4. Urban Computing, Locative Media and the Read/Write City With Apple’s introduction of the iPhone G3 in the summer of 2008, urban computing and locative media—formerly indicating somewhat experimental research or artist-driven explorations of "near-future" technologies—are now being mainstreamed to the masses. Moreover, while the business of forecasting future trends in technology is fraught with intellectual peril, a few projections, based on technologies that are now readily available to many, can reasonably be made. Above all, we are beginning to see social practices emerge by which location-based or context-aware media and information are consumed in urban environments, and, in turn, urban space is transduced. Yet, the implications for architecture and urbanism remain far from clear. One observation is that the way we read the city is changing. As Varnelis and Meisterlin (2008) note: 'As we have grown accustomed to navigating the city with our smartphones and our printouts from Google maps, we have come to know it from above, as a two-dimensional, planimetric experience. Instead of seeing ourselves as part of the city fabric, inhabiting a three-dimensional urban condition, we dwell in a permanent out-of-body experience, displaced from our own locations, seeing ourselves as moving dots or pins on a map.' Here, the emphasis on reading the city through "intelligent" maps, and on the implications for urban experience of the habitual patterns by which we use them, implies forms of passive consumption with which we are all likely familiar. The city becomes a network of nodes and pathways through which we circulate like data packets. If every extension of our capabilities leads to a corresponding amputation of another (McLuhan 1964), clearly wayfinding skills grounded in physical geographies run the risk of atrophy in an age of intelligent maps. Reports of mishaps stemming from reliance on GPS-enabled SatNav devices are becoming common. Recently, the London Daily Mirror reported that these devices have been responsible for at least 300,000 accidents, including that of Paula Ceely, 20, of Wales, who "vowed never to listen to her SatNav again after she was directed into the path of a speeding train at the Ffynnongain level crossing in Wales. The train slammed into her car, leaving the student within inches of her life" (Carey 2008). Fortunately, no one was hurt in this instance.
[Esther Polak /Amsterdam Realtime / 2002] If location-based technologies such as GPS navigation systems can lead to both a disembodied experience of the city as well as potential bodily harm, this has as much to do with the ways in which we use the technologies and the practices by which this space is enacted as it does with the technology itself. In this regard, revisiting early work in locative media that focuses on urban environments is instructive. Amsterdam Realtime (2002), a project by the WAAG society in association with Esther Polak, traced movements through the city of people carrying GPS-enabled devices, which transmitted their location in real time to a remote server that, in turn, projected these movements as an animated "map" in an art gallery (realtime.waag.org). This map represented the city not as a static network of streets, buildings, and spaces, but as a series of traces that aggregate over time to represent the city as different people traverse it. Here, the traditional authority attributed to maps and their ability to structure the way we navigate cities is subverted. Rather than a map that informs how one moves through a city, one's movements inform the map. Further, the ability not only to read, in situ, bits of media and information associated with specific locations in the city, but also to write or otherwise add geocoded data to these urban data clouds, leads to more subtle shifts in the way we experience the city and the choices we make within it. As McCullough (2006) notes, cities have throughout history been inscribed by various information layers that shape our experience of urban space, be they "grand expressions carved in stone facades, mundane signage in the streets," or smaller markings identifying significant sites or directing traffic and pedestrian flow. These urban annotations, in the past, have been governed by various public and private agencies, defined by different communities of practice: utilities providers, tax assessors, insurance underwriters, urban historians. When open to public consumption, these markings have generally served specific private interests, such as local business improvement districts (BIDs) or community associations. One of the more significant aspects of urban computing and locative media is how they open up the process of urban annotation by enabling ordinary people to contribute to the information layer overlaid on contemporary cities. |
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