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

[Brett Stalbaum <stalbaum@ucsd.edu>]

I seems to me that the crux of your work (34n118w) exists at the cross 
roads of developing a locative media user interface with its own 
aesthetic properties, and the interpretation of place; as you have 
proposed it, the "dualism" between what is there now and the recent 
history and of the site. I'd like to ask a really general question about 
each of these.

Most public art today - from fine art to interpretive markers - emerges 
from a political consensus building process. (Public art committees and 
the like.) This often leads to a lowest common denominator type of 
expression in public places - witness the banality of most public art in 
the United States. What potential does "locative media" bring to the 
table that might enliven public art and interpretation?

Regarding locative media user interface, how do you situate your work 
against the history of previous locative media? (Arguably strip maps, 
most certainly pre-historic, were the first "locative media", and you 
use street maps in your interface and GPS on the back end - speaking 
34n118w, btw. I look forward to learning about the new work...)

hight@34n118w.net wrote:
> > 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.

--
Brett Stalbaum
Lecturer, psoe
Coordinator, ICAM
Department of Visual Arts, mail code 0084
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gillman
La Jolla CA 92093