Culture and Locative Media

Culture and Locative Media

Mais projetos que buscam complexificar ainda mais o uso de dispositivos móveis. Vimos no último post alguns projetos de jogos usando as ruas como “game board”. Vou mostrar aqui outros, mais complexos. As vezes é difícl dizer se é um projeto em game, arte, conteúdo e essa confusão só mostra a convergência entre plataformas, redes, softwares e criação na atual cibercultura.

O primeiro é o projeto A Mutual Friend que explora os telefones celulares como plataforma para experiencias mais profundas sobre a condição humana. O projeto é financiado pelo Arts & Humanities Research Council. Vejam o link para mais detalhes.

“(…)The project sets out to propose and develop a mobile phone application which engages with the developing patterns of social behaviour in relation to mobile phones. Increased mobility has brought about an increasingly disjointed relationship to physical and social space. The transit from home to driveway > car > side street > bypass > industrial estate to workplace and back can be sparsely populated. Public spaces are more likely to be areas of transit, weariness and solitude than of easy sociability, participation, frankness and debate.The mobile phone has had an ambiguous role in these spaces, at once, providing a means to feel safe and talk to friends, while disrupting your attachment to those around you.(…)”

O segundo é um novo projeto do grupo Blast Theory, um dos mais criativos no uso dos dispositivos móveis, criando jogos mais complexos como o Uncle Roy, Can You See Me Now, entre outros. Agora eles lançam Rider Spoke (outubro de 2007). O jogo combina ciclismo, teatro e performances com o uso das tecnologias móveis, principalemente celulares. Vejam a descrição:

“Rider Spoke is a new work for cyclists combining theatre with game play and state of the art technology. The project continues Blast Theory’s enquiry into performance in the age of personal communication.(…) The piece continues Blast Theory’s fascination with how games and new communication technologies are creating new social spaces. It poses further questions about where theatre may be sited and what form it may take. It invites the public to be co-authors of the piece and a visible manifestation of it as they cycle through the city. It locates the venue precisely in its local context and invites the audience to explore that context for its emotional and intellectual resonances.

The audience can take part either either on their own bike or borrow one supplied by Blast Theory. Following a short introduction and a safety briefing you head out into the streets with a handheld computer (Nokia N800) mounted on the handlebars. You are given a question and invited to look for an appropriate hiding place where you will record your answer. The screen of the device acts primarily as a positioning system, showing where you are and whether there are any hiding places nearby. The interface employs imagery drawn from Mexican votive painting, sailor tattoos and heraldry: swallows flutter across the screen to show available hiding places, prefab houses indicate places where others have hidden. Once you find a hiding place – a spot previously undiscovered by any other player – the device flashes an alert and the question. (…).”

O terceiro projeto que gostaria de apontar aqui é o GeoGraffiti. Não se trata de um jogo mas de um sistema de produção de conteúdo locativo através mensagens de voz enviadas por um telefone celular. Os usuários podem assi “marcar” um determinado local, fornecendo informações localizadas e específicas de/sobre uma comunidade.

“(…) From any mobile phone, GeoGraffiti enables the user to ‘mark’ real world places by publishing a Voice Mark message. These Voice Marks are made in 100% voice form and are linked to a locality using a zip-code, or geo-tagged to an exact spot on earth using coordinates The name GeoGraffiti is a combination of the prefix ‘Geo’, meaning earth or land, representing our location-specific focus, while ‘Graffiti’ represents the expressive and informative content marking those locations. GeoGraffiti is in public beta, providing its service via a phone call to (213) 221-3802, or online via its Google Maps mashup. The online map is made available so that desktop-bound web surfers can easily search for and create Voice Marks in relation to their social network and community. (…) Users can share information such as advice, opinions, warnings, etc. This information could prove useful to someone else who might be in that same location in the present, or the future tense. What if you just had the best meal that you have ever had in a restaurant and wanted to share your experience with other food lovers? This seems to be the angle that has some advertisers and business owners looking deeper into the possible opportunities of this service. How will GeoGraffiti address the issue of spammers if, and when, their application becomes more widely used or abused? (….)” .