PlayHaus.xyz

Award-winning, itinerant innovation lab researching post-industrial playful media by @kwangchow and @chrislowthorpe

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

Punk Provocations 01: No Silver Bullets https://t.co/DW3VSBT3Sw…

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

20 provocations. 10 weeks.

If you've been reading along:
thank you.

If you're just finding us: https://t.co/gNezk8WDRj

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

Game making is both effective and wasteful, rewarding and frustrating, comforting and risky, creative and mundane, simple and difficult, ugly and beautiful.

It's a fluid adventure of living in flux, in the cracks and spaces, somewhere between the gutter and the stars.

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

(Just Like) Starting Over is the manifesto. Everything the series has argued, compressed into principles: smash the monoculture, start a band not a business, refute gaming exceptionalism, do it yourself.

https://t.co/Ipn5rzcayH

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

Using a curious cocktail of "regional pride, entrepreneurial elan and seductive brand of quasi-situationist hedonism", Factory Records brought Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays and the Haçienda to the world.

Punk Provocation 19: Amp It Up

https://t.co/FuPojKzYzu

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

Any cuddly reinvention of industrialised institutions is, in reality, a ruthless act of self-preservation masquerading as egalitarianism.

Cut the umbilical cord.

Build your own communities of practice, patronage and playful experiences.

https://t.co/oK7j6xAEka

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

In a demand-driven economy, the artist who waits for institutional permission still starves. But the creative entrepreneur - the silo-smashing maker, marketer and merchant - eats well.

https://t.co/ZfGTZCdeLi

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

Identity is a creative act.

Fairy Tales and Centrefolds explores Cindy Sherman’s masquerade art - where identity itself becomes raw material and the viewer becomes co-conspirator.

Game makers take note: you don’t have to fix meaning for your audience.

https://t.co/HbZBoPz85c

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

"We never wrote a manifesto but we had one. The Eagle would be the sort of place where you could get a decent pint and a decent steak sandwich. There would be no bullshit."

The accidental invention of the gastropub. And what it teaches game makers.

https://t.co/F90Q0twGxu

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

"We don't work like that here. We do things the long, hard, stupid way."

Context determines what the creative work is. Not the work itself. Most game makers avoid this question entirely.

Punk Provocation 14: It Ain't What You Do

https://t.co/wEbZ136FGQ

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

What if we considered producing games to be a playful act, as opposed to a rational procedure?

The Slow Food movement called it a "gastronomic act." Three principles: good, clean, fair. Now apply those to making games. Or any other playful media.

https://t.co/F3SYs1IoWo

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

"never put a good beer in a bottle that looked bad...the beer wouldn't be good anymore" 🎯

https://t.co/BjU4an0C3B

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

Innovation is everywhere and nowhere. As a word it has lost its meaning. As a practice it has lost its purpose.

The antidote isn't better innovation. It's cheaper, weirder experiments.

Punk Provocations 11: What If…

https://t.co/NRUif4gyMH

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

Game makers: stop just making stuff and start crafting triggers for experiences - little machines that "feed us sensations to keep us from the gloom of everyday existence".

Punk Provocations 10: Stop Just Making Stuff
https://t.co/wCb81vCbGB

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

The opposite of play is work.

Game makers censor themselves by prioritising premature incorporation and industrial era structures ahead of curiosity, creative expression and cultural commerce.

Start a band, not a business. https://t.co/1NAJnGaEY3

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

Creative industries are not the same as creative communities.

Punk Provocation 08: Digging Your Scene explores the creative, cultural and economic potential of the direct-to-community model.

No labels. No middlemen. Just subcultural scenes.

https://t.co/zaxf7WOJJl

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

The goldrush is over. What now?

Patronage and direct audience relationships are timeless concepts.

https://t.co/v8DgsPPIeE

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

Don't pick a lane. Don't stay in your silo. Don't separate art from science. Punk Provocations 06: Art et Science

"It is a world in which the creative imagination of the artist is now needed by the men who handle computers." - Marshall McLuhan

https://t.co/QD3UhRpSKa

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

Last week was about provocation. This week: permission.

Punk Provocation 05: Don't Fight It, Feel It discusses power of approximating authenticity and the futility of originality.

Dedicated to the late, great Andrew Weatherall.

https://t.co/dvOcCYmXUi

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

https://t.co/yuAs3k9L2M

[PlayHaus.xyz @PlayhausLab]

“Turn left if you’re supposed to turn right. Go through any door that you’re not supposed to enter. It’s the only way to fight your way through to any kind of authentic feeling in a world beset by fakery.”
- Malcolm McLaren

We asked why we create? To provoke.