RePlay is a creativity framework I developed while I was Marie Curie Fellow at Lancaster University, to conduct action based research. Utilizing Replay I did a number of Case Studies as well as exploratory research in the context of Participatory Design with Community Architects, Maker Centered Education, Service Design, Co-design Process, and Developing Tangible Computing Devices and Environments.
RePlay facilitates is a concept I would like to call creativity in action “Creativity in Action”, is based in particular upon philosophical theories related to embodiment. It is a type of process that is reflective as well as ephemeral and transformative in nature.
Creativity In Action
Creativity in Action encourages awareness through reflection during the creative process by drawing attention to physical aspects of creative process. Via RePlay I explore important themes to innovation process for example reflection, flow, improvisational creativity, enactive perception and bodily externalizations. If you would like further information about this please visit the publications section of this website. As a participant, the value of RePlay is as an embodied approach for observing as well as enhancing reflection and understanding how bodily externalization is an important component of design process.
Research Goals
The goal of this research is to describe creativity in action utilizing a trans-disciplinary approach and develop an environment for assisting mixed design teams to become more reflective about their creative process. At this stage my research is focused upon creativity that is both collaborative in nature as well as intra-personal in that it focuses on what bodily and personal associations individuals bring to the creative process as well as the inter-subjectivity of designing a product or service. In particular I explore the domain of tangible interfaces where physicality is an important parameter in the design process.
Exploratory Research Summary
A set of exploratory studies were initially conducted. This included a pilot study conducted with a group of
theatrical improvisers in Lancaster, UK. This work was mostly exploratory in nature and was about getting feedback from the actors about what improvisational strategies might be of use. The result of this study was two articles one called ‘Scanning the Terrain: Creativity and embodiment exploring the use of BadIdeas, improvisation reflection and RePlay’ which was submitted to CEPHAD a conference exploring links between
design and philosophy. A second article was submitted to DIS 2010 Exploring Creative Process via Improvisation and the Design method RePlay, it reported on the study but also went to more detail surrounding this area of research in design thinking and offered a kind of literature review as well as more detailed information surrounding RePlay. Later a third exploratory study was conducted at Phillips Research in Eindhoven that consisted of interviews alongside a technique called breaching experiments where by, the participants were asked to visualize their creative process using a set group of images and create a design flow diagram. The article, ‘Brainstorming is a Bowl of Spaghetti: An In Depth Study of Collaborative Design Process and Creativity Methods with Experienced Design Practitioners’ was then presented at a creativity conference in Kobe, Japan.
Finally a fourth exploratory study was conducted involving a practice led research strategy as well as a technique called shadowing. In this case I attended an artist residency in Reykjavik, Iceland as an artist/researcher. As an artist I produced a series of post-cards that reflected upon the creative process of one the artists I was shadowing as well as collaborating with. The artist Monica Holl is a sculptor and through out the residency we were collaborators. I then used photographs, my own images as well as quotes from interviews to visualize and interpret her creative process. The postcards were later presented as part of a gallery show the series is called Traces.
Case Studies
Building upon the exploratory research I conducted I then went on to incorporate RePlay to perform design research for a number of projects or part of workshops. The first one was Global Studio which was a collaboration between architects, urban planners, and children as part of a community architecture project. I published a short article in the Journal Touch Point called " .....highlighting our results. I also utilized RePlay as a workshop in conferences and academic settings such as the conference on Tangible Embodied Interaction (TEI), The Tiree Tech Wave as well as part of presentations at Deutsche Telekom and Tudor Innovation Labs. Please visit case studies section for more information.
Research Highlights
Below is a diagram highlighting some of the benefits I have come across from conducting RePlay as part of an innovation process.For more information about RePlay please see publications.