Lights were flashing, and the sound of robots and the chatter of children filled the room. This was the TIFF Kids digiPlaySpace exhibition that took place from March 7th to April 19th in Toronto this year. It is an interactive exhibition where kids age 5 to 16 can play with video games and with a whole bunch of cool stuff like stop motion dancing, talking robots, and lots more!
We had the opportunity to have a tour of the exhibition where we saw many amazing things. We met the HitchBot, which was a robot that was able to communicate with humans. Kids were building robots and we had the chance to control a robot and make it move around with the touch of a button! The rooms were very lively, colourful lights flashing all over the room, and the place was never silent, pulsating with the sound of loud music, kids talking and laughing, or maybe even the whirring sound of interesting machines.
We interviewed Margaryta Golovchenko, a member of the Youth Council at AGO, the Art Gallery of Ontario. “We just want to tell people about other youth projects that are going on, the projects led by the youth council itself so people know where to get involved.”
Golovchenko showed us one of the projects that she and the Youth Council created. “So here we have a zine that we made the first year that I joined. There are a lot of biographies and the project is that we have to talk about ourselves.”
The process was very similar to being a journalist and making a magazine. “The zine I showed you before took a couple of weeks. We worked with an artist, we put it all together, and we printed the final piece.”
We interviewed Nick Pagee, the curator for TIFF Kids digiPlaySpace. Pagee said that his role is to pick out all the films and stuffing you can see. Pagee said that the team searched for the most fun, engaging and educational things to put on display.
According to Pagee, there were 40,000 visitors to TIFF Kids and 14,000 people visited the digiPlaySpace. The organizing committee expects the same amount of traffic for 2015.
“We pretty much worked nonstop for about six months to make it all happen. So we started back in around August and September. We kind of looked for stuff, researched, and we reached out to artists, as well as to the video game makers,” Pagee said.
“There are different kinds of things for different kids,” Pagee said. For younger children, there are simpler games with easier-to-navigate interfaces and that are more colourful. For older kids, a more challenging interaction is required.
We had a really fun time, and it was really cool to experience a whole new world of digital playing!
