Re-playing Legends’ Worlds: Toying with Star Wars’ Expanded Universe in Adult Play

In this essay, I describe how adult fans of the Star Wars universe engage actively in worldbuilding through world-play. What distinguishes world-play from world-building, as proposed by Wolf (2012), is an understanding that adult toy play involves more than mere collection of toys, the most prominent concept in both hobbyist and theoretical writings on adults’ relationships with toys. In my analyses of visual and narrative data collected with adults, I have concentrated on profiling the types of adults who play with toys (Heljakka, 2013) and mapping out popular play patterns and motivations to play in reference to mass-produced toys (e.g., Heljakka, 2012; 2013; 2015). The essay at hand aims to investigate how adults’ play with Star Wars toys also entails elements of world-building in terms of both imaginative and spatially emerging object play patterns. Moreover, my study explores the employment of narratives from the original Star Wars films as texts and a source for contemporary fan play. Focus will be given to how the story-worlds of George Lucas, now imagined further by Disney and its storytellers, impact the current world-playing practices of Star Wars fans.</p

Preschoolers Learning with the Internet of Toys: From Toy-Based Edutainment to Transmedia Literacy

The Internet of Toys (IoToys) as an emerging type of edutainment presents a new research area, especially in the context of learning. This study investigates four connected toys played with in the preschool context. By turning to preschool-aged children and their educators observed and interviewed during and after a play test and group interview session, we study how the educational value of IoToys is actualized in a play situation in an early learning environment. In order for IoToys to work as tools in toy-based learning in the preschool context, we suggest that educators acknowledge the engagement with these toys as a form of transmedia play which demands transmedia literacy skills. Keywords: Early education, Edutainment, Internet of Toys (IoToys), Toy-based learning, Toy Literacy, Preschool-children, Transmedia Literacy </p

Robot dogs, interaction and ludic literacy: Exploring smart toy engagements in transgenerational play

This article highlights a study focusing on playful human-robotics interaction with an interest in robot dogs, technologically enhanced play, and ludic literacy. In order to find out how players of different ages react to, approach and employ a robot dog (called Golden Pup) in play, we designed an experimental study with 6–7-year-old preschool children and 80+-year-old seniors. We conducted the study with preschoolers and seniors, who during a playtest session interacted with a toy robot, namely a smart toy dog resembling a golden retriever puppy. Our aim was to find out how the toy robot invites playful interaction with it, facilitates social engagement between generations of players, and opens up conversations around social robotics and adaptive learning on toy-based technologies between players of different ages. Our findings suggest the role and importance of play in media education and show how robotic toys can be used to enhance ludic literacy when shared as a part of the transgenerational play. Keywords: human-computer interaction; ludic literacy; robotics; toy-based learning; transgenerational play

Vanhentunut Pete : Nostalgia, retrovaatio ja vintageleikki lähtökohtina hahmolelun suunnittelulle

Katsauksen keskiössä ovat lelusuunnittelussa ilmenevä nostalginen teknologiasuhde ja vintageleikiksi kutsuttu esineleikin osa-alue. Kirjoituksessa esitelty uutuuslelu, Obsolete Pete (”Vanhentunut Pete”), ammentaa esikuvansa nykyteknologian mahdollisuuksien sijaan menneen ajan välineistöstä ja estetiikasta. Leluhahmon suunnittelun lähtökohtia peilataan katsauksessa lelusuunnittelun ajankohtaisiin trendeihin ja osoitetaan, miten materiaalilähtöinen retrovaatio tietoisena suunnittelun lähtökohtana voi merkitä myös vanhentuneen ja analogisen teknologian monipuolista hyödyntämistä uuden hahmolelun muotoilussa. </p

CENTRIC 2018 : The Eleventh International Conference on Advances in Human-oriented and Personalized Mechanisms, Technologies, and Services

Over the next years smart Internet-connected toys are expected to grow significantly in numbers. Our study explores smart toys’ potential to deliver experiences related to playful learning. One key aspect of toys, such as the CogniToys Dino, Fisher-Price’s Smart Toy Bear and Wonder Workshop’s Dash Robot are their game-based and toy-based features and functions, which are suggested to have educational outcomes when used in play. Through a comparative investigation of toy marketers’, preschool teachers’ and the parents’ of preschoolaged children’s perspectives of smart toys potential—and a comparison to the actual play experiences of preschoolers discovered in earlier stages of research, we demonstrate how the educational potential of contemporary smart toys may be categorized into game-based and toy-based affordances that may be employed for specific educational goals in playful learning. Keywords - game-based learning; Internet of Toys (IoToys); play; preschoolers; smart toys.</p

Proceedings of the 8th International Toy Research Association World Conference Toys and Material Culture: Hybridisation, Design and Consumption

This paper challenges the readers to rethink adult toy play by demonstrating evidence for the rich and multifaceted nature of contemporary adult toy play cultures. It is based on a ten-year period of extensive research among mature toy players and illustrates the necessity of a shift in thinking about the user-groups of toys. The paper as a think piece bases on long-term, rigorous research, and argues for the need to acknowledge adult toy play as an important and growing area of contemporary toy cultures. It summarizes the work of a toy researcher interested in adult toy relations (conducted between years 2008-2018) and has a two-way agenda: By turning to cultural phenomena related to ludification and toyification of culture, it functions both as a cultural analysis of the ludic Zeitgeist, as well as a mapping of what has been learned about adult play in contemporary toy cultures so far. The case studies featured in this paper have been grounded in multiple readings and analyses of the manifestations of adult toy play as presented in photoplay (or toy photography) displayed on social media, e.g. Flickr and Instagram. It is supplemented with thematic interviews and participatory observation at toy conventions. Moreover, research methods include an extensive literary review in connection with doctoral research (Heljakka, 2013) and post-doctoral studies (2014-2018), and empirical studies (based on closer visual analyses of toy collections and qualitative interviews with mature players aged between 25-50+ years) on adult toy play in reference to contemporary character toys such as doll-types Blythe (Tomy Takara), Barbie and Ken (Mattel), My Little Pony (Hasbro), and Star Wars toys (by various toy makers).</p

Eternal Returns to a Peak Experience: Creating and Curating Play(ful) Tributes to Twin Peaks

This article documents the infinite allure of the cult series according to its own logic: In the spirit of play, what follows is a creative reflection of the author’s personal exploration of Twin Peaks through fandom, artistry and curatorship that sets to traverse the boundaries of a traditional academic text. The autoethnographic, artistic compilation includes a retrospective and reflective documentation of the author’s past experiences, exhibitions and events in relation to the Twin Peaks television series, seasons 1, 2 and 3; Twin Peaks: The Return, featuring a written introduction as well as ample visual and audiovisual material from the Peak Experience art exhibitions and related adventures. In the article, connections between the fictional series, its imaginative characters, and the actual geographic space of the pilot’s (Season 1) filming locations are made to fan-art, as they are discussed as inspirational resources for fans and artists in the creation, crafting and curation of play(ful) tributes to Twin Peaks. As a scholarly contribution of a researcher of toys and play, the text references contemporary sources on play theory as well as source texts tying the reflection with analyses of Lynch’s oeuvre. The discussion flows freely between the opus maximus that Twin Peaks is, and the innate playfulness and toyness of the artistic pieces produced for the ongoing exhibition series, as well as the author’s own photoplay in reference to the activities as a fan of the television series. The collage of photographic and audiovisual ‘playworks’ and artworks, which function as research material for the analysis, are claimed to follow a ‘lynchian aesthetic’—multiple and ambiguous in their identity – as proposed by FosterWallace (1997, 151), and represent the results of creation and curation of play(ful) tributes to Twin Peaks. By asking how ‘the happening again’ manifests in a loop of eternal returns, the author highlights the timeless gold of Twin Peaks as a source for artistry, fandom and play of creative adults.</p

Ratsastetut ja rakastetut. Kepparit mediaurheilullistuvan leikin välineinä

Katsaus käsittelee keppihevosiin liittyvän leikin liikunnallistumista ja (media)urheilullistumista. Peilaan digitalisaation vaikutuksia keppihevosten ympärille kehittyneeseen nykyleikkiin, harrastajiksi tunnustautuviin leikkijöihin ja urheilullistuvaan leikkikulttuuriin keppariharrastajien tuottamien sosiaalisen median sisältöjen ja aiheesta julkaistun verkkovälitteisen uutisoinnin kautta. Tarkastelun keskiössä on liikuttava leikki; lasten ja nuorten keppihevostoimintaan liittämät fyysisyyden, funktionaalisuuden, fiktionaalisuuden ja affektiivisuuden merkitykset. Totean, että alakulttuurinen ja leikkijälähtöinen toiminta synnyttää kilpaurheiluksi järjestäytyessään ympärilleen omaleimaisen yhteisön, joka vikuroi tarvittaessa vallitsevaa kilpaurheiluhegemoniaa vastaan.</p

Pandemic toy play against social distancing: Teddy bears, window-screens and playing for the common good in times of self-isolation

This article investigates the recent global phenomenon of the teddy challenge (nallejahti) with a focus on Finland. Beginning in March 2020 and as result of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Finnish citizens started to cheer up passersby by displaying teddy bears in their windows. As this activity gained media interest and popularity, it gradually grew into a form of contemporary toy play, inviting both children and adults to participate in the activity as displayers and spectators of toys. Furthermore, a gamified challenge was added on to this originally open-ended and visual-material play pattern made available to a broader audience thanks to sharing on social media. Through an examination of national and international newspaper articles and images posted with the hashtag #nallejahti on social media platforms, the phenomenon is articulated and analyzed through the theoretical lenses of mimetic object play, social screen-based play, and toy play as an act that potentially facilitates mental well-being through imagination, participation, and communal play—here understood as playing for the common good. By theorizing and framing the current phenomenon as pandemic toy play, the article suggests the importance of resourcefulness and playful social resilience as facets of a transgenerational play practice in times of forced self-isolation and physical social distancing. </p