DEFINE Field Exploration

A two-part day. This morning I dragged my housemate out for a walk to test out the cards in an urban setting (I’ve only tried them out once before and that was in the woods).

I narrowed down the pack to images that were less woods-specific (no ropeswing this time) but added some directional arrows off the back of last week’s peer session. I didn’t give him any real guidelines but he set some rules straight away.

We took a direction card and an image card, set off in that direction looking for something that matched the image. When we found something, we drew another direction card and another image card and repeated the process. We got through all 14 cards in about 25 minutes, which was much faster than I expected.

Thoughts about usage:

• Next time make cards with cardinal points on, for the reasons detailed at the end of this blog
• More abstract = more interesting. Marlon preferred interpreting images, and when he pulled out a card with a tree on he turned it upside down to make it more fun
• ‘How do I win?’ – he’s a very competetive person. I think if you turned it into something with competetive elements it would defeat the point. If you’re running around trying to win, you won’t be focussed on your surroundings in the same way.
• Is it for kids? Stuart and Marlon both said that adults wouldn’t play it. My whole family is really into group games, board games, escape rooms etc so I’d say this isn’t necessarily true for all adults. I also think adults need to play more, so maybe I should be looking at ways to make adults feel more comfortable playing.

Part 2 – I took a sketchbook and a few bits and pieces to the yard we store our canoes in. During my tutorial Stuart suggested I get out and look for letterforms etc in the ‘wild’, so I thought this was a good place to start as I’d be undisturbed and could wander around freely.