The Play Research Group

The Play Research Group is a forum for the development of research into the cultural significance of play and games. A number of the group are actively engaged in theorising computer and videogames, whilst others are concerned with other forms of playful media and culture from children’s media culture and toys to play and urban cultures. The group is made up of both staff and research students from UWE but also includes a number of external members and collaborators from the UK, Europe, Scandinavia, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Members of this group speak at a wide variety of public conferences, seminars and symposia as well as organising local events that over the past seven years have established the Play Research Group as a key node in an international network of researchers of play and games. In 2001 members of the group co-organised the Game Cultures conference at the Watershed, and have followed this event with a series of international symposia - Power Up in 2003, Playful Subjects in 2005, PSii on Games and Technology in 2006 and most recently (November 2007) as part of a collaborative research project involving staff and students at UWE as well as an international network of researchers they have hosted a one day event based around the Nintendo Wii .

These events are also supported by a programme of visiting scholars and guest PhD students as well as smaller focussed research seminars led by experts in the field. The Play Research Group has a blog that maintains current information on both internal and external events relevant to our research as well as providing a forum for the discussion of ongoing projects and ideas.

Earlier debates and events are archived.

Students on our MA module Game Culture contribute to a blog.

Current Active Staff Members
Tom Abba's research addresses the development of a consistent method of authoring interactive narrative texts. Aspects of game theory inform and advise the research, particularly the mechanisms by which players of interactive games participate in the construction of a collaborative narrative. More recently, his practice has included the development of an Alternate Reality Game in collaboration with Licorice Film and Bristol's Watershed Media Centre. Funded by the AHRC, this eight week long, cross-media event attracted upward of 10,000 players across an international stage.

Jane Arthurs' interest is in how interactivity and gameplay have been incorporated into the emergent digital environment of television and its cross-platform extensions as a means to engage audiences and maintain profitability.

Patrick Crogan's research interests range across film, new media and critical theory. His most recent focus has been computer games and his book, Gameplay Mode: Between War, Simulation and Technoculture is in production with the University of Minnesota Press. He is a member of the School's Play Research Group with an ongoing engagement in the continually developing mediascape of computer gameplay.

Rod Dickinson's research takes the form of exhibitions and art projects that investigate ideas of simulated or controlled space and the role play that occurs within them.

He has recreated the Stanley Milgram's 1961 psychology experiment 'Obedience to Authority' at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Glasgow.

More recently he has remade Guy Debord's 1971 military strategy game 'The Game of War' which he is currently exhibiting and playing as public performances with a group of artists and theorists.

Jon Dovey is currently putting together a UWE Research Centre in Digital Cultures which will bring together designers, artists, programmers and theorists and will be based in the Pervasive Media Studio at a new harbourside location in Bristol. The Studio brings together researchers and commercial producers in the field of wireless application including work on social gaming and Alternate Reality Games.

Seth Giddings' research includes the cybertextual analysis of videogames, microethnographies of videogame play, children's material play culture (including toys and play spaces), technologies of play, concepts of play in European art and cultural theory. Seth has played a key role in organising many of the events listed above and is a main contributor to the Power Up blog.

Richard Hornsey's interest in play has developed out of two areas of research. Firstly, he is interested in board games and in particular those which appear to respond to urban life, such as 'Monopoly'. Secondly, he has an interest in post-war childhood and the cultural investments in play that characterise such figures as Iona and Peter Opie, Aldo van Eyck and Jane Jacobs.

Helen Kennedy has been the Chair of the Play Research Group for the past three years. Her play related research focuses on a feminist critique of contemporary play theory, an ongoing investigation in to the ways in which play forms and play practices become gendered, a political commitment to widening access and participation for girls and women as players and as practitioners within contemporary game cultures. Her PhD research has been focused on the relationship between play and technicity. Helen is an elected member of the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) and is part of the steering committee for Women in Games UK.

Rune Klevjer is post-doctoral research fellow at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen. Klevjer teaches computer games and digital media, and has recently defended his doctoral dissertation 'What is the Avatar? Fiction and Embodiment in Avatar-Based Singleplayer Computer Games'. He has published articles and papers on rhetorical theory, computer game aesthetics and cultural policy. Rune attended UWE as a visiting PhD student and was then and continues to be an active supporter of the Play Research Group. His most recent publication is a critical examination of the aesthetics and politics of the Supercolumbine Massacre Role Playing Game (forthcoming 2008).

Research Student Members:
Hanna Wirman is a Ph.D. Student at the Faculty of Creative Arts on Media and Cultural Studies. Her current research interests include digital games and gender, online participation, co-creativity/user-generated content, game fandom, and game artistry. Her Ph.D. will discuss the different gendered productive practices related to computer game play and the possibilities for women to rework the games resulted from the masculine game development cultures. Hanna is actively contributing to the Power Up blog. For more information, see www.hannawirman.net

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