This talk looks at the potential for business services in new developments in mobile and pervasive media, particularly in the cultural industries and communication. It looks at the ways in which our working lives and behaviours will be transformed and raises questions about the social use and adaptation of these technologies. Professor Martin Rieser has always been fascinated by the possibility of creating fragmentary narrative structures and interactive stories using new technology. This has led him into his current explorations using mobile and locative technologies and large-scale interactive video experiences. Professor Rieser has worked in the field of interactive arts for many years. He is Joint research Professor between the Institute of Creative Technologies and the Faculty of Art and Design at De Montfort University. His art practice in internet art and interactive narrative installations has been seen around the world including Cannes; Holland, Paris; Vienna, Thessaloniki, London, Germany, Milan and Melbourne, Australia. He has published numerous essays and books on digital art including New Screen Media: Cinema/Art/Narrative (BFI/ZKM, 2002), and has recently edited The Mobile Audience, a book on locative technology and art due out this year from Rodopi. www.martinrieser.com www.ioct.dmu.ac.uk

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The Future of Mobile
Technologies
Professor Martin Rieser
De Montfort University
2020
VISION

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Locative Media and Pervasive Media
The convergence of mobile technologies and ubiquitous
computing have created a world where information-rich
environments may be mapped directly onto urban spaces.
My interest in dispersed forms of interaction focuses on the
way they raises a whole new series of intriguing questions
on the nature of narrative and communication,
particularly in relation to an audience’s modes of
participation and reception.
Emergent Technologies

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Locative media is closely related to augmented reality
(reality overlaid with virtual reality) and to pervasive or
ubiquitous computing, Locative media concentrates on
social interaction with a specific place through mobile
technology.
Many locative media art projects have a background in
social, critical or personal memory. I will describe
attempts to use location-specific media in the context of
spatialised interaction.
Emergent Technologies

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Locative Media and Pervasive Media
Locative technology blurs the borders between physical
and virtual space, leading to the redefinition of the concept
of the virtual from that of simulation to that of
augmentation.
Emergent Technologies

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Locative Media and Pervasive Media
Locative technology blurs the borders between physical
and virtual space, leading to the redefinition of the concept
of the virtual from that of simulation to that of
augmentation.
Emergent Technologies

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+ Emergent Behaviours
 How is pervasive technology changing public behaviour?
 Clearly the boundary between the private and the public is
altering and the merging of the two is accelerating through
augmented mobile reality etc.
 Public conversations sometimes appear performative. Often
phones in public are an intrusive technology and the
tracking of individuals by social media is often a
questionable practice.
 How therefore do services re-frame ideas of privacy in
public space to take account of these new pervasive
technologies?

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+ Natural Interfaces: Natal
 How do you believe that both individuals and businesses in
Leicester will be using technology in ten years time? What do
you predict?
 Business and the individual will both find mobile and
pervasive technologies integrated in every aspect of their
lives-all services will be mobile cloud computing and wide
area networks will ensure reception is good across the city
space

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+ Impacts
 Our attitude to the city has changed- now which tends to re-
imagine it as an unwritten slate. Our trajectory through it and
our sense of place seems to be altering from that of
perceived fixed nodes to a more fluid experience-
constantly diverted by location-based hyperlinked
information.
 We also have a changed relation to synchronicity. Mapping
technologies and push media accelerate this changing sense
of place as no longer a fixed terrain, but an amorphous
space of potential.

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+ Place and Space and Art
 Can Pervasive Media successfully create place out of space, or
even from Marc Auge’s “non-places”- those transferable spaces
of alienation? How can these non-places be transformed by
locative media?
 Artists tend to experiment in memory-rich spaces, rather than
those urban deserts. Accessibility is also a major issue-not
everyone has the latest iphone.
 In experiencing this new public space- how can the past and
the present, public and private- be brought together by the new
technologies in ways that enrich our lives?

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+ Place and Space and Art
 We live in a world of lost histories-how can we reframe these
successfully for the public?
 If pervasive media allows the enrichment of place, how can we
also enable the public to do this for themselves?
 Now that such located rich media is emerging, how can this be
filtered to ensure quality of experience and safety for the
user?

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+ Future sensing: Songlines

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+ Future sensing:Songlines
Using image and
object sensing via
mobiles for
Songlines

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Riverains: London
Empedia for Riverains

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Riverains: London
Empedia for Riverains: QR Codes

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Riverains: London
Empedia for Riverains: QR Codes

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Riverains: London
Empedia for Riverains: QR Codes

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Riverains: London
Empedia for Riverains: QR Codes

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Emotion sensing: Christian NoldFilm
Structure

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Emotion sensing:ThirdWomanFilm
Structure
The scenarios of
the drama are
constructed in
three differently
versioned forms to
reflect subtle
changes in
emotional
emphasis-designed
to be driven by
emotion sensing
technology

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+ Hybrid Place and Space

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+ Hybridity
 Our ability to conceptualise the world and filter our sensory
inputs makes “reality” a construction of the brain-there
seems to be no such thing as direct perception. It seems
likely that the brain does not differentiate between the real
and virtual.
 For example, those blind from birth, who recover their sight,
have not developed the neurones for facial recognition-our
sense of reality therefore seems to depend on our internal
wiring

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+ Hybridity
 In Hybrid spaces, material and immaterial space are
merging. There is no longer a clear line between them.We
need to examine and understand this in relation to theories
of the mind.
 A key question derived from our various project user-
evaluations is do we actually process a mixed reality
experience? It is very difficult to examine cognitive
mapping in a mobile experience.Techniques such as
mobile eye tracking can help (RetailLab)

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+ Hybridity
 In Hybrid spaces, material and immaterial space are
merging. There is no longer a clear line between them.We
need to examine and understand this in relation to theories
of the mind.
 A key question derived from our various project user-
evaluations is do we actually process a mixed reality
experience? It is very difficult to examine cognitive
mapping in a mobile experience.Techniques such as mobile
eye tracking can help (RetailLab)

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+ Projection
 What do you think Leicester could be like in ten years time in
the best case, in terms of mobile technology?
 Leicester like all major cities will be more privatised and
individualistic, with some citizen-led attempts to
revivify public and collective values against the smaller state
impositions of the previous ten years.
 Information and personalised mobile services will be even
more important to the citizen in their survival strategies

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+ Future Technologies
 Mobile services are moving towards gesture recognition and
natural language interfaces, as well as towards emotion
sensing. How can we envisage the increasing invisibility of the
device as this natural interaction develops into a form of
“unforced” hybridity-which may include mobile projection?
 This may be come a world where information streams start
responding to our changing emotions. Such interwoven
hybridity will in turn give rise to further new behaviours.
 We already experience this with hands-free gestural
performances on mobiles.What will happen when we have
mobile non-verbal two way communication through enhanced
or projected video conferencing!

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+ Integrated homes
 As an artist, what do you believe the future for content is? For
example: we have all seen the increase of channels on Sky
television, but there is far too much to choose from...
 Content will be pre-filtered by personal preferences to avoid
overwhelming the user-but mobile TV etc will be ubiquitous
and related to space and place.

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+ Intelligent adaptive and
transformative architecture-
 Much research in Architecture at present focuses on
technological developments, but not much thought seems to
be given to underlying concepts for behaviour changing
spaces.
 Can the use of such technology in our homes and work-
spaces actually change our behaviour?
 Perhaps we need hard, clear and accessible information
streams before buildings can stimulate beneficial behaviour
change

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+ Intelligent adaptive and
transformative architecture-
 Smart homes can be helpful, but are largely passive in their
effects.
 To effect behaviour change we need to consider a more
complex relationship between design and human behaviour.
We are moving to emotional sensing and predictive
behaviour by buildings-that is adaptive architecture sensing
and reacting, but allowing the user to determine the core and
auxiliary services, perhaps by learning through a neural net!

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+ Imagining Futures
 What do you think the city of Leicester be like in 2020 in your
opinon? In general, not just in your specific area.
 Leicester will have recovered from the depression years of
2010-2018 and will be regenerating through small e-
business start ups and service providers.
 Micro-manufacturing start ups linked to new technologies
will also be part of this new economy.
 Small scale individual entrepreneurship will be the order of
the day, offering personalised services through new mobile
networking.

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+ Futures: Opportunities
 You say that businesses are not aware of the opportunities
that mobile technology offers - what kind of opportunities are
these can you give any examples? Why will these
opportunities benefit them and in what way?
 Micro-business and niche provision through personalised
mobile services is a growth area, particularly when linked to
social media and lifestyle choices

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+ Futures: Best case
 What do you think Leicester could be like in ten years time in
the best case, in terms of mobile technology?
 Leicester like all major cities will be more privatised and
individualistic, with some citizen-led attempts to
revivify public and collective values against the smaller
state impositions of the previous ten years.
 Information and personalised mobile services will be even
more important to the citizen in their survival strategies

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+ Futures: Users
 In ten years time, in your opinion, do you think that people will
still be using mobile phones - and will they look different to how
they are now? Do you think that the technology can develop
much further in ten years time? And to what extreme?!
 The mobile phone will be more integrated into our bodies with
sensory switches linked to our emotions and movements and
gestures and the infrastructure around us will read from our
phones and respond with services and environmental
adjustments.
 Mobile sharing will be automated and information will
migrate from phone to phone automatically according to pre-
selected filters

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+ Futures: Nano technologies

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+ Futures: Content
 As an artist, what do you believe the future for content is? For
example: we have all seen the increase of channels on Sky
television, but there is far too much to choose from...
 Content will be pre-filtered by personal preferences to
avoid overwhelming the user-but mobile TV etc will be
ubiquitous and related to space and place.

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+ Futures: Integration
 How do you believe that both individuals and businesses in
Leicester will be using technology in ten years time? What do
you predict?
 Business and the individual will both find mobile and
pervasive technologies integrated in every aspect of their
lives. All services will be mobile cloud computing and wide
area networks and 4G will ensure reception is good across
the city space

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+ Integration and Cloud
Computing

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+ Futures: Economics
 How good could this technology be to both businesses and
individuals?
 Britain is well placed to develop applications in this area which
are ingenious and needed-and of global reach.
 Do you think that we have the right entrepreneurs and forward-
thinkers in society and local government to enable this city to be
all that it can be 10 years from now?
 Most of the developments I predict are tied up with the right
economic model: more entrepreneurial finance is needed and
for this the banks and government would have to collaborate to
set up new and easier risk-friendly finance structures.

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+ Futures: Change
 Do you think Leicester is equipped to cope with the changes
in technology?
 Not on its current record as a city-it needs to move away from
an unsustainable private car-based economy to bring life
back into the centre and to allow its culture and lifestyle to
retain creative talents and innovators in the city.
 This means developing cultural capital, green spaces, and
city centre nightlife for all its citizens.

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+ Futures: Business
 And finally in your own opinion how do you think the Leicester
business world will look in 10 years time? A lot can change in
this time can't it?!
 Leicester has a wealth of energy and market connections with
Asia and the Indian sub-continent. It is multicultural in the truest
sense and is therefore potentially a model for the future
shape of British cities. It has three good and innovative
universities- including Loughborough-that is 30,000 Creative
Industry-linked students .
 What we need to see in the city is more connection between
these engines of prosperity and easier ways to fund and
develop innovation using the new pervasive technologies- such
as mobile phones.

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+ Futures: Speculation
 And finally in your own opinion how do you think the
Leicester business world will look in 10 years time? A lot can
change in this time can't it?!
 Leicester has a wealth of energy and market connections
with the Indian sub-continent. It is multicultural in the truest
sense and is therefore potentially a model for the future
shape of British cities. It has two good and innovative
universities .
 What we need to see in the city is more connection between
these engines of prosperity and easier ways to fund and
develop innovation using the new pervasive technologies-
such as mobile phones.