Connected Limerick: exploring urban spaces through digital traces
description
Transcript of Connected Limerick: exploring urban spaces through digital traces
Connected Limerick: exploring urban spaces through
digital traces
Gabriela AvramInteraction Design Centre,
University of Limerick, [email protected]
Outline
Background Methodology The digital overlay The interventions Discussion Conclusion and future plans
Introduction
Focus: mobile actors (locals and visitors) whose movement and interaction with urban spaces are augmented with an “additional digital overlay” (Ciolfi, Fitzpatrick, Bannon, 2008)
Introduction (continued) Goffman-inspired presentation of place –
as relationship between the nature and the appearance of a place (Sutko& da Souza, 2011)
for each user, “the urban environment is constructed through perceptions of nearby information and people”( Gordon and De Souza e Silva, 2011
Problems with navigating the city The lack of ubiquitous availability of a wi fi
or mobile connection; The large number of location-based social
networks and their reliability problems; Affordances of smartphone apps – touch
typing while walking; screen not readable in bright light.
Research questions What motivates people to create and
share digital content in relation to specific places within a city?
How is this content consumed on the move, using location-aware mobile devices?
What does the digital dimension add to the appearance of a place?
Can the digital overlay cause a shift in the general perception of a place?
Methodology mobile methods recommended by Büscher
et al (2010): ‘moving along with’ members of the public
likely to be touched by technology, ‘moving in’ with prototype technologies, and ‘being moved’ by experiences, observations
and conversations that arise along the way.
Work to date Involvement in local interest groups and
communities, supporting their digital presence;
Organising and running urban games; Working with students to create content;
Limerick’s digital overlay
A citizen turned historian
Flickr Group gathering the best photos
Foursquare
Initiative and YouTube channel founded by a native who returned from NY
Sonic Soundscapes
Geocaching
OpenPlaques.org
Communities coming together because of Facebook
Boards.ie
The official image
The interventions
Reflecting upon the role of the digital layer
“Connected Limerick”- 2010 Started as an initiative
meant to encourage reflection on the relationship between the city and its “digital double”
We invited individuals, organizations and communities to reflect on how this content is influencing their trajectories through the city and how can it be made more visible and more accessible to both
locals and visitors.
“Connected Limerick”- 2011 Series of short talks on
the interweaving of the digital and physical layers, followed by discussions
Emphasis on embodied, situated interaction
The risks of studying the digital separated from the physical (Bannon 2011)
The interventions
Contributing to the waving of the digital
layer
Supporting the digital presence of local communities
miLKlabs ( Limerick hackerspace)
Limerick Local Heroes
IxDA Limerick chapter
We love Plassey riverbank
3Dcamp
Digital news curation
Tweasure Hunt Urban game using Twitter and Flickr as
part of the Lifelong Learning Festival in April
Eliciting stories from people who know the city really well and recording them; erecting temporary plaques;
Documenting existing plaques for enriching the Open Plaques repository;
Discussion Participating in community content
creation: insights into new collaborative practices;
The waving of the digital layer can be supported in various ways: semantic annotations; following the UT model of content co-creation
& organic growth (Angus et al 2008); digital curation;
New digital tools for urban activism: “deciphering, debugging, and hacking the city”(Doerk&Monteyne,2011)
Conclusion and future plans
Citizens and visitors are not equally affected by the digital overlay- digital divide;
Many of the groups active in producing digital content ignore their audiences;
Interventions need to build on existing, low-tech (or no tech) practices;
Future plans: Studying the impact of the digital overlay consumption on changing both life in the city and the perception of the city.
References Ciolfi, L., Fitzpatrick, G. and Bannon, L., (2008),
“Settings for Collaboration: The Role of Place”, Computer Supported Cooperative Work Journal, Springer, Vol. 17, Nos. 2-3, April/June 2008 (91-96).
Sutko, D. M., & de Souza e Silva, A. (2011). Location aware mobile media and urban sociability. New Media & Society, 13 (5), 807-823.
Gordon, E., & de Souza e Silva, A. (2011), Net Locality: Why Location Matters in a Networked World. Boston: Blackwell-Wiley.
Angus, A. et al.(2008), Urban Social Tapestries, IEEE Pervasive Computing 7 (4) 44-51.
Dörk, M., Monteyne, D.(2011),Urban Co-Creation: Envisioning New Digital Tools for Activism and Experimentation in the City. HCI, Politics, and the City (CHI 2011 workshop).
Thank you!
[email protected] @gabig58 ConnectedLimerick.wordpress.com Coniecto.org