings

The Child and the City – children’s play and independent mobility in 
urban settings

Play & Mobilisation – the social and political impact of playful 
interventions

Parkour and place hacking – playing around the edges of public space

Level Playing Fields? – creative interventions and social inequality

Playing Publics – creative practices as citizenship practices

Please submit abstracts of up to 350 words accompanied by a biographical 
paragraph. These are due by 12pm Monday April 28th. Email materials and 
any queries to (playablecities /at/ gmail.com)

It is hoped that these discussions will provide the starting point for 
future exchanges and research collaborations.

If you don’t plan to submit an abstract, but would like to attend the 
Making the City Playable Conference, tickets and further information are 
available here.

The research stream is convened by Dr Michael Buser (Planning & 
Architecture, University of the West of England), Dr Kirsten Cater 
(Computer Science, University of Bristol), Professor Jon Dovey (Screen 
Media, University of the West of England), Associate Professor Mandy 
Rose (Digital Cultures, University of the West of England) and Dr Angie 
Page (Policy Studies, University of Bristol).



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