As we begin our research with our collaborators from the G-Motiv project, we are confronted with the need to further define the limits between games and reality. Mapping game's boundaries, further exploring its elements as behavioural triggers, strives to achieve long-lasting change. As we find in the official G-Motiv description:
"Achieving lasting change is difficult; people are often poorly motivated to change their status quo! In the domains of healthcare and human resources, this resistance leads to large financial costs for society and reorganization costs for companies. Currently, people are ‘helped’ to change using therapy, training and coaching, however these often only result in short-term effects."
The idea of mental stimulation to amend reality prompted my interest into the use of design fictions as a tool to open up places for / of play. Finding inspiration within the work of futurologist Stuart Candy:
"Design is a space between the world that is and the world that could be"
Pairing design with long-term thinking and ideational methodologies from practices such as futurology is an enticing approach, to explore these liminal, "possibility spaces" within the context of G-Motiv. The use of design prototypes as a means to investigate fiction and recalibrate reality, implies empowerment for people to redefine their own condition, aims and therapies aimed towards the long-term. The question hereby would be:
How can we design or stage experiential scenarios, exploiting human experience within everyday life?