Investigating the Artist’s Role in Social Group Games

Abstract

Social interactions are a key objective in cultural experience design and museum games are often aimed to fosterconversations between visitors. However, the participation of cultural creators is hardly explored. In this paper we examinehow the artists may participate in storytelling games played over their artworks. We present a field study at a museumexhibition, where the artist joined a group of visitors crafting and sharing stories over his paintings. We investigate howthe artist’s participation affected the group experience, considering the visitors’ perspective along with the artist’s. Bothsides reported positive outcomes, indicating an engaging social cultural experience. Furthermore, we discuss the effects ofbystanders in traditional as opposed to game-event settings. Building upon the later, we pinpoint limitations and challengesover the artist’s participation, and explore varying levels of engagement, sketching good practices and new directions.

Keywords

• cultural group visits
• art exhibitions
• storytelling games
• social interactions
• artist participation
• game events’ design
• user studies