Last week I visited CoSA – Center of Science Activites in Graz. CoSA offers twelve different areas, where visitors can explore technical and scientific relations and phenomena in a hands-on way. Instead of a strict and typical ‘do not touch’ they follow the rule of ‘please touch’, encouraging a playful discovery. I visited three of the areas: The Experimentarium, The MedLab and Technology.
The Experimentarium is a playful, curiosity-driven space full of scientific phenomena and hands-on surprises. Introductions and exhibits were hidden, and you needed to find the tiny drawers and covered elements spread throughout the room. The space felt like a playground and as a visitor you got invited to poke around, test things, explore and discover at your own pace.
In the MedLab you could discover the world of medical research. You could slip into the shoe of a medical professional, either as a doctor or a lab technician. There were three patients that needed to be examined, and you could even take a blood sample with real liquid in the syringe. The blood sample needed to be analyzed in the lab to find out the correct diagnosis, which made the experiment surprisingly realistic.
In the Technology Area focused engineering and mobility. You could build your own vehicle by selecting the different components needed for a car. For each component there were even different options to use, like a diesel engine, gasoline engine or electric motor. Once the car was assembled, you can test it in a racing simulation and fine-tune it based on the performance. It was a fun and very interactive way to learn about something complex as a vehicle.
I completely lost track of time during my visit and felt totally immersed in the exhibition. I was genuinely fun. When I reflected on why I enjoyed the exhibition so much, I realized it gives visitor a place to experiment, explore, and play. I felt a bit like a curious kid again.
And that feeling connects to what I want to research about in my master thesis: how interaction design can foster playful, imperfect and low-pressure creativity. We live in a world which pushes us towards productivity, efficiency and optimization and I think we all forgot how it feels to simply just mess around and play without expecting a result. As children playing was our way of learning, discovering new things and processing our environment and I think unfortunately we lost that as adults.
And maybe that is what we should bring that back in our lives. Play more, experiment more and just try things, without judgment and without pressure. This is where the idea for my project is coming from: I want to create an interactive web playground for creatives. A digital space where the goal is not to produce something ‘useful’, but to create something without pressure, where we can set our perfectionism aside and simply create something for the joy of creating.
So, I think this is a reminder for myself, that play isn’t a distraction of creative work, maybe it is a form of creative work; and the kind that brings back energy, curiosity, and inspiration.
AI was used to check spelling and grammar and better clarity.
