Citizens of Play: Revisiting the Relationship Between Playable and Smart Cities

Abstract

Although play has always been situated in cities, more recently playable cities have explored play in relation to of the increasingly role of ubiquitous technologies in shaping urban environments. The playable city has emerged in the past decade to critique and challenge the dominant narrative and technological determinism of smart cities. Initially, playable and smart cities operated in opposition—playable cities advocating for people and place, smart cities advocating for data and control. Following the emergence of playable cities, the diversity of approaches to smart cities has increased with some smart cities adopting approaches usually associated with playable cities that are based on people, place, community and co-creation. Revisiting the relationship between playable and smart cities reveals uneven engagement and discourse between the two as they have become enmeshed and intertwined. To explore this complexity, initial findings from a one-year study investigating the relationship between playable and smart cities are analysed, drawing upon interviews with over thirty artists, designers, producers, architects working within cities. While all of the participants in the study engage with the concept of play in some way, their creative strategies are widely divergent. Subsequently, three main themes are explored in this analysis: firstly, strategies of appropriation—of smart cities infrastructure for example—that are used by those working in playable cities; secondly, responses to issues and opportunities that have resulted from the increased datafication of cities; and thirdly, adoption of the use of conversation in the co-creation of cities and the impact that this has on public space. As a result, the changing relationship between playable and smart cities is explored.