Reflection
In these two weeks, we have read an essay by Vesna Krstich (2016) about the Pedagogy of play, which gives a good overview of the study between play and education and focuses on the score performance in the form of lessons. Also, we read another book named Play Matters, in the first section, Miguel Sicart (2014) argues that to play is to be in the world; playing is a form of understanding what surrounds us and a way of engaging with others. Play goes beyond games; it is a mode of being human.
After learning the scoring techniques, methods, motivation, and performance, we reconvene in our basho to together try to create and develop our work on the collective scores. Based on our discussions of the readings on the play, the score symbolizes processes, and we conclude the rule of the score.
At the beginning of our group discussion, each participant generates ideas about scores, one of the members proposed to draw circles on paper through different members and continue to relay. One member raised that drawing circles have the same pronunciation as begging in Chinese. We evaluate decisions and make sure that all participants express and finally chose that our plan is about the begging.
The whole flow path is shown as follows. First, one person prepares a bowl, then he/she stops the first person he/she met on the road, begs this person for something (any item that the volunteer is willing to give), and put them into the bowl, they can be an item or a sentence, if it is a sentence, we write down on the sticky then put them into the bowl. After that, if the bowl isn’t full, we then pass the bowl to this person (if he voluntarily) to repeat this beg cycle. Finally, we use the direction of the item comes from to create random choreographer dance, which was inspired by AI Choreographer, a new study that model can generate long-range non-freezing dance motion following the music rhythm. We choose a member to perform the dance.
We define our Begging as a kind of behavior art, the score, or game, is used to destroy the hierarchy.
The beggar test of our mortality and whether give to beggars is always a controversial topic, which is important to today’s society. Today, the beggar continues to haunt the public conscience and provoke the most human of questions about what we owe strangers who ask for our help. At a time of widespread austerity and divisive debates about inequality, when much of our political discourse is about giving and taking. (Hermer, 2019）We create a nonprofit, voluntary activity, but which is also under a risk of being annoying to passersby. A comprehensive literature review of the research on begging and rough sleeping carried out by Public Health England and released in early 2018 noted that those who are real street beg or sleepers are some of the most vulnerable individuals. They have a range of complex needs and experience severe and multiple deprivations over long periods of time. In today’s society, it is indeed very difficult to tell whether a beggar is really in need of assistance. So our score is also an experiment to test the public’s ambiguous attitude toward begging. As the principle of the score, the process is necessary.
Followed by, there are some problems and reflections from our project, which have been divided into three parts, interesting, rules, and core values.
Firstly, our score did not catch the intriguing and interesting a play or a game should have. In our trial, passerby seems reluctant or feel confused with that game. The main reason is that we did not produce this game after serious investigation, experiment, and test. Like the game industry involves an increasing number of educators, designers, and scientists, to create a considerable need for games(Flanagan, 2009), like building a virtual world that has the opposite social power as the real world, or create where players feel free to engage in fantasy narratives and have a rest from the work.
Secondly, the activity doesn’t have clear rules like some real games. The rule our score has is more like some prescribed circuit which missing creativity and is challenging. For example, Unlike some playground games like ball games will be restricted by rules, it is a non-competitive game, which may better reflect the social aim to some extent, but not like a real play. As for games or any interactive activities, reasonable rules to give participants feel growth is indeed.
Finally, the value of our topic did not have enough evidence to support it. We need to delve deeper into this theme and meaning to make the theme “begging” more persuasive to develop. Although we had an exploration of the social and the political. When we choose or design a game, people need to play precisely because we need occasional freedom and distance from our conventional understanding of the moral fabric of society. Play is important because we need to see values and practice them and challenge them so they become more than mindless habits. （Sicart, 2014）
In conclusion, although play in real life is an area that whole explore. As numerous scholarly studies have focused on computer games（Flanagan, 2009). We obviously need clear logic and data research to build our work.
During this section, I cannot stop myself from inwardly questioning the reliability and validity of some basho work we did, as I came across conflicting tasks and contradictory questions in our weekly research and feedback sessions. I think I should as quickly as I could get used to the way of working together, as the tutor reminded us, some good ideas are always born from peers’ conversations.
Reference
Flanagan, M 2009, Critical Play: Radical Game Design, MIT Press, Cambridge. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [12 October 2022].
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ed/detail.action?docID=3339056#
Hermer, J. “Introduction.” In Policing Compassion: Begging, Law and Power in Public Spaces, 1–11. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2019. Accessed October 12, 2022. http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/10.5040/9781474202800.0008.
Sicart, M. 2014. Play Matters. Cambridge Massachusetts: MIT Press.P1-17.
http://site.ebrary.com/id/10904663.
17th October 2022 at 10:29 am
This blog post documents your work in this sprint and includes some critical reflection on the work you undertook in your group to design a new game.
You note that you evaluated the decisions your group took to arrive at your final idea. What criteria did you use here? What led you to select the idea that you finally took forward? Remember that these blog posts should not only describe what you did but provide a context and critical rationale for your major challenges, decisions and insights. It may help to look at some of the resources around developing reflective responses which you can find here: https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/macat/essentialtools/.
Your description of how the game is played is clear but what is less clear is what you (as a group) were trying to achieve with the game. You state that the game “is used to destroy the hierarchy” but it’s not clear how the game would do this – it’s also quite a big claim!
You also note that your game is “an experiment to test the public’s ambiguous attitude toward begging” and you’ve included some information on begging and note that those who beg are some of the most vulnerable individuals. I do think that it is important to consider the ethics of the game that your group created – is it appropriate to use the act of begging to generate a dance when for some people it is a means of survival? I appreciate you had limited time to design the game so this is not a criticism of the work undertaken but rather a question which I think could be addressed in more detail in this reflection.
Your reflection on your basho’s game shows that you are thinking critically about the work that you are doing. You highlight three areas where you feel the game could have been strengthened and this is good to see in your reflection. To strengthen this further, consider how you might support your reflections with connections to the research on the topic. For example, you note that the lack of clarity in the rules may have been an issue for participants. Did any of the resources for this sprint discuss rules?
Your conclusion in the second to last paragraph needs to be more clearly articulated. It’s not clear from what you’ve written here how these three sentences connect and, as such, what conclusion you are drawing.
I appreciate the reflection in your final paragraph. Group work can be challenging and it can take time to build good working relationships – remember as a cohort you have only known each other for a few weeks so you are getting to know each other as well as learning new ways of working.
23rd October 2022 at 5:18 pm
The blogger’s article is very clear, and I think it’s interesting about the rules of the game they designed. Defining begging as a kind of performance art, scores or games are used to destroy the hierarchy, behind this game is actually a question worthy of reflection, do beggars really need help? They engage people through games, reject stupidity, and it’s a fun and challenging game. She also showed the design process of their group and her own reflection in the article. The logical thinking is very clear, which I like very much.
23rd October 2022 at 11:30 pm
The rhythmical ebb and flow of the score is like life, which I think is a deep understanding. It is challenging and fun to use the circular game of begging as a way to advance communication with passersby, especially like the first lesson we learned in performance, “freeing nature”, and using ai choreography to accompany this path of behavior is very contemporary and serendipitous and creative.
If the original intention of this project is to explore the combination of art and dance I think it’s great, and the form of communication is sustainable and has a very high level of thought. But art itself I think is borderless and it is better not to be linked to politics.
3rd December 2022 at 9:20 pm
I like your blog and the play completed by your group very much, which is a meaningful performance art. Although your blog reflections do not have much evidence to support the merits of your group’s topic, they do allow those who see your play to ponder the social implications of beggars to some extent.