Samenvatting

Play has long been recognised for its capacity to open new possibilities for reimagining what has become static, settled or entrenched, whether conceptually, socially, or culturally. Historically, urban play carries a subversive potential, which can be traced back to the Situationist movement, even though in the contemporary context it is often reduced to “mere entertainment and distraction from the urban conditions dulled by routine,”1 or an apparatus of “positive (bio) power.”2 It is this tension between the subversion and co-optation of play which prompts the question: how can urban play re-introduce critical and imaginative potential into our engagement with places, especially those that are less known, less visible, and often neglected? We ask this question from our position of working within the neighbourhood of Amsterdam Southeast (Zuidoost) for more than a decade. Our research focuses on under-represented places where the pace of urban transformation is much faster which makes them greatly charged with symbolic and creative potential. We emphasise the importance of situated knowledge in this process. As Katherine van den Bogert argues, rather than brief visits and reports, it is long-term immersion, active participation and observation that allows researchers in these areas to become entangled with communal daily life, build trust, and access complex lived experiences that are often invisible to outsiders or anyone who is not engaged with the community in a more meaningful way.3 Collaborating from within (with local partners, communities, artists and activists), we have been mapping (literally putting on the map) emblematic places (we call them “anchor points”) that concentrate and converge identities and values, and carry the potential for renewal and regeneration. As a methodological approach, mapping imaginaries therefore makes visible the material and symbolic dimensions of places, the images and narratives through which they are represented, and their reputations, values, and identities in a glocalized context.4 What follows is our proposal for how one can re-engage with urban places through play /games that combine affect with the concept of ostranénie (the art of making the familiar strange, estrangement, defamiliarization, deautomatization, distanciation, de-habituation).5 We present three affective modalities through which ostranénie can be activated: glitch, affective dis/re-orientation, and sensory (re-)engagement. Each modality is explored through an art project situated at the intersection of play and urban space. Together, they demonstrate how one can intervene in and disrupt habitual and automated modes of sensing and moving through the city, opening new ways of engaging with place. In line with what Nigel Thrift describes as “the poetics of the spaces of dreams and improvisations”, these modalities not only capture what established discourses cannot but also “re-world” them with new imaginaries and potentialities.6 In this sense, we respond to Thrift’s call for explorative and experimental research practices that allow for continuous and evolving reimaging of places and our relationships with them.