YomeciBand

Background This creative practice research is situated in experimental play design, public art and sound design. It is specifically informed by outdoor street games and the New Games movement of Bernard De Koven who designed inclusive play-based experiences that encourage socialisation, respond to their environment and community engagement. This project explored the impact of urban play on public space in a (post) pandemic context. How can play help us to connect, share and participate in our city again? Contribution Playable City Melbourne is a festival responding to ways our cities are changing in response to the pandemic. The project was commissioned by Playable City Melbourne curator Dr Troy Innocent for a parklet design that explores play with new forms of open-access, community-driven public space at multiple sites across Melbourne. In YomeciBand, the footpath next to the parklet becomes a track, playable with your feet. Tunes and compositions are activated in a improvised exchange with passers-by as they move across clusters of pavement drawings of creatures. In temporarily activating a street through making it playable, the work connected people and place through urban play and creative technologies. Significance YomeciBand has been staged across multiple munipiicaties throughout Melbourne, launching in the Playable City Melbourne program at Melbourne International Games Week 2021 in a public symposium. It has featured in Melbourne Design Week 2022 and will be part of the upcoming Melbourne Knowledge Week in May 2022. Partners include City of Stonnington, City of Moreland, Brunswick Design District and Siteworks. The Playable City program is part of a collaboration with the Watershed Pervasive Media Studio and the British Council.