1. Mobilities Seminar on Mobile Media, Technology and Design for Social Change François Bar & Holly Willis
2. Words on the Street Urban Computing and Its Discontents+++++++++++ ++++++++++++Adam Greenfield &Mark Shepard+++ readings * The Infrastructure of Experience and the Experience of Infrastructure: Meaning and Structure in Everyday Encounters With Space+++++++ ++++++++++++Genevieve Bell & Paul Dourish+++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3. Words on the Street …………… ..“The technologies that the networked city relies upon remain opaque, even to those exposed to them daily.” ……………………………………………….. Adam Greenfield “ Words on the Street” *
4. Words on the Street ……………………………… We need translators “capable of opening up these occult systems.”………………………… ………………………………………………………… ........................ Adam Greenfield “ Words on the Street” *
5. Words on the Street ……………………………… We need translators “capable of opening up these occult systems.”………………………… ………………………………………………………… ........................ Adam Greenfield “ Words on the Street” *
6. locative * media Locative media are systems of technologically mediated interpersonal and group communication, providing the opportunity to augment traditional urban environments with information, communication and spatial experiences, which can be accessed through mobile or desktop devices. The main characteristics of locative media are mobility, locativeness and multi-user support…. Locative Media Art: Towards New Types of “Hybrid” Places for Communicating Meaning – A moderated discussion on YASMIN beginning on December 3, 2007, with Dimitris Charitos , Martin Rieser and Yanna Vogiazou.
7. locative * media “ These projects share a common interest in altering how we locate and orient ourselves within cities, and subsequently navigate through them.” Mark Shepard, “Urban Computing and Its Discontents”
10. … .cognitive mapping… ……… .Kevin Lynch……………….. production of space ………………… .Henri Lefebvre…… ……………… dérive Guy Debord……………………………….
11. classifications From Brian Degger: * Locative-narrative ++++++++ a story that traverses the city +++++ * Community storytelling / authorship / knowledge sharing ++++++++locative technology used to tag space ++++++ *Psych tours +++++++ psychogeographical tours of the space to enable a new mapping of a hybrid space across time or literature; * Playing the city +++++++ using the city as an instrument or space for play ++ We can add here Information Visualization….
12. Can You See Me Now? 2003 A Machine To See With, 2010 Blast Theory Projects Blast Theory “confronts a media-saturated world… using performance, installation, video, mobile and online technologies to ask questions about the ideologies present in the information that envelops us.”
13. Call Cutta Mobile Phone Theater, 2005 Created by the Swiss/German theater collective Rimini Protokoll, this project created personalized city tours through mobile phone conversations.
14. Amodal Suspension, 2003 Created by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, this project “intercepted” text messages sent by participants and turned them into flashes of light that bounced around the city; a few were then selected and projected in public spaces.
15. Amsterdam REALTIME, 2002 Residents of Amsterdam were given tracer units to record movement through the city; the information was sent to a gallery space, where it was visualized in real time.
16. Urban Tapestries, 2002 – 2004, Proboscis exploring “specific social and cultural uses of knowledge mapping and sharing in partnership with other civil society, industry and academic partners.”
17. events 2010 01SJ Biennial, September 16 - 19 Santa Monica, September 25
18.
Notes de l'éditeur
By way of some context, I want to reference the November 2009 issue of Wired UK Magazine, which features an article by Adam Greenfield titled “Digital Cities: Words on the Street.” The piece comments on our embrace of the “digital mediation of everyday life,” noting that we have cheerfully – or in many cases blithely – adopted a host of technologies that we use in our cars, clothing and phones that connect with global networks in real time, transmitting data back and forth. These technologies embedded throughout everyday experience are often more vast than we immediately recognize, and include the electronics used in cars, elevators, CCTV networks, building security systems, fire alarms, central heating systems, and so on. Greenfield goes on to celebrate some of the benefits of the real-time, data-enabled city, but then turns to the glitch: “The technologies that the networked city relies upon remain opaque, even to those exposed to them daily.” The solution? According to Greenfield, “ understanding networked urbanism on its own terms requires an investment of time and effort beyond the reach of most.”
By way of some context, I want to reference the November 2009 issue of Wired UK Magazine, which features an article by Adam Greenfield titled “Digital Cities: Words on the Street.” The piece comments on our embrace of the “digital mediation of everyday life,” noting that we have cheerfully – or in many cases blithely – adopted a host of technologies that we use in our cars, clothing and phones that connect with global networks in real time, transmitting data back and forth. These technologies embedded throughout everyday experience are often more vast than we immediately recognize, and include the electronics used in cars, elevators, CCTV networks, building security systems, fire alarms, central heating systems, and so on. Greenfield goes on to celebrate some of the benefits of the real-time, data-enabled city, but then turns to the glitch: “The technologies that the networked city relies upon remain opaque, even to those exposed to them daily.” The solution? According to Greenfield, “ understanding networked urbanism on its own terms requires an investment of time and effort beyond the reach of most.”
He then claims a need for translators, or people “capable of opening up these occult systems,” and he calls these agents “Urbanists” with the mandate to help the rest of us understand the invisible network that orchestrates the contemporary city.
He then claims a need for translators, or people “capable of opening up these occult systems,” and he calls these agents “Urbanists” with the mandate to help the rest of us understand the invisible network that orchestrates the contemporary city.
“ Locative media are systems of technologically mediated interpersonal and group communication. Such mobile wireless technologies provide the opportunity to augment traditional urban environments with information and communication spatial experiences, which can be accessed through mobile or desktop devices. The main characteristics of locative media are mobility, locativeness and multi-user support. The characteristic of “locativeness” in particular, may refer to both users and content within a locative media group or activity. These characteristics above may influence interpersonal as well as intergroup relationships in the context of these new social constructions.” Locative Media Art: Towards New Types of “Hybrid” Places for Communicating Meaning - A moderated discussion on YASMIN beginning on December 3, 2007 :: with Dimitris Charitos , Martin Rieser and Yanna Vogiazou .
“ Locative media are systems of technologically mediated interpersonal and group communication. Such mobile wireless technologies provide the opportunity to augment traditional urban environments with information and communication spatial experiences, which can be accessed through mobile or desktop devices. The main characteristics of locative media are mobility, locativeness and multi-user support. The characteristic of “locativeness” in particular, may refer to both users and content within a locative media group or activity. These characteristics above may influence interpersonal as well as intergroup relationships in the context of these new social constructions.” Locative Media Art: Towards New Types of “Hybrid” Places for Communicating Meaning - A moderated discussion on YASMIN beginning on December 3, 2007 :: with Dimitris Charitos , Martin Rieser and Yanna Vogiazou .
Technologically, locative media is clearly made possible by the evolution of computing sketched by Mark Weiser in the opening of the essay on infrastructure by Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell that we asked you to read for today. In that 1991 essay titled “The Computer for the 21st Century,” Weiser describes a third stage of computer use in a trajectory that starts with mainframe computers, then moves to the dispersal of computers into daily life via desktop computing. The third stage is the further dissemination of computers into the environment around us. Weiser wrote many essays describing the form and potential of ubiquitous computing, noting that while decades of interface and computer design focused on creating what he called the “dramatic” machine, he was far more interested in the “invisible” network and the “calm” machine. “Its highest ideal is to make a computer so imbedded, so fitting, so natural, that we use it without even thinking about it.” In his seminal essay, Weiser also articulated a vision of the future, describing a world to come in terms so convincing that, as Genevieve Bell and Paul Dourish argue, contemporary pervasive computing itself “is essentially defined by its visions of a technological future.” The dispersion of computing into the world is in turned linked to what’s been dubbed pervasive or ubiquitous computing. Other terms include “physical computing” and “ambient intelligence,” with a recent conference on “situated technologies” paying deserved attention to the ways in which networked computing should always be understood within a social dimension. Mark Weiser, “The Computer for the 21st Century,” Scientific American , February 1991. Genevieve Bell and Paul Dourish expand on the impact of Weiser’s essay in “Yesterday’s Tomorrows: Notes on Ubiquitous Computing’s Dominant Vision,” noting that “almost one quarter of all the papers published in the Ubicomp conference between 2001 and 2005 cite Weiser’s foundational articles, a remarkable number of publications to cite a single vision as fundamental for their own work over a decade later,” 133.
Technologically, locative media is clearly made possible by the evolution of computing sketched by Mark Weiser in the opening of the essay on infrastructure by Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell that we asked you to read for today. In that 1991 essay titled “The Computer for the 21st Century,” Weiser describes a third stage of computer use in a trajectory that starts with mainframe computers, then moves to the dispersal of computers into daily life via desktop computing. The third stage is the further dissemination of computers into the environment around us. Weiser wrote many essays describing the form and potential of ubiquitous computing, noting that while decades of interface and computer design focused on creating what he called the “dramatic” machine, he was far more interested in the “invisible” network and the “calm” machine. “Its highest ideal is to make a computer so imbedded, so fitting, so natural, that we use it without even thinking about it.” In his seminal essay, Weiser also articulated a vision of the future, describing a world to come in terms so convincing that, as Genevieve Bell and Paul Dourish argue, contemporary pervasive computing itself “is essentially defined by its visions of a technological future.” The dispersion of computing into the world is in turned linked to what’s been dubbed pervasive or ubiquitous computing. Other terms include “physical computing” and “ambient intelligence,” with a recent conference on “situated technologies” paying deserved attention to the ways in which networked computing should always be understood within a social dimension. Mark Weiser, “The Computer for the 21st Century,” Scientific American , February 1991. Genevieve Bell and Paul Dourish expand on the impact of Weiser’s essay in “Yesterday’s Tomorrows: Notes on Ubiquitous Computing’s Dominant Vision,” noting that “almost one quarter of all the papers published in the Ubicomp conference between 2001 and 2005 cite Weiser’s foundational articles, a remarkable number of publications to cite a single vision as fundamental for their own work over a decade later,” 133.
Can You See Me Now? is a game that happens simultaneously online and on the streets. Players from anywhere in the world can play online in a virtual city against members of Blast Theory. Tracked by satellites, Blast Theory's runners appear online next to your player on a map of the city. On the streets, handheld computers showing the positions of online players guide the runners in tracking you down. Can You See Me Now? draws upon the near ubiquity of handheld electronic devices in many developed countries. Blast Theory are fascinated by the penetration of the mobile phone into the hands of poorer users, rural users, teenagers and other demographics usually excluded from new technologies. Some research has suggested that there is a higher usage of mobile phones among the homeless than among the general population. The advent of 3G (third generation mobile telephony) brings constant internet access, location based services and massive bandwidth into this equation. Can You See Me Now? is a part of a sequence of works (Uncle Roy All Around You and I Like Frank have followed) that attempt to establish a cultural space on these devices. While the telecoms industry remains focused on revenue streams in order to repay the huge debts incurred by buying 3G licenses and rolling out the networks, Blast Theory in collaboration with the Mixed Reality Lab are looking to identify the wider repercussions of this communication infrastructure. When games, the internet and mobile phones converge what new possibilities arise? These social forces have dramatic repercussions for the city. As the previously discrete zones of private and public space (the home, the office etc.) have become blurred, it has become commonplace to hear intimate conversations on the bus, in the park, in the workplace. And these conversations are altered by the audience that accompanies them: we are conscious of being overheard and our private conversations become three way: the speaker, the listener and the inadvertent audience. Blast Theory is renowned internationally as one of the most adventurous artists' groups using interactive media, creating groundbreaking new forms of performance and interactive art that mixes audiences across the internet, live performance and digital broadcasting. Led by Matt Adams, Ju Row Farr and Nick Tandavanitj, the group’s work explores interactivity and the social and political aspects of technology. It confronts a media saturated world in which popular culture rules, using performance, installation, video, mobile and online technologies to ask questions about the ideologies present in the information that envelops us. Mixing documentary material, stolen thriller cliches and the films of Jean-Luc Godard it invites you to become someone else. Step inside a film as you walk through the city, receiving phone calls. Are you the protagonist or a bit part player? Start making decisions and you will find out.
Pervasive computing brings together wireless, networked and context-aware technologies, including Global Positioning System (GPS), environmental sensors and Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID), to embed computational capacities in the objects and environments that surround us. The “Internet of Things” is a related vision for future computing that proposes a shift from a network of interconnected computers to a network of interconnected objects. By virtue of their status as highly regulated and globally traded commodities, livestock animals and animal products have long been tracked and are primed to be amongst the first non-humans in such a network. Specifically, RFID-enabled livestock traceability programmes are increasingly being mandated by governments and agricultural industries worldwide to better support management of disease outbreaks and maintain access to high-value export markets. In these technologically determinist traceability scenarios, animals are largely envisioned as manageable and saleable information and farmers are more often positioned as technicians and data collectors than as animal caregivers. This project investigates the role that cultural studies and design can play in presenting both producers and consumers with alternate visions for the future of human-animal relations. Through a juxtaposition of technological livestock management programmes and non-technological wool industry products and services, this presentation will critically question the social and cultural implications of emergent technologies and existing traceability efforts. Particular attention will be given to articulating research practices and stakeholder relations that can significantly engage relevant issues and avoid the pitfalls of both dystopian and utopian futurism.
Amodal Suspension is a large-scale interactive installation where people can send short text messages to each other using a cell phone or web browser. However, rather than being sent directly, the messages are encoded as unique sequences of flashes with twenty robotically-controlled searchlights, not unlike the patterns that make up Morse code. Messages “bounce” around from searchlight to searchlight, turning the sky into a giant switchboard. A message may be “caught” with a cell phone or a 3D Internet interface, at which time it is removed from the sky, shown on the cell phone or online interface and projected on the façade of the museum. This work was inspired by the Tanabata tradition in Japan whereby short messages are ritually hung on bamboo. One objective of the piece was to make a public spectacle by using the private medium of text messaging, slowing down communication and introducing the possibility of interception. The piece was active between the 1st and the 24th of November 2003. http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/english/projects/amodal.htm
Public Authoring in the Wireless City Urban Tapestries is the name of a research project and experimental software platform for knowledge mapping and sharing – public authoring – conceived and developed by Proboscis in partnership with collaborators such as the London School of Economics, Birkbeck College, Orange, HP Research labs, France Telecom R&D UK, Ordnance Survey. The original research project began in late 2002 and was completed in Autumn 2004, with a follow-on research programme of experiments with local groups and communities called Social Tapestries starting in April 2004 and completed in Summer 2007 (additional publications and outputs will be released in 2008). Urban Tapestries investigated how, by combining mobile and internet technologies with geographic information systems, people could 'author' the environment around them; a kind of Mass Observation for the 21st Century. Like the founders of Mass Observation in the 1930s, we were interested creating opportunities for an "anthropology of ourselves" – adopting and adapting new and emerging technologies for creating and sharing everyday knowledge and experience; building up organic, collective memories that trace and embellish different kinds of relationships across places, time and communities.