(Re)searching through play: play as a framework and methodology for collaborative design processes

This article presents the emergent objects research project Hoverflies – an investigation into hyper-physical interfaces where we explore how the traditional idea of ‘user’ might be supplanted by the notion of the ‘participant-performer’. The concepts of play, composition and embodiment were central to the consideration of design by thinking through performance knowledge. Play frames as articulated and categorised by Huizinga and Caillois together with Deleuze’s notion of the objectile were critical to the research process. Here, we discuss the design of technological and playful objects and offer a ludic response to the erasure of ‘play’ or ‘looseness’ in both technological systems and in the design process itself. The article describes the iterative performance of metaplay in the use of play as process. We ask how a designed outcome can induce play for participants and how play can be embraced within an open system of design.