Tacit Dimension is a laboratory for street and urban games exploring small-scale urban mechanics and large-scale infrastructures. We think of the game design process and gameplay as a way of exploring and researching urban life. Often our games respond to questions brought to us by our collaborating partners, who are urban professionals, architects, artists and academic institutions.

The term 'tacit dimension’ is borrowed from the philosopher-scientist Michael Polányi. It refers to knowledge that we acquire through experiencing and interacting with our environment, but which we can't explicitly formulate. Yet tacit knowledge is always behind what we put into words, draw or create.

Street Game Design

Streets, stairs and the rhythm of traffic lights constitute our platform. Tacit Dimension creates games in which rules of the game blend in with the everyday rules of urban life.

Probing Urban Complexity

Tacit Dimension creates games as probes that trigger responses from the rich and complex urban fabric. In this way gameplay on street level provides an understanding of larger scale urban infrastructure and processes.

Prototyping and Speculating

Tacit Dimension games prototype experiences of soon-to-come urban life and technologies and create temporary immersions in speculative urban futures.

Some of the people and institutions we have worked with:

Art and Technology Aalborg University // Design Akademie Berlin // Berlin Metropolitan Utilities Dialogue // Climate-KIC Berlin // ConstructLab // District Office Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf // Dönerkind // Institute of Ethnology University Freiburg // Hasso-Plattner-Institute, Potsdam // Neighbourhood Alliance Klausenerplatz // Node Center for Curatorial Studies // Open Knowledge Foundation Germany // Sandefjord Kunstforening, Norway // Studio Schwitalla // ZHDK Master for Arts in Designs // Free Ice Cream // Fiction Forum

Projects

Tacit Dimension

News

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KICK-OFF ASYMMETRIC GAMES WITH SOCIAL IMPACT | DESIGN AKADEMIE BERLIN

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”1388″ img_size=”medium”][vc_column_text]We kicked off ‘Asymmetric Games with Social Impact’, a cooperation with design akademie berlin. In this term students of the Master Strategic Design will design asymmetric games that cater for players with diverse skills and abilities. Their project also includes the development and validation of  implementation strategies including create business models and partnering strategies so that those games reach the as many players as possible and are available for a long-long time.[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”03/06/2017″ title_align=”separator_align_left”][vc_column_text 0=””]

PROCESS FESTIVAL | DORTMUND GERMANY

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”1369″ img_size=”medium”][vc_column_text 0=””]Photo: Norman Posselt[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text 0=””]Process is a festival for design, technology and creativity. On June 3rd the second Process with the subtitle There is a story behind every project was hosted in the Dortmunder U. Viktor Bedö gave a talk about street games as in situ research labs, demoed SkatePong and gave a sneak peek into the outcomes of the Asymmetric Games kick-off workshop.

For more impressions of the Process festival have a look at Flickr.[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”03-04/05/2017″ title_align=”separator_align_left”][vc_column_text 0=””]

ASYMMETRIC GAMES KICK-OFF WORKSHOP

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”1356″ img_size=”medium”][vc_column_text 0=””]In a two day workshop Tacit Dimension and MagikMe kicked-off the topic of asymmetric games in Budapest. The challenge of asymmetric games is to develop design principles for games played by players with different abilities yet with an equally fun gaming experience.[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”20-22/04/2017″ title_align=”separator_align_left”][vc_column_text 0=””]

BACK TO AALBORG

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”1359″ img_size=”medium”][vc_column_text 0=””]Tacit Dimension returned to Aalborg with an Obel Lecture about street game design and the magic circle and a rapid street game design workshop with students of Art & Technology at the Aalborg University.[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”01/02/2017″ title_align=”separator_align_left”][vc_column_text 0=””]

PLAYABLE CITIES PUBLICATION

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”1357″ img_size=”medium”][vc_column_text 0=””]Can we learn more about how geodata ‘feels’ in the street by co-designing the playingfield for a street game? This and other learnings from the Tacit Dimension Workshop at Design & The City conference in Amsterdam out in the chapter

Viktor Bedö “Size and Shape of the Playing Field” in A. Nijhot (ed): Playable Cities. Springer 2017.[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”07/02/2016″ title_align=”separator_align_left”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1492513753627{margin-top: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;}”]

WORKSHOP CALL | AMSTERDAM NETHERLANDS

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”1195″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]Geodata and urban game design workshop ‘Size & Shape of the Playing Field’ accepted for Design & The City conference in Amsterdam. Find out more and take part: Size & Shape micro site.[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”02/10/2015″ title_align=”separator_align_left”][vc_column_text 0=””]

WORKSHOP | BERLIN GERMANY

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Method workshop with Dialog macht Schule to explore collaborative urban game design as a method for Youth Participative Action Research (YPAR).[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”23-30/08/2015″ title_align=”separator_align_left”][vc_column_text 0=””]

MONS BELGIUM

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”611″ img_size=”medium”][vc_column_text]Residency at Mons Invisible, a program of European Cultural Capital Mons. Tacit Dimension conducted methodological experiments with game design based prototyping of future architecture in cooperation with ConstructLab&Friends. Mons, Belgium.[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”27/06/2015″ title_align=”separator_align_left”][vc_column_text 0=””]

RESEARCH WORKSHOP | LIMERICK IRELAND

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Paper “Urban Game Design: Prototyping as Hacking” discussed on Digital Cities 9 Workshop Hackable Cities: From Subversive City Making to Systemic Change, University of Limerick, Ireland.[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”31/05/2015″ title_align=”separator_align_left”][vc_column_text 0=””]

FESTIVAL | COPENHAGEN DENMARK

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”602″ img_size=”medium”][vc_column_text]Ad-hoc panel discussion about future trends of Play at the Copenhagen game festival w00t, Denmark[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”09/05/2015″ title_align=”separator_align_left”][vc_column_text 0=””]

URBAN GAME | SANDEFJORD NORWAY

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”568″ img_size=”medium”][vc_column_text]Street game Horror Vacui premiere @exhibition opening Tomrom, Kulturforening Sandefjord, Norway[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”09/05/2015″ title_align=”separator_align_left”][vc_column_text 0=””]

URBAN GAME | BERLIN GERMANY

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”904″ img_size=”medium”][vc_column_text]K2020 game launch @Klausenerplatz, Berlin[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”31/10/2014″ title_align=”separator_align_left”][vc_column_text 0=””]

URBAN GAME | BERLIN GERMANY

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”569″ img_size=”medium”][vc_column_text]Game Feromon Now featured by Festival of Future Nows @ Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”07/10/2014″ title_align=”separator_align_left”][vc_column_text 0=””]

TALK | BUDAPEST HUNGARY

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”571″ img_size=”medium”][vc_column_text]Keynote speech @ Mind the Game – Smart City Conference Budapest – Viktor Bedö presented on urban game design as a design instrument for urban innovation.[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”02/10/2014″ title_align=”separator_align_left”][vc_column_text 0=””]

URBAN GAME | BERLIN GERMANY

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”380″ img_size=”medium”][vc_column_text]Silvio Meier Experience Launch, Friedrichshain Berlin[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”05/08/2014″ title_align=”separator_align_left”][vc_column_text 0=””]

GAME PROTOTYPING | BERLIN GERMANY

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”572″ img_size=”medium”][vc_column_text]Berlin based architects Studio Schwitalla and Tacit Dimension have set up an urban game based prototyping session to model how an architectural structure – existing only in concept and model – works in a living urban environment.[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”13/06/2014″ title_align=”separator_align_left”][vc_column_text 0=””]

TALK | GAME SESSION | LONDON ENGLAND

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”573″ img_size=”medium”][vc_column_text]The Future of Art is Urban Exhibition @ Enclave Gallery London featured an Operation Noose Session and an introduction talk on urban game design as prototyping and mapping tool for urban research by Viktor Bedö. The related essay “A particurarly sketchy philosophy of urban game design and the tacit dimension of the urban” was published in the Exhibition Catalogue “The Future of art is Urban”.[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”23/04/2014″ title_align=”separator_align_left”][vc_column_text 0=””]

TALK | WORKSHOP | AALBORG DENMARK

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Obel Lecture and Workshop @ Art and Technology, Aalborg University – On the occasion of the Playing the Graveyard Workshop Viktor Bedö gave a talk about “How Game Design Can Teach Us About Urban Scale”. See video here.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]