[-empyre-] week one | mobile apps and environmental performance

[Babak Fakhamzadeh]

I think this is my cue :)

Ismail and I created SowetoUprisings.com at a time (from 2006(!)
onwards) when using Google Maps in a socially more relevant context
was not yet common (and, for one, the Google map of Soweto was
extremely basic). However, the online tool seemed (and was) a natural
companion for making the narratives surrounding the Soweto uprisings
tangible and visible, the interactive nature of the online 'app'
inviting visitors to interact and contribute.

Dérive app (http://deriveapp.com), based on principles of the
Situationists, facilitates users to experience their urban
environments differently from how they do normally, nudging them into
experiences that highlight aspects of their environment which,
particularly when they feel familiar with their urban setting,
normally go unnoticed.
Specifically, in a world where tourism more and more gravitates to a
unified experience, Dérive app's ability to create a custom
experience, that's unique to the individual, has an obvious appeal,
whether using Dérive app in your home city, or in a location you've
never been before. (And, because Dérive app literally works
everywhere, this is easily facilitated.)

Taking the idea behind Dérive app in a slightly different direction,
I'm now working on an app which uses several location databases
(Foursquare, Google, Wikipedia and others), partially obfuscating
location information, to put the sense of discovery back into the
user's journey towards his selected locations.
(If you're interested, you can join in beta testing the app,
http://komplapp.com/2015/11/04/be-a-beta-tester/)

Cheers,

Babak Fakhamzadeh

--
Babak Fakhamzadeh | babak.fakhamzadeh at gmail.com | http://BabakFakhamzadeh.com

Ask me for my PGP public key to send me encrypted email.

On Wed, Nov 4, 2015 at 2:40 AM, Dale Hudson <dale.hudson at nyu.edu> wrote:
>
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
> 01–07 November 2015:
WEEK 1—MOBILE APPS AND ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCES
>
> We would like to open the discussion by thinking about the potentials and limitations of locative media and performance in relation to questions of mobility/immobility and history with a few examples of projects that we discuss in our book.
>
> Babak Fakhmzadeh and Ismail Farouk’s SowetoUprisings.com (2008) is an ongoing project that facilitates a collaborative rewriting of history about the student uprisings against Apartheid in 1976, particularly in the context of South Africa’s official presentation of its history for the 2010 World Cup. The project also raises important questions about access and trust.
>
> DesChene + Schmuki’s The Monsantra Project (2010) sends PlantBots, edible plants grafted to remote-controlled robots, into our everyday environments from supermarkets to nature reserves in order to initiate discussions of GMOs, particularly in the United States, where they are less regulated (and perhaps understood) than elsewhere. The project also included a Mobile Art Lab where participants can make their own PlantBots and learn more about GMOs.
>
> Finally, Babak Fakhmzadeh and Eduardo Cachuco’s Dérive.app (2013) combines the radical politics of the Situationists’ concept of “dérive” with the highly controlled mobile networks that power our smart phones. The project also facilitates practices of dériving by prompting users to follow instructions on task cards in a variety of decks that help disorient/reorient yet also track movements via GPS.
>
> We will invite our guests to write more about these projects as well as their current and other previous ones.
>
> Best,
> Dale and Patty