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This fall the Topological Media Lab participated to the Play as Inquiry event hosted at the Gray Center for Arts of the University of Chicago.

Play as Inquiry asks how artists & scholars might construe their practices as play. This 3-day practicum hosted by the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry featured distinct and experimental approached to research and production in various fields including game design, transmedia installation, public health, choreography, political science, experimental writing, and anthropology.

It was an experimental practicum organized by PATRICK JAGODA game design & theory, U of C & SHA XIN WEI experimental phenomenology, Montreal, and featuring:

TOPOLOGICAL MEDIA LAB research Atelier-Lab at Concordia University, Montreal

ALKEMIE ATELIER multidisciplinary creative collaborative, Montreal

– Michael Montanaro:choreographer/media artist, Montreal

– Navid Navab: Media Artist, Interactive Sound Installations

– Julian Stein: Media Artist, Sound and Light Installations

– Adam Basanta: Media Artist, Sound and Light Installations

SETH BRODSKY musicologist, UofC

MICHAEL DAWSON political scientist, UofC

KEN EKLUND game designer/writer, CA

MELISSA GILLIAM game changer chicago design lab, UofC Medicine

GEORGE LEWIScomposer/scholar, Columbia U, NY

MICHAEL TAUSSIG anthropologist, Columbia U, NY

SARA THACHER experience designer, CA

MCKENZIE WARK media/critical theorist, New School, NY

 

About Play as Inquiry

Play as Inquiry was organized by Patrick Jagoda (faculty member in the Department of English and co-founder of Game Changer Chicago Design Lab at the University of Chicago), and Sha Xin Wei (Canada Research Chair in New Media, Associate Professor of Design & Computation Arts, and Research Director of the Topological Media Lab at Concordia University, Montreal) in association with Alkemie Atelier, a Montreal-based multidisciplinary creative collaborative. It served as culmination of their year-long Mellon Fellowship for Arts Practice & Scholarship at the Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry.

 

Schedule

Frid Nov 1

7-10:30p / play as inquiry: welcome event w/ Patrick Jagoda, Dr. Melissa Gilliam and the Game Changer Chicago Design Lab

Performance Penthouse Rm 901, Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St., Chicago

Sat Nov 2

10–11a / speed-ideating w/ Sara Thacher

Gray Center Lab, 929 E. 60th St. (in Midway Studios next door to Logan Center)

11a-12p / playing with the future: collaborative narrative in authentic fiction w/ Ken Eklund Gray Center Lab, 929 E. 60th St. (in Midway Studios next door to Logan Center)12:15-1:30p / experimental writing workshop w/ McKenzie WarkGray Center Lab, 929 E. 60th St. (in Midway Studios next door to Logan Center)1:30-2:30p / lunchcan be purchased at the Logan Center Cafe

2:30–4p / foundings: a constitution building game w/ Michael Dawson
Performance Hall Stage, Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St., Chicago

4:15-5:30p / listening + collaborating = improvising w/ George Lewis featuring even in arcadia, there i am, a sound installation by Seth Brodsky
Performance Hall Stage & North Stairwell, Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St., Chicago

5:30-7:30p / dinner break

7:30–8:30p / go slow party, a reading by and w/ Michael Taussig

Gray Center Lab, 929 E. 60th St. (in Midway Studios next door to Logan Center)

8:30–10p / ice time candle time water time tissue time time alkemie & music for lamps, a performance installation by Sha Xin Wei & Alkemie Atelier
Gray Center Lab, 929 E. 60th St. (in Midway Studios next door to Logan Center)

Sun Nov 3

12-3:30p / REPLAY: an afternoon of responses via planned and spontaneous revelations of play inside research & production practices w/ Michael Montanaro & dancers Madeleine Krenek & Melinda Myers, University of Chicago faculty, independent artists, & practitioners of all kinds
Gray Center Lab, 929 E. 60th St. (in Midway Studios next door to Logan Center)