Abstract
To grasp the emerging possibilities of new developments in the Internet of Toys, paying critical attention to the layered relationships of material technology and intangible imagination is needed. This chapter explores children’s imaginative and playful engagement with toys that demonstrate AI or autonomous behaviour (here robots and virtual pets). It takes a workshop on the design of a new robotic gaming platform as a central case study. Paying close descriptive and analytical attention to moments of interaction with such toys is essential to fully grasp the complex relationships between global technological imaginaries—in this case of AI and artificial life—and the material and embodied workings of imagination in play.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Allison, A. (2006). Millenial monsters: Japanese toys and the global imagination. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Apperley, T., & Heber, N. (2015). Capitalizing on emotions: Digital pets and the natural user interface. In J. Enevold & E. Macallum-Stewart (Eds.), Game love: Essays on play and affection (pp. 149–161). Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Bak, M. (2016). Building blocks of the imagination: Children, creativity, and the limits of Disney Infinity. The Velvet Light Trap,78, 53–64.
Balsamo, A. (2011). Designing culture: The technological imagination at work. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Bloch, L., & Lemish, D. (1999). Disposable love: The rise and fall of a virtual pet. New Media & Society,1(3), 283–303.
Du Gay, P., Hall, S., Janes, L., Mackay, H., & Negus, K. (1997). Doing cultural studies: The story of the Sony Walkman. London: Sage.
Flichy, P. (1999). The construction of new digital media. New Media & Society,1(1), 3–39.
Giddings, S. (2007). Playing with nonhumans: Digital games as technocultural form. In S. de Castell & J. Jensen (Eds.), Worlds in play: International perspectives on digital games research (pp. 115–128). Frankfurt, Germany: Peter Lang.
Giddings, S. (2014a). Gameworlds: Virtual media and children’s everyday play. New York: Bloomsbury.
Giddings, S. (2014b). Bright bricks, dark play: On the impossibility of studying LEGO. In M. J. P. Wolf (Ed.), LEGO studies: Examining the building blocks of a transmedia phenomenon (pp. 241–267). New York: Routledge.
Haraway, D. (1990). A manifesto for cyborgs: Science, technology, and socialist feminism in the 1980s. In L. J. Nicholson (Ed.), Feminism/postmodernism (pp. 190–234). London: Routledge.
Hilu, R. (2016). Girl talk and girl tech: Computer talking dolls and the sounds of girls’ play. The Velvet Light Trap,78, 4–21.
Hjarvard, S. (2004). From bricks to bytes: The mediatization of a global toy industry. In I. Bondebjerg & P. Golding (Eds.), European culture and the media (pp. 43–64). Bristol, UK: Intellect.
Kline, S. (1993). Out of the garden: Toys and children’s culture in the age of TV marketing. New York: Verso.
Kritt, D. (1999). Loving a virtual pet: Toward the technological erosion of emotion. Journal of American and Comparative Cultures,23(4), 81–87.
Lister, M., Dovey, J., Giddings, S., Grant, I., & Kelly, K. (2009). New media: A critical introduction (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Marsh, J. (2017). The internet of toys: A posthuman and multimodal analysis of connected play. Teachers College Record, 119(2). Retrieved from http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/113557/.
Opie, I., Opie, P., & Alderson, B. (1989). A treasury of childhood: Books, toys, and games from the Opie collection. London: Pavilion Books.
Oudshoorn, N., & Pinch, T. (2003). Introduction: How users and non-users matter. In T. Pinch & N. Oudshoorn (Eds.), How users matter: The co-construction of users and technology (pp. 1–25). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Ruckenstein, M. (2010). Toying with the world: Children, virtual pets and the value of mobility. Childhood,17(4), 500–513.
Sutton-Smith, B. (1997). The ambiguity of play. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Turkle, S. (1984). The second self: Computers and the human spirit. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Wasko, J. (2010). Children’s virtual worlds: The latest commercialization of children’s culture. In T. Vebjørg & D. Buckingham (Eds.), Childhood and consumer culture (pp. 113–129). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Winfield, A. (2012). Robotics: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Acknowledgements
The robot workshop was part of a project with Reach Robotics to prototype their Mecha Monsters toy (now marketed as MekaMon) and was funded by REACT, a Knowledge Exchange Hub for the Creative Industries. REACT ran from 2012 to 2016 and was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK: http://www.react-hub.org.uk/. Thanks to Silas Adekunle, CEO of Reach Robotics, for his enthusiastic cooperation; and many thanks to Penny Giddings for setting up, planning and running the workshop.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Giddings, S. (2019). Toying with the Singularity: AI, Automata and Imagination in Play with Robots and Virtual Pets. In: Mascheroni, G., Holloway, D. (eds) The Internet of Toys. Studies in Childhood and Youth. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10898-4_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10898-4_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-10897-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-10898-4
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)