Designed distractions to coerce us into playful and shared forms of interaction
Salone internazionale del Mobile di Milano
Brera Design District, from 4 to 9 April 2017
Our “Salone” invites visitors to discover twelve projects conceived as ludic antidotes to a world filled with screens. Designed distractions that coerce us into playful and shared forms of interaction. Everyone plays. Electronic. Analog. Social. Play is a form of connection. Social platforms feign connecting us, but in the end they just leave us in limbo. Inversely, play is superficial by design, while secretly inviting us into a deeper understanding of each other and of our own limits.
Designed and developed by the Media Design Master of the –HEAD Genève within an identity designed by students of Visual Communication, the Salone Ludico invites visitors to explore the nature of play. Projects range in scope and scale from robotic mixologists and domotic hi-fi to infinite rooms where space itself becomes the play station. For the more adventurous, an underground club proposes a redefinition of the seedy games room with updated parlour games of strategy and chance.
Projects
Gravity
By Sébastien Beureux, Jessica Friedling, Charles-Henri Hayoz and Vincent de Vevey, adapted from PadPad by Jérémie Lasnier
Home planetarium as infinite play station. Two chairs, adapted from the original PadPad design, allow players to interact with space by simply leaning left and right, or hopping up in short bursts. Each player controls a free-floating vessel inside of an infinitely contracting and expanding galaxy.
Penultimo
By Margaux Charvolin and Jessica Friedling
A hybrid cocktail apparatus, inspired by the world of alchemy. As players descend into the depths of a smartphone game, their actions within the app concoct a unique elixir from the innards of the physical machine.
Massive
By Patrick Arthur Donaldson in collaboration with IdeaSquare, CERN
Based on particle physics. Approved by the physicists. Massive is a card game that teaches the laws of the universe at the smallest of scales. By combining particles, the players build their own atom within the influence of cosmic phenomena.
KBPS
Situated somewhere in between home stereo, installation, and club sound system, kbps offers an unusual way to listen to music at home. Each USB stick contains a music track in a specific file format that directly controls four electrical outlets. Every flash drive uses domestic objects to create its own experience of light, sound, and even air.
BloodBank
By Sébastien Beureux, Marianna Czwojdrak, Laurent Monnet, Vincent de Vevey
Hold a physical flame up to the digital darkness to escape from Dracula’s castle. Avoid monsters and keep an eye on your match in order to survive. As the flame runs out, so does the time remaining to make it out alive.
Deadline
By Marion Couesnon and Valérie Pierrehumbert
A game exploring the trials and tribulations of a graphic designer, trying to complete their mission while receiving an infinitely growing list of requests. A central digital manager controls the flow of the game, adding obstacles to each player’s hand.
murmures
A cabinet of curiosities excavated from the year 3017. A series of objects from the Ssiws, a people living on the shores of Lake Namel. These capsules tell us about the customs and rituals of this centrally significant tribe of the old Aporue at the beginning of the millennium 2000.
Ximoan
By Patrick Donaldson, Yoann Douillet, Raphaël Henocq and Laurent Monnet
After virtual reality and augmented reality, transcendent reality. Lay down and place the helmet over your eyes. This is your death. You are now transported into the world of the deceased and must be guided by a shaman into the world beyond using a redesigned digital teponaztli.
DarkLight
By Sarah Bourquin, Jessica Friedling, Valérie Pierrehumbert and Eun-Sun Lee
DarkLight is a pixel art runner adventure story distributed across several picture frames. In the central tableau, players control Lugh as he traverses the dangerous forest of monsters to save his grandmother witch Maralla from the evil Dracula89.
Penumbra
By Margaux Charvolin and Israel Viadest
An interactive storytelling machine exploring the concept of time through the physical and the ephemeral. As players turn the handle clockwise and counterclockwise, a character moves forward and backward in time, generating a short story that visitors can take home with them.
Oniri Islands
By Marion Bareil and Tourmaline Studio
Physical figures become your interface into the world of Oniri Islands where a brother and sister, lost on a mysterious island, search for their shadows. A cooperative game where players must discover, together, how to navigate the world.
Democrapcy
By Yoann Douillet, Mélissa Pisler, Israel Viadest, Marion Bareil and Léa Schönfelder
A board game parody of the modern democratic system where class, gender, and religion determine your station in life. The game explores and questions citizens’ conflicts of self-interest, through a system of votes that allows players to change the rules to their own advantage, or to the disadvantage of their adversaries. Democrapcy was developed in collaboration with the Chancellerie d’État to encourage adolescents to explore issues related to the voting process.
Visual Identity
By Emilie Excoffier, Romain Graille, David Héritier and Bastien Seon
A modular, dynamic typographic system punctuates the exhibition, adapting to various surfaces, contexts and media: light beams mapped onto a physical structure, outdoor signage, t-shirts, flyers, interactive website.
Ludico Mobile
By Mai Li, Nini Zhang with Pascal Berger, designed by Laurent Bolli
An adaptation of the classic “game table” popular in homes, casinos, and bars — updated with contemporary modular materials.
Opening Tuesday 4 April, 18:00–21:00
Exhibition
Tuesday 4 to Sunday 9 April 2017, 11:00–20:00
Press Preview
Monday 3 April, 14:00-16:00
Location
Brera Design District
c/o Mimmo Scognamiglio
Artecontemporanea
Via Goito 7, 20121 Milano
Access
M2 Moscova/Lanza M3 Turati
Bus 43, 61, 94