Slides plus notes of the talk I gave at an event on social games organized by Waag Society and Mediawijzer.net on 23 October 2009. A blog post for this talk including additional notes can be found at: http://whatsthehubbub.nl/2009/10/improving-media-literacy-with-games/#footnote_3_119

1. Hello, my name is Kars Alfrink. I am the founder of Hubbub, a new design studio. We create
physical, social games for public space. We create games that take on meaningful problems,
such as social issues.

2. physical
By physical we mean that our games get you moving. We believe our cognition is deeply
connected to the sensory perception of physical reality. We think it is valuable to reconnect
people to the places they inhabit.

3. social
By social we mean that social dynamics, the way people interact with each other, are a
material we work with. By definition, the meaning of games is socially constructed. We
consciously design for this.

4. One example of our work is an urban game we created for Your World, in which players
claimed territory in the centre of Rotterdam. They did this by planting flags on crossroads.
Subsequently, they campaigned for their “movement” at these spots.
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alper/3958307121/

5. systems literacy
We think games are interesting because they are complex systems that run on people. For us,
technology is a means, not a goal. Our medium is human behavior. With games we hope to
increase the systems literacy of people.

6. media wisdom
Systems literacy and media wisdom are closely related to each other. The overlapping media
landscape is a complex adaptive system. People shouldn’t passively inhabit it, but should be
its active shapers.

7. Lost is a television show about a group of people who after a plane crash are marooned on a
mysterious tropical island. It is famous (or infamous) for its complex story lines as well as for
the complex web of media that has emerged around the show.

8. This is a diagram by Dan Hill that show the events occurring from the release of one Lost
episode in the US to the release of that same episode in the UK. Official and unofficial media,
blogs, wikis, forums, spoof websites and even a book on Amazon are platforms for Lost’s
sprawling story.
Image: http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/2006/03/why_lost_is_gen.html

9. An episode of Lost illustrates on a small scale what I mean when I say that the overlapping
media landscape has become a complex adaptive system. Although the behavior of the parts
might be predictable to some extent, as a whole it certainly isn’t. These systems shape our
behavior wether we’re aware of it or not. In turn, we shape these systems, ad infinitum.
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Serpiente_alquimica.jpg

10. Biologists call this process coevolution; when two species are dependent on each other for
survival. Certain species of hummingbird for instance have bills that are shaped to fit the
flowers they feed from, and pollinate as a result too.
Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Haeckel_Trochilidae.jpg

11. play
How do we educate people about the coevolutionary process that exists between them and
the media they use? How do we make them aware of the fact that they can, in their own small
way, change it? We think you can do this by letting them explore the limits and possibilities
of complex systems within a safe context. Or to put it simply: by letting them play.

12. Let’s look at a few examples: Budget Ball is a game created by Area/Code, commissioned by
the US government. It helps players to understand the effects of growing debt. In this way,
one of the fundamental elements of the global credit crisis is made comprehensible.
Image: http://www.budgetball.org/

13. symbolic
actions
This shows the unimportance of technology (Budget Ball is a physical sport). It also
beautifully illustrates the fact that the actions players perform in a game can be completely
unrelated to the message the game is supposed to convey. (There is no thematic relationship
between a ball game and the credit crisis, right?)

14. Mitch Resnick’s StarLogo is a tool with which children can build and simulate complex
systems. For example, how traffic jams emerge. It’s kind of like Sim City, but with the hood
open.
Image: http://education.mit.edu/starlogo/

15. praxis
StarLogo utilizes praxis, experimental learning, or as I like to call it: thinking by doing. We
feel that the separation between practical skills and theoretical knowledge is an artificial one.
To deal with complex systems, reflection in action is required.

16. Smokescreen is a game by Six to Start for Channel 4. The goal is to teach youth about the
importance of online privacy and security. On the world wide web they solve puzzles. Their
progress is rewarded with bits of story.
Image: http://www.smokescreengame.com/

17. safe context
The topic of Smokescreen is a sensitive one. But because this is a game, players can
experiment within a safe context and gain insight into the effects their actions may have.

18. Our brains are excellent pattern matching machines. They adjust to new patterns and when
confronted with chaos, they start looking for order. Systems are nothing but patterns that
unfold over time.
Image: Dalmatian Dog by Richard Gregory

19. To explain, take Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. For its time, this piece was unconventional to
say the least. As a result, its initial reception was poor. People hated it. Only later, when their
brains had adjusted to the music’s new patterns, was the piece properly valued.
Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Riteset.jpg

20. reading
&
writing
In the same manner I hope that with physical, social games, we can make people more
capable of ‘reading’ complex systems, and ‘writing’ them. Thank you.