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Project archive

IT + Textiles | 2002+ Continued in the RE:FORM studio
In IT+Textiles, we join two different areas of design and technology development: information technology and textiles. On the one hand, we are looking for new applications and areas for textiles; on the other, we want to give information technology new clothes and expand the design space of everyday computational things.
Link to the project at the RE:FORM studio website


Public Play Spaces | 2002+ Continued in the RE:FORM studio
Public Play Spaces is a platform for creative work exploring the playful, emotional and appropriate incorporation of technology into everyday public life. Drawing on art, architecture, game and interaction design, the work focuses on developing innovative design methods, experimental prototypes, and public outreach.
Link to the project at the RE:FORM studio website


Static! | 2002+ Continued in the RE:FORM studio
Static! investigates interaction design as a way of increasing our awareness of how energy us used and how to stimulate changes in energy behaviour. Revisiting the design of everyday things we explore design issues related to energy use early in the product development process. A collaboration with the Interactive Institute POWER studio.
Link to project website


Ubiquitous Gaming | 2002+ Continued in the GAME studio
In the Ubiquitous Gaming theme, we investigate digial games that move beyond the traditional computer interface and into the physical world, engaging human skills and senses to an unprecedented degree. Our work expands the design space of pervasive games through articulation of their intrinsic features and prototype development.
Link to archive of Ubiquitous Gaming work 2002-2004
Link for more about ubiquitous and pervasive gaming 2005+


Smart-Its | 2000-2003
Smart-Its are small computational devices that can be used for post-hoc computational enhancement of everyday objects. They will be as cheap, unobtrusive and generic as state-of-the-art radio tags but will also allow perception of their environment, communication with peers, and customisable behaviour. Smart-Its allow us to explore emergent collective behavious of large collections of computationally-enhanced objects. Smart-Its is a project within the European Union Information Society Technologies' Disappearing Computer initiative, and is a collaboration with Lancaster University in the UK (Department of Computing), ETH Zurich in Switzerland, the Viktoria Institute in Sweden, the University of Karlsruhe in Germany, and VTT Electronics in Finland.
Link to project website


Slow Technology | 1999-2002
Within the research project Slow Technology we are experimenting with time as a variable in interface design, beyond the point of trying to minimize the time taken to perform a certain task. Instead, we want to design technology that encourages moments of reflection and mental rest by being slow, i.e, to provide food rather than fast-food for thought.
Link to project website


Masters program in HCI - Interaction Design | 1999-2002
Together with CR&T, PLAY has run a Masters program in Human Computer Interaction and Interaction Design at the IT University Göteborg. The three semester program grants MSc degrees in Interaction Design. The program is interdisciplinary and the students come from a variety of backgrounds ranging from electrical engineering and computer science, to industrial design and sociology.
Program website


Information Visualization | 1997-2001
Computer displays provide many possibilities for constructing new Information Visualization techniques, that may help users to uncover complex relationships or make sense of large amounts of data. At PLAY, we are especially interested in solving the problems that occur when the size of the screen is very limited in relation to the amount of information that needs to be displayed - a common occurrence with handheld devices such as mobile phones and PDAs. We have also developed several novel visualization techniques for the World Wide Web.
Link to project website


PLAY Clocks | 1999-2001
We have experimented with a variety of very slow abstract clocks. We will use the clocks to count down the time until the group ceases to exist, but also as a representation of how long we have been around and what we have accomplished. A new clock will be added approximately once per month.
Link to project website


Awareable Computers | 1998-2000
How do we go about creating the truly personal computer? An Awareable Computer is a wearable computer that is aware of its surroundings, or provides support for the user's awareness of others, thus augmenting human communication and information processing.
Link to project website


Active Narratives | 1997-2000
Information technology gives the modern storyteller many possibilities, but also poses many questions. What happens when the reader becomes the creator? How can we construct unpredictable stories that are both fun and meaningful? Active Narratives is our term for the new forms of stories that technology is making possible.
Link to project website


Amplified Reality | 1998-2000
Whereas so-called augmented reality is about enhancing impressions, enhancing the users senses for instance through specialized goggles or heading2-phones, we envision Amplified Reality to be about enhancing the expressions of things and people in the world. By embedding technology into ordinary real-world objects, we can enrich and enhance the way these things function in our daily life.
Link to project website


Emergent Narratives | 1998-2000
The increasing versatility of computers offers the possibility to let computers not only retell a predefined story, but also modify or even create it as it is being experienced. When such story-telling applications are created, they will increase the level of engagement for people and blur the line between story-teller and audience. In the Emergent Narratives project, we study various ways in which the way computers tell stories can be enhanced.
Link to project website


Provocative Technology | 1999-2000
In this project, we aim to develop concepts and prototypes which are provocative in themselves or which raise issues which can be perceived as provocative. Our main ambition is to create artefacts which can be used as a starting point when discussing, for instance, ethical and moral issues regarding the design and use of information technology.
Link to project website