archivio Ludiko – MODO 2005 by Silvana Annicchiarico

“Perhaps we  have to start learning from children. From thier way of relating to the world, their attitude to space and time, their mode of interacting with objects. For example, when they play, very often, small children are not really intersted in the objects specially designed to stimulate their interest. They prefer – perhaps paradoxically – any everyday item (a cork, a piece of string, a plastic bottle, a piece of fabric), that is removed from its original function and used as a method of learning and as a tool for the imagination. In this way, children unconsciously but surprisingly create a sort of “ready made”,  They isolate an object from its context and function, and they give it new meaning in the realm of play. This is an important lesson that should be given for more attention and study than in the case today.   In any sort of game, at whatever strage of life, there is a sort of challenge to common sense and ordinary reality. Play requires a shif in approach and the attribution of new functions.  Possibly the object used in play is liberated, with the intention and hope of rendering it useful for other ends and different functions. Perhaps designing for play means above all moving in this direction, proceeding by leaps of the imagination, having the courage to trascend dogmatic positions and canons, and thinking of unusual relationship between form and function…”