Mobile and Locative Media

L’Interactive Storytelling deriva dalla connessione di due componenti sempre più importanti sulla scena dei media digitali: Interactive e Storytelling, entrambi termini ombrello che coprono realtà molto diverse ma con molti punti di contatto. Il saggio individua quattro tipi di Interactive Storytelling, riconducibili a quattro diverse fasi nell’evoluzione dei media digitali: il primo, quello computazionale, rappresenta la situazione di stand–alone, dell’utente da solo di fronte alla macchina, che risale a qualche anno fa; il secondo, quello partecipativo, rappresenta la grande diffusione della rete, con l’avvento della connettività pervasiva; il terzo, quello transmediale, si instaura con estendersi sempre più marcato della convergenza digitale e degli spreadable media; il quarto, quello urbano, segna l’avvento del paradigma mobile–locative, con la grande diffusione dei terminali mobili e il riposizionamento dei processi culturali nello spazio fisico. Complessivamente l’Interactive Storytelling risulta essere un indicatore delle varie fasi delle evoluzioni tecno–sociali dei media digitali, e proprio per questa capacità adattiva rappresenta uno strumento efficiente per individuare le articolazioni dell’attuale panorama culturale ipermediato.

The cultural impact of digital media on developments of Public Art presents itself through several interconnected aspects:
- The possibility of implementing - through the definition of semantic ontologies - a rigorous conceptualization of historical-artistic, aesthetic and functional taxonomies within which to position a work or an activity;
- The development of media spectacularization in urban spaces, through: a) advanced systems for projection on building facades (Media Walls); b) the production of communicative and aesthetic situations based on Augmented Reality; c) the use of devices such as Google Glass, that allow to go through the urban spaces enabling a strong interaction with the information repositories related to visited places; d) the visualization of open/big data in forms characterized by a high emotional involvement, such as dynamic infographics or data based storytelling;
- The diffusion of mobile devices, that are replacing at a high rate the traditional desktop computers, leading to two major consequences for Public Art: a) a change in the cognitive, aesthetic and emotional expectations by the user in mobility; b) the possibility of automatically tracing the movements of the user, in order to experiment new ways for detecting and defining the behavior and the enjoyment of people in Public Art;
- The development and increasing complexity of social networks: the traditional ones (Facebook, Twitter), but also the newer ones, which are useful to identify the esthetic and cultural orientation of the user (Instagram, Pinterest, Cowbird, Medium, etc.. ), and allow to imagine new forms of emotional and cultural participation of the audience, especially in situations of advanced tourism.

The research aims to build an unitary interpretative model in which the different components listed above are discussed in their mutual relations. Taking into account the most advanced international examples in this field, and considering the most relevant paradigms in the area of digital media (Media Convergence, Socio-Spatial Theory, Digital Citizenship, Gamification, Transmedia Strategy) the research will assess the impact of digital media over traditional policies of Contemporary Public Art, in order to provide some guidelines for the self-evaluation of interpretation categories and to set up the planning of the operational actions.

For those who have access to them, locative digital technologies are becoming increasingly pervasive in everyday life. It is therefore important to understand the processes by which such technologies are shaping how people engage with the world. This thesis uses a postphenomenological approach to examine these processes in the context of geocaching, a locative digital game that combines aspects of treasure hunting and orienteering. In particular, this thesis focuses on how technologies indirectly mediate how geocachers engage with the world; that is, how technologies might shape experience even when they are not co-present with humans. Interpreting data from interviews and participant observations conducted in metropolitan Melbourne, this thesis discusses how indirect technological mediations shape a geocaching world and a geocaching subjectivity. Firstly, it argues that directly mediated social relations shape the parts of the landscape that geocachers engage with and give rise to a shared mode of interpreting that landscape. Secondly, it argues that differentiated access to digital information creates a divide between the worlds of geocachers and non-geocachers, compelling geocachers to employ distinctive modes of interacting with and being in the landscape while playing the game. Its findings suggest that embodied interactions with technologies may create the conditions for the indirect mediating effects of technologies, but that we require further investigation to better understand the intricacies of indirect mediation. Hence, this thesis not only develops a relatively under-theorised aspect of technological mediation, but also contributes rich empirical data to understandings of geocaching and experiences of public space more generally.

Within the last 15-20 years, digital technology has become ubiquitous as a component of how history is presented in the public domain. Within museums, for example, we find the presence of touch screen computers and the use of digital reconstructions. The online world presents us with diverse educational applications and archives, while, more recently, iPhone and Android apps have been released that are tied in with heritage and popular historical themes.

This dissertation explores the area of mobile phone apps in relation to oral history, particularly the potential that they have for further contextualising oral narratives by presenting them in the physical environments to which they relate, as part of a 'curated' sonic experience.

The focus for this work is largely technical and theoretical, since to also engage in further fieldwork, research and composition within the domains of oral history and sonic arts would likely extend this project far beyond the reasonable scope of a masters-level project. To this end, the work presented here concentrates on developing prototypes from existing work in the
domains of oral history and sonic arts as steps toward a more fully-fledged system for geolocative oral histories.

This paper proposes to review the current concept of paratext, taking into account how the techno-cultural peculiarities of digital media force us to consider new aspects of textuality, particularly the relationship between space and time. Three factors of change are examined: the opposition between deep structure and surface structure; the modularity of digital texts; the mobile/locative paradigm. The relationship between ephemerality and resilience is also briefly considered, as it is closely connected to the logical organization of contemporary textuality in digital media.

This paper examines how the advent of the mobile/locative paradigm redefines the role of the body (embodiment) in the cultural processes of Digital Media, extending the notion of storytelling from a simple author–text–user relationship, mediated by the screen interface, into a complex narrative project that positions the body and its media competences within a precise physical space characterized by geographical, historical and cultural coordinates. The mobile/locative paradigm is based on the sum of the technological, perceptive, emotional, cognitive, behavioural, cultural characteristics that are determined by the ever increasing spread of smartphones, used not so much as interpersonal communication devices but mostly as devices to access the net and hence media products. It is a decided change in paradigm compared to the static fruition that has always typified the relationship with the mass media (cinema, TV, performing arts, desktop computer), since the mobility of the media end-user gives a strong relevance to the location in which the fruition takes place. Geo-positioning, end-user tracking, the enormous amount of encyclopaedic data that can be associated to the presence of that body in that place in that moment determine a profound change in cultural processes: with the diffusion of Digital Media space becomes text, since it is automatically read and written by the body of the user; and at the same time text becomes space, since the textuality of Digital Media is characterised by immersiveness, interactivity, multidimensionality, and thus by the accessibility which is typical of spaces be they real or virtual (Lughi 2013).

With the proliferation of the iPod and related audio mobile technologies in our daily experiences, Shuhei Hosokawa’s “The Walkman Effect” (1984) gains new significance. While exploring the locative aspects of these technologies for media art, I elaborate on Hosokawa’s idea of a “secret theatre” by paralleling it to some compelling concepts in audio (culture) studies, such as Michael Bull’s “auditized looking,” Elisabeth Weis’ “écouterism,” Denis Hollier/Jean Paul Sartre’s “auditory gaze,” and Steven Connor’s “modern auditory I.” As case studies, I focus on three performative audio walks that all took place in train stations around 2012-2013: Janet Cardiff’s Alter Bahnhof, Dries Verhoeven’s Niemandsland, and Judith Hoffland’s Like Me. Each in their own right reconfigures the urban experience by means of locative features and interactive relations with their environments. These art works help to see Hosokawa’s “secret theatre” in a new light of highly individualized yet relational aesthetic experiences that open our ears and eyes to an outside social context and reality rather than shut them off.

One of the aims of cyberpragmatics (Yus) is to explain the role that interfaces play in the (un)successful outcome of virtual interactions, and their mediation in the management of the relevance-related formula of comprehension. However, many things have changed in the way internet is used nowadays compared to the role that it played in the early years of this century, together with a radical change in the presence of internet in people's lives (a non-stop connection, blurred physical-virtual contexts for interactions, etc.). This chapter will be devoted to today's locative media and the way in which cyberpragmatics can address the impact of location-based media on the quality of today's communication, both in physical and virtual environments.

Facilitating and supporting various modes of social
interaction has been part of Mixed Reality (MRx)1
design experiments and discourse over the past twenty
years. But what vision of social interaction is sought
and advanced through Mixed Reality environments?
In this paper, I identify two dominant ways that social
interaction is envisioned in MRx designs, broadly construed
as material and political, and illustrated through
a series of examples. I further draw on them to highlight
the potentials, boundaries, and limitations of each with
regards to the kinds of social interactions that are
sought and cultivated through the integration of digital
media on physical space. I suggest that as MR
becomes mainstream, it is important to go beyond
these visions to consider whether and how MRx
environments might connect with the economic,
social, and cultural specificity of local sites to meaningfully
serve the always evolving social needs and purposes
of their communities.

Four decades ago Henri Lefebvre anticipated the complete urbanisation of the planet, which no longer seems so strange. Radical shifts seem to ap- pear in our experience of the city, through dislocations of self and body, the world and the earth. O’megaVille is a site-specific transmedia project that uses Google Street View as a performance platform for exploring critical approaches to planetary urbanism. This has involved dance work- shops in Mexico, mobile media actions and video installation in Montreal and New York, and a performance lecture in Toronto.
Its not my intention in this paper to give an Artist’s talk as such, but to explore the broader concepts and implications for O’megaVille. I’ll use Google Street View (GSV) to think about how media assemblages play an enactive role in the speculative nature of experience. How may GSV be seen to illustrate what I see as an emerging urban condition that is simultaneously planetary and embodied? What may be at stake here for bodies (broadly defined) that operate within a distributed field of forces? In part nonhuman, often inhuman. And how may these disruptions in the fabric of experience call for a speculative response?

Este texto inicia uma discussão sobre possíveis reconfigurações pelas quais o jornalismo tem passado com o avanço das tecnologias móveis e ubíquas e das mídias locativas. Com base em pesquisa bibliográfica e observação assistemática de alguns aplicativos, o texto parte de discussões sobre o uso de dispositivos móveis e conceitos de jornalismo locativo e espacial para entender o lugar do conteúdo geolocalizado na comunicação contemporânea. Considera-se que tais tecnologias têm atuado nos modos de produzir e consumir informação e provocado rupturas em aspectos da prática jornalística, como nos critérios de noticiabilidade, na emergência do jornalismo cidadão ou participativo e na ampliação de espaços para o jornalismo de serviço ou utilitário. Ademais, infere-se que a exploração da distribuição de conteúdo locativo como nicho de negócio parece ainda ser ignorada pela imprensa.

Probabilmente va ascritto a Walter Benjamin, alla sua labirintica opera sui Passages (1982) parigini, il merito di aver "visto"-sulla scorta dell'intuizione di Baudelaire, ma in chiave quasi postmoderna-lo spazio metropolitano come luogo dove il flâneur compie, con i suoi vagabondaggi, un'attività che può essere considerata una sorta di lettura della città mediatizzata.

Technologies of space, information and power are integral aspects of cartography that have serious implications for the legibility and accessibility of a city.  This project develops the concept in three phases: first, a theoretical discussion of urban representation traced to historical notions of the commons; second, a description of research methodologies and summary of findings exposing a critical information inequality.  Third, the author outlines a locative media intervention as a design response.

Smartphones and location-based social networks (LBSN) are altering how people engage with space, place and each other. Foursquare is a LBSN that moves beyond earlier text message-based mobile social networks like Dodgeball; combining playful elements with features traditionally associated with social-networking sites. Reporting on original qualitative research encompassing a number of interviews with foursquare users, I argue that foursquare can modify how people experience their environments, just as it can impact how they engage with one another. Drawing on de Souza e Silva & Hjorth’s (2009: 606) discussion of flânerie as a ‘method for conceptualizing the role of play in contemporary urbanity’, alongside Luke’s (2006) reworking of the flâneur as ‘phoneur’, I introduce the ‘playeur’ as being a more suitable way of approaching how foursquare is presently disrupting day-to-day life. Ordinary space, when considered through the lens of foursquare, is simultaneously a space of play, replete with symbolic possibility. This challenges traditional understandings of play and its suggested separation from ordinary life (Caillois, 1958/2001; Huizinga, 1938/1992). Consequently users find themselves moving through their surroundings following different routes, going to spaces and places they otherwise wouldn’t, while becoming more aware of the environments they most often frequent and what these connections mean to them. At the same time, users also find their social networks are correspondingly developed through the banter and bragging play can produce. In sum then, it is my proposal that foursquare, and in a broader sense pervasive play, can significantly deepen and strengthen physical, spatial and social relationships.

The Campus Mysteries project developed an augmented reality game platform called fAR-Play and a learning game called Campus Mysteries with the platform. This paper reports on the development of the platform, the development of the game, and a assessment of the playability of the game. We conclude that augmented reality games are a viable model for learning and that the process of development is itself the site of learning.

Foursquare is a location-based social network (LBSN) that combines gaming elements with features conventionally associated with social networking sites (SNSs). Following two qualitative studies, this article sets out to explore what impact this overlaying of physical environments with play has on everyday life and experiences of space and place. Drawing on early understandings of play, alongside the flâneur and ‘phoneur’ as respective methods for conceptualizing play in the context of mobility and urbanity, this article examines whether the suggested division between play and ordinary life is challenged by Foursquare, and if so, how this reframing of play is experienced. Second, this article investigates what effect this LBSN has on mobility choices and spatial relationships. Finally, the novel concept of the ‘phoneur’ is posited as a way of understanding how pervasive play through LBSNs acts as a mediating influence on the experience of space and place.

Researchers generally have not been able to keep up with the rapid pace of mobile app innovation in
many ways. One of those holes is with typology. Not being able to clearly describe mobile app artifacts,
as a way to start a discussion about them, is a key factor holding researchers back. This chapter splinters
off a promising but relatively underdeveloped genre of mobile apps, the locative ones that juxtapose
interactive digital media with particular physical environments, for closer examination and better labeling.
This piece quickly provides theoretical, historical, and contextual overviews to help situate locative apps
as a genre of importance. It then provides informal frameworks, as thought exercises, for examining and
understanding apps through a locative perspective. Two cases, also led by the author, will then be taken
through this process to illustrate what can be learned from it, followed by reflections and suggestions
for related future areas of inquiry.

Foursquare is a location-based social network (LBSN) that allows people to share their location with friends by ‘checking-in’ at a given place using their smartphone. The application can also access the location-based recommendations left by other users. Drawing on original qualitative research with a range of Foursquare users, the article sets out to examine this LBSN and its impact on identity in three ways. Using Schwartz and Halegoua’s ‘spatial self’ as ‘a theoretical framework encapsulating the process of online self-presentation based on the display of offline physical activities’, the article first examines the extent to which users understand check-ins as mediating identity. Second, the article explores whether the act of using Foursquare beyond the sharing of location can similarly be seen as contributing to identity. Last, the article examines what effect location-based recommendations might be having on how users subsequently experience themselves.