Tacit Dimension is a laboratory for street and urban games exploring small-scale mechanics and large-scale infrastructures of urban life. We think of the game design process, as well as the gameplay, as a way of learning, exploration and research. Our games often respond to a question related to cities brought to us by and addressed together with urban professionals, institutions and communities.

The term ‘tacit dimension’ is borrowed from the philosopher-scientist Michael Polányi. He coined the term to elaborate on the knowledge that we acquire through experience and interactions 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 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