Mathias Poulsen

Play Activist & Researcher @ Designskolen Kolding

Stuff I thought about recently

  • Democracy & design – fruitful tensions?

    Democracy & design – fruitful tensions?

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    by

    Mathias Poulsen
    in ,

    It’s funny. When I’m at work, surrounded by skilled designers and talented design students, I feel a little bit like an imposter, because I am not trained as a designer. Then, when I’m among democracy scholars and political scientists, as I have recently been at the ECPR (European Consortium for Political Research) workshop “Democratic Assemblage:…

  • Facing Privilege

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    by

    Mathias Poulsen
    in

    I just read Aaron Trammell’s new book, “Repairing Play – A Black Phenomenology“, and it’s a fascinating, compelling and important book that questions a lot of the assumptions about play we have come to take for granted. Trammell makes a stark critique of Huizinga’s proposal of play as a civilizing agent, of play as something…

  • Escaping Western Modernity

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    by

    Mathias Poulsen
    in

    A PhD project is an unruly beast, twisting and turning, taking the novice scholar in many surprising directions (especially, perhaps, if the novice scholar prefers all the twisting and turning over the linear path). As my project has evolved, a suspicion has been growing, making me equal parts uneasy and intrigued. While my design experiments…

  • Becoming a researcher

    Becoming a researcher

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    by

    Mathias Poulsen
    in

    This long and rambling post, or essay, maybe, began in Melbourne, as I was sitting on a bench in the vibrant Fitzroy North neighborhood with a cup of coffee and a beautiful pain au chocolat. Spring had arrived properly, I had been there for 3-4 weeks, and so much had happened already, my head and…

  • Om deltagelsesmuligheder

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    by

    Mathias Poulsen
    in ,

    I dette indlæg skitserer jeg muligheder for deltagelse i de eksperimenter, jeg kommer til at gennemføre i mit PhD-projekt, Designing for Playful Democratic Participation.

  • Vil du lege med – i et forskningsprojekt om demokratisk deltagelse?

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    Mathias Poulsen
    in ,

    Jeg er i gang med et PhD-projekt på Designskolen Kolding, hvor jeg undersøger hvordan vi kan designe for nye former for demokratisk deltagelse i det offentlige rum. Måske er det noget for dig?

  • I won’t tell you what to do

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    by

    Mathias Poulsen
    in ,

    The question is never answered, the answer is never complete, it’s a constant journey with no destination. No, we’re not there yet. That’s not something that frustrates me, on the contrary, it sparks my curiosity, keeps me on my toes…right up to the point where I suddenly have to pretend that there is an answer.…

  • Music for Writing

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    Mathias Poulsen
    in

    As I’m moving deeper into PhD territory, while working from home in our Covid isolation bubble, I’m slowly trying to develop good habits for writing. I am not a disciplined person and I’m not very good with structure, so starting a new, big project on my own, working in genres (such as a “PhD plan”)…

  • Drafting an experiment

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    by

    Mathias Poulsen
    in ,

    This document describes an experiment I was planning for an event at Designschool Kolding, the DesignCamp 2021 – “Island Matters – Speculative Fabulations of Possible Futures”. Now the event is online, so I’m working on a different version, but for inspiration, I’ll share the initial draft here. “What if…” First, the “what if” statement for…

  • Adults play, too

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    by

    Mathias Poulsen
    in ,

    That title is almost too obvious for me to write, bordering on the plain ridiculous. Of course we do. Even so, I still regularly have to explain that I’m particularly interested in the (sometimes invisible or even ) play of adults. When I founded CounterPlay, I hoped to create a space where adults could meet…