Re: [-empyre-] locative city, annotated space

[hight@34n118w.net]

> I would have to say that it currently is both augmenting and competing
in the sense that the screen has to be viewed at least to see where one
is at and going .  I am very interested in solutions to this that
minimize that periodic disconnect (like a pda or eventually smart
eyewear so you don't even have to look down at all.

The other side of it is that there is an opportunity for a lot of play and
metaphor in the interface.  We use a map that is accurate but is acually
many decades old (the buildings haven't changed ) and are interested in
eventually using multiple layers that can, at times, slip.  Different
senses of place and mapping, interface and data, references to time and
usage with different ways of presenting information that could at times
slip in and out at certain locations.

We actually start the program and talk to the people at first , then let
them go.  It is much more their experience and their ultimate authoring in
a barthean sense of their path sets a sequence that they form (as we
designed it to function).

We watch them as they walk away and return and have learned a lot from
that. We take drivers licenses as a deposit.



Glen really made two major points, by my reading. Agreed, as thesethe
> technologies become more ubiquitous we will all come to understand them
> better, and in process the aesthetic and conceptual possibilities will
> become more clear. As Jeremy says, this is exciting.
>
> But Glen's point that really piqued my interest is the one regarding how
> user interface interacts with the site(s). Does the user interface
> augment reality, or compete with it? Jeremy says that there are
> "different interpretations and strategies", and points out that people
> are taking different approaches. Yes, certainly. But are there any
> general parameters are at play in the interaction between place and
> interface (considered broadly)? These would seem to be important
> formal/aesthetic issues - something the 34n118n crew, (and artists such
> as Teri Rueb and Janet Cardiff) would be in an ideal position to comment
> on.
>
> I'm really curious to hear what your experience and sense of this matter
> is in relation to 34n118w, especially given that the work seems to
> situate the artists in close proximity the audience during tours. (I
> assume you hover nearby to mind the hardware...) It seems like you have
> a high degree of exposure to the reactions of your audience, and are in
> a great position to comment on any issues of augmentation vs
> interference that you may (or may not) have experienced.
>
> hight@34n118w.net wrote:
>
>>>Hello,
>>
>>
>> I sent out a reply earlier today but it didn't go through
>>
>> You bring up a lot of interesting points...
>>
>> There are different interpretations and strategies related to augmented
>> space. Some are working more with adding visual data and/or specific
>> pragmatic detail like sales at a store, who is at a bar, dangers etc...
>>
>> Others, like 34n are working more with sound and data and this allows a
>> focus on physical place and content can work with layered data,
>> metaphor,
>> juxtapositions, ghosts of past incarnations as sound files so a person
>> sees the physical place and learns to question it as well learn more of
>> it
>> in present and past.  The funny thing about the 34n photos (funny that
>> you
>> are the first to mention it) is that they are to encapsulate a wide
>> range
>> of information about the connection of technology and physical
>> exploration
>> and functionality.  The thing is, most people explore it in groups up to
>> 5
>> in a sort of collective social jellyfish formation with only the one
>> person with the map stopping at times to look at upcoming hotspot
>> triggers, choices to consider and movement.  Even when it is only one
>> person it is experienced most of the time not looking at the map, but at
>> places being viewed.
>>
>> Some of the sound files are old wooden carriage wheels, an older car
>> horn
>> and trains where remnant tracks appear in streets or where trains would
>> have passed.  The effect is almost always people startled looking for
>> the
>> car or train or even carriage (all what would have been heard at
>> different
>> times in the past) and then realizing what just happened.
>>
>>  I am buddies with andrea.
>>
>> "Authentic"   wow.  one of those words that is really near a balloon
>> stretched translucent in its broad nature and span.  Another one is
>> "Normal"         Subjective to the point of having basically abillion
>> definitions , each written by another personal point of view.
>>
>> I do see these technologies becoming quite commonplace in a not too
>> distant future.  A lot will utilize smart lens technology which is
>> currently being developed for such applications as high rise building
>> visual field data overlays for hostage situations.....data placed on
>> rooms
>> with security officials, rooms overlaid with data of possible suspects,
>> danger levels color encoded.......
>>
>> The artistic applications are endlessly exciting
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>Jeremy, et al.
>>>
>>>I'm interested in your thoughts on the slippage involved in the mediated
>>>experience of place, with the danger of the participant being so wrapped
>>>up in the interface that she loses sight (literally, figuratively) of
>>>the actual landscape surrounding her, something Andrea Moed briefly
>>>mentions in her "Annotate Space" essay: "[T]hey [location-based
>>>software] tend to narrow the experience of place.  Some cultural critics
>>>believe that location-based software can make people more indifferent to
>>>their environments--at home or away.  To the extent that a handheld
>>>device provides a consistent interface to all places, it eliminates the
>>>need to relate to a particular place on its own terms.  For example,
>>>where you previously would have asked a local to direct you to the
>>>nearest post office in a strange neighborhood, you can now punch the
>>>query into a street mapping program on your PDA . . ." (Moed, 5).
>>>(http://www.panix.com/~andrea/annotate/research.html)
>>>
>>>In the photographs on the 34n118w site, for example, in all but one of
>>>the photographs the participants are gazing intently down at the screen
>>>or off into middle space listening to the narrative.
>>>http://34n118w.net/htmldir/Descriptn.html
>>>
>>>As a poet and sound/visual artist involved in mapping place, I'm all for
>>>annotated, locative place experiences, and I think it is a rich and
>>>inspired (and inspiring) means of renegotiating the landscape, but I'm
>>>wondering how far the PDA/tablet goes in replacing authentic experience
>>>with mediated experience (rather than augmenting), or does this
>>>technology function as merely a tool similar to a street map or tourist
>>>guide?  (And what is "authentic" place experience?)
>>>
>>>Obviously, when the technology advances and the hardware shrinks, the
>>>annotated interface will become more ubiquitous, so perhaps this is just
>>>a matter of familiarizing ourselves with a new way of walking through a
>>>space that will someday be ordinary?
>>>
>>>G.
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>empyre forum
>>>empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>>http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
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>>
>
> --
> Brett Stalbaum
> Lecturer, psoe
> Coordinator, ICAM
> Department of Visual Arts, mail code 0084
> University of California, San Diego
> 9500 Gillman
> La Jolla CA 92093
>
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