Locative Media

One to the next session - Marc Tuters starts off talking about location-based media. Engagement with these media is dependent on the context of one's location - for example one may receive certain services only in a particular place, or be able to digitally annotate spaces.

Digital annotation of spaces gives things a machine-readable context, even URIs (I posted something about this development on this blog a while ago...).

Some questions posed by Marc:

• How do we keep the definition of 'context' dynamic?
• How will locative media affect spaces?
• What social models might (should) locative media re-mediate?
• Can locative media escape its own axiomatic system of control?

This as a means of introduction. The first panellist is Chris Heathcote: his topic is the impact of human communication patterns on locative media. He traces back locative media even as far as to cave drawings, and graffiti is simply a more modern (going back only as far as Roman times) equivalent. Stickers, tree-carving,and others are further variations on this theme. (So are locative media a kind of digital graffiti?)

Telling stories in public, steaking to strangers, are unnatural modes of communication, Chris suggests (at least in Europe - it would be interesting to compare this, say, to the Australian environment where people are almost pathologically communicative). This has implications for locative media. Another question is that of users vs. lurkers (or, to use another common term from filesharing, leechers) - the presence of leechers may be desired in locative media in order to avoid over-annotation.

A key problem for locative media is visibility - unless you happen to be using the right service you're not going to see the digital content inscribed on spaces (does that argue for push media?). On the other hand, digital annotation space is infinite and inherently configurable, allowing for any number of (public, private, etc.) annotations.

Chris references Clay Shirky's idea of situated software which is usable only in specific (physical or digital) situations. Such situations aren't necessarily designed to be public and won't need to be particularly scalable. So, Chris suggests a move from Internet-based services to hinternets and localised darknets (e.g. a filesharing service which happens only in a specific location - a club, a bar, ...).

Traditional locative media appropriated places for their own ends; the same is now happening with digital locations (e.g. hijacking by specific language speakers).

Finally, then, Chris says that it is necessary to cater for standard human communication patterns, situate software in a place or community, offer digital extensions to physical situations, enable anonymity with strangers as well as identity within communities.

Next, Ben Russell starts with a staggering visual representation of connected topics in the form of a topic map (using a piece of software called Tinderbox - this looks interesting). Indeed, mapping, he points out, is an interesting media form as it is usually experienced directly in relation to physical spaces.

He brings up an interesting point which could be seen in response to the previous speaker: even through space on the Net may be infinite, it is still usually owned by someone - it's very difficult to imagine a non-owned bit of space on the Internet, in fact (ultimately, who controls the server?).

Indeed, more fundamentally while the Internet has solved (more or less - at least to its users) the problem of distribution, the problem of compensation still remains to be dealt with (micropayments et al. just haven't taken off just yet). This is what Ben's work is largely about, and he references his forthcoming book and Website Not Free (to be launched 24 Sept.).

An interesting point on FOAF files (friend of a friend): a list of your friends stored on your mobile phone - when you then walk past someone you don't know who knows one of your friends, your and their phone make the connection and you are able to meet on the basis of sharing a friend...

On to Andrew Morrison (my battery is running out again - he might be the last speaker I can blog today). He deals with performative public communication with mobile locative technologies and calls his talk (and the project which the talk is about) "re-public". This looks at aspects of locative media technologies relating to expression, gaming, museums, and services.

The project is billed as research into textual, interpersonal, and performative levels of communicating in public spaces with mobile, 'sensitive' software and devices. This means that a strong interest in performativity is involved here. (I'm still waiting for an explanation of what the project actually is, though, and I'm not sure the battery will last until this eventuates...)

Well, that's it for now... Andrew was the last speaker today, actually!