La ciudad como playground: Relaciones entre el diseño de juegos y las realidades urbanas

Abstract

The development of leisure in highly urbanized societies has been a key issue since the late nine­teenth century. The space-time coordinates dedicated to spare time have been causing changes in the socio-cultural environment. Today's playing and gaming spheres, mostly digitally-driven, have a quite indi­vidual and private nature. The relationship between players is taking place mainly through the computer, in online multiplayer games. Nowadays we play games in our daily time to rest, and often even within the work place. This article aims to point out how, from the field of artistic creation, playful gestures are being pro­posed rescuing the eminent social and collective nature of traditional games, and their potential to promote social and physical transformation in the public space. The paper reviews some of the relationships between games and contemporary public spaces as well as the chances of recovering the nature of traditional games in the current context of urban games. It recognizes some tendencies in this field, related to a greater or lesser extent with the digital culture, using particular case studies. Projects like Urban Decoy, a game of chase designed for shopping center areas which contains a mocking and subversive hint, similar to primitive forms of football, such as traditional game La Soule. Also, inheritors of the current digital culture, as the algorithmic derive game Dot.Walk, or computer-mediated games like the urban adventure Uncle Roy all around you, in which new technologies expand the player experiences in the city.