Posts on Playfull Labs

A Letter to Our Future’s Futurists

Mon, 04 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Why more moonshot thinking matters: A radical re-education

Design re-imagined

Mon, 09 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier this year, while leading creative workshops in Europe, I somehow found myself perched at a maker’s week that a friend was attending held to the stunning backdrop of the French Alps. A few gems of nuggets and plush pioneered the week of creative builds aptly themed “Make It Playful!” Select students from MIT were interviewed and invited to attend a week of breakout builds with the goal of reimagining everyday objects into more playful, interactive experiences. I decided to take part observing and facilitating amongst a team of talented tinkerers at the intersection of our physical and digital worlds.

a world of joy and many, many colored pencils

Mon, 16 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Everyday we are confronted on the news with political instability. Lodged between threats of nuclear war, to gun-violence on our domestic shores, to wildfires in our backyards—it’s hard to imagine a world replete with joy.

Which is precisely why our world needs more of it, and many, many colored pencils.

Prague, Czech Republic

And I don’t mean colored pencils in a literal sense, but in an ephemeral sense—so we might learn how to color our imaginations more, explore a deeper kind of reflection, allowing each other a safe space to scribble outside the lines and form new ways of seeing and being.

Tenacity of an entrepreneurial spirit

Sat, 29 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Brooklyn, New York

Experiments are fun—keep shooting arrows into the abyss in search of new shapes and identity. For the last few months, Playfull has lurched as almost all accounts were compromised (email, Facebook, Twitter, website inclusive). Falling prey to identity theft does not help the build, nor does constant travels on the road without a safe space for centering. What cannot be thefted however can be found in process. A good meander, a mighty mountain scramble (or three), perusing a favorite, familiar bookstore—each reminds us what others simply can’t take from you: you.

Intersecting Theatrics & gameplay: might we find ourselves

Tue, 16 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Sometime last month, I was invited to attend *Score for a Lecture,*an interactive performance met with elements of dance and experimental theatre. A production created by The Bureau for the Future of Choreography, I entered upon an expansive, cavernous space in lower Manhattan that looked more like a town hall gathering rather than theatre. As the lights dimmed, two figures stood at opposite sides of the stage before podiums addressing the intimate audience. We were being “debriefed” on our lecture for the evening. One shadow sat center stage ricocheting a drum with wires of clothes hangers.

David Bowie, Heroes of Invention

Thu, 21 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

“Age doesn’t bother me. So many of my heroes are older guys…I do what I’ve always wanted to do. I’m a writer. It’s the lack of years left that scares me. The having to let go of it all.” - David Bowie (2002)

Few people in the world have transcended culture across space and time quite like Bowie. More than a rock star, David Jones was above all a restless innovator who merged wildly eclectic influences across genres. He blended textures with song, fashion with theatre. He made music his muse drawing from a myriad of performative art, composition, design—a true iconoclast of American pop culture. From wildly popular hits like “Heroes” to “Space Oddity” to the resolve of “The Laughing Gnome” to the downright bizarre of “Life on Mars,” Bowie drew inspiration from all directions challenging traditional schools of thought that celebrate niche over renaissance. Pulling from the likes of The Velvet Underground to Jacque Brel to American soul, even German minimalism can be traced on his tracks. Releasing his last record just two days before his 69th birthday, it all seemed too perfectly timed. A master of characters and inventions from alien rock star Ziggy Stardust to his latest album Blackstar exploring themes of life and death, Bowie perfected performance.

Sliced Bread & Bananas: visitations to a syrian Refugee Camp

Tue, 19 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Each new year, Winter acts as a demarcation of time, a gentle reminder of a changing of seasons. After meeting an old friend and former aid worker from our time together in Southeast Asia, we spoke of life in Germany over familiar scents of coffee and cigarettes and caught up on recent news in Europe. Sipping coffee, there was mention of a local refugee camp in the Northeast of the city that could use some extra hands. With the new year upon us, there was no better way to spend our time than meeting the faces of the harrowing stories I had only read about in the paper. The daily ingest of stark images of those fleeing their homes—now reminiscent of piles of rubble—can sometimes lose impact. The need for basic infrastructure, language and culture integration, resource management, job creation, and safety is often overlooked. How do communities live, and how do hearts play amidst sites of conflict and controversy?

encounters with a tiny giant

Thu, 03 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

You’d never guess it by glancing at him on the streets. Standing on stage, Joey Alexander looks like any other ordinary middle school kid. Modest in height no more than waist high wearing moppy black hair. Even Joey’s thick, blue rimmed glasses seemed slightly too large for his 12-year old face. A native of Indonesia, Joey grew up with his parents in Bali and Jakarta before moving to New York to pursue music full time.

Sifting the silence: a sarajevo story

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

2015 marks the 20th anniversary of a shadowed past.

From 1992 to 1995, the former Yugoslav Republic witnessed perhaps the most devastating conflict in Europe since World War II. An estimated 100,000 people were killed in the Bosnian-Herzegovinian conflict in but three years, displacing over 2.2 million people, leaving countless others broken to pick up the pieces.

Despite the tragedy, the Balkans is also home to some of the world’s most ethnically diverse populations in the world. A kaleidoscope of Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats, few around the world are aware that this same country is also uniquely made up of 4 million constituent peoples.

Feetprints R Us: Road tripping Across the American Outback

Mon, 20 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Wendell Barry, a poet, cultural critic and farmer reminds us of our shared humanity. His poems, deeply rooted in a living appreciation of the land, is a celebration of a place together we inhabit. Sometime last summer, Wendell and his life’s work came up in conversation reflecting on an interconnectedness of people and place.