Publications

Playful Mapping Collective (2016). Playful Mapping in the Digital Age. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures.

From Mah-Jong, to the introduction of Prussian war-games, through to

the emergence of location-based play: maps and play share a long and

diverse history. This monograph shows how mapping and playing unfold

in the digital age, when the relations between these apparently separate

tropes are increasingly woven together. Fluid networks of interaction

have encouraged a proliferation of hybrid forms of mapping and playing

and a rich plethora of contemporary case-studies, ranging from fieldwork,

golf, activism and automotive navigation, to pervasive and desktop-based

games evidences this trend. Examining these cases shows how mapping

and playing can form productive synergies, but also encourages new ways

of being, knowing and shaping our everyday lives. The chapters in this

book explore how play can be a more than just an object or practice, and

instead focus on its potential as a method for understanding maps and

spatiality. They show how playing and mapping can be liberating,

dangerous, subversive and performative.