Locative Media & The City

On MSNB.com under the Tech tab on the front page, is an entire section devoted to “Privacy Lost.” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15157222/ The articles in this section cover some of the issues raised over the course of the semester, such as how we are tracked, recorded, and if anyone really even cares or not. In the article, our digital breadcrumbs that we scatter recklessly is compared to being caught naked in the 21st century (hence the title). Based on surveys, it looks as though a lot of Americans care, but no one knows enough about the issue or cares enough to take a stand. Not that this is a surprising action for Americans to take, seeing as most Americans don’t even take advantage of their right to vote. But according to a survey administered by MSNBC.com, 60% of people said they were worried about their privacy being taken away. That’s a pretty big number- particularly when you see the next percentage, which is that only 7% of Americans change any behaviors in an effort to preserve their privacy. Most people would rather take a discount and have their movements tracked with E-Z Pass rather than maintain their anonymity. And how many of you have those Wegman’s or other grocery store tags on your key chain so that you can save a few dimes on each visit? I know I do. And until recently, I didn’t realize how I was being tracked just with that little piece of plastic- let alone my bigger plastic cards, the credit cards. Like Internet cookies, which is an incredibly ambiguous title for a technology that tracks our virtual movements, it seems part of the problem is that the wool is being pulled over our eyes. There is history to fall back on for most policies, but mass tracking of movement and identity is something entirely new. While politicians try to figure out if it’s legal for phone companies to maintain a database of all calls customers make, the big guys are operating on a take what we want now and answer questions later. Or at least that is how I see it. I don’t think that the majority of the public is informed enough to realize all the little ways their information is being tracked and privacy lost, so that is a major part of the problem. And part of the reason there is only 7% of Americans changing their behaviors. How does one learn not to jaywalk without being informed of the consequences? One of the articles talks about this as well: “You may think your cell phone is unlisted, but if you've ever ordered a pizza, it might not be. Merlin is one of many commercial data brokers that advertises sale of unlisted phone numbers compiled from various sources -- including pizza delivery companies. These unintended, unpredictable consequences that flow from simple actions make privacy issues difficult to grasp, and grapple with.” Without history to fall back on, I think there is a lot of confusion about how our privacy is being stolen, who is taking it, and if it is even theft? I’m curious what you guys think: do you think that when you call Pizza Hut, the person who answers should say “Pizza Hut, may I take your order, and please be advised that your phone number is now being catalogued and sold to various companies?” Or in an age of information overload, does no one really care or have the time to care?

I had a few thoughts to continue on the subject of pervasive gaming, and your question, Sugey: “What if it is simply enough to say that the structure of pervasive gaming exists in order to change one's experience in the city?”
In order to be successful, does pervasive gaming need to change one’s experience of the city? I know that this is a question we’ve been continually asking throughout the semester- how, or how not, did something change one’s experience of the city? But I think that this question may sometimes simplify an artist’s project too much. In the case of Murmur, there is definitely an attempt to consciously influence one’s walk through the city and have an effect on the walker. In “Beyond Locative Media” by Marc Tuturs and Kazys Varnellis, locative media is talked about in terms of taking the traditional gallery space, placing it in the city, and claiming the unchartered territory of locative media. In regards to the .walk project by Social Fiction, Tuturs and Varnellis say “The success of this simple project is representative of a larger event taking place in the media art world, in which, having left behind net art, locative media escaped the bounds of the screen to enter the city at large.” A couple weeks ago in class we took sides- Bob and I on one side arguing for locative media in the city being capable of success by simply making a statement or some type of research. On the other side was Chris and Francesco (sometimes wavering) desiring for locative media to have a measurable outcome. But if the point is to move beyond the screen and the gallery space and into the city, then why should locative media art be limited by such confines? A painting in a gallery space does not actively do anything or create an outcome or change our way of living in a significant manner. But the painting may have a significant effect on the viewer based on the content, intensity of the brushstrokes, or ability to draw the viewer into the space of the canvas. It provokes the viewer to think critically about something, or at least notice it. So maybe the job of pervasive gaming and other locative media artworks is to provoke the person in the experience to think critically or differently about the space they are inhabiting, instead of trying to change the way they inhabit it. I suppose this got away a bit from the original topic of pervasive gaming, but I think my thoughts still apply to gaming as well. Pervasive gaming is supposed to move beyond a typical game and pervade our reality through normal forms of correspondence. Since when is a game supposed to change our lives? Ludologists typically argue against games as narrative and games as being real life simulators (i.e., the are not capable/responsible for provoke kids to go shoot up their schools). Game theory is not about how can games change our lives, but about issues such as immersion, how to make better artificial agents, etc. So, I don’t see why when we start discussing locative media in the city we want to have measurable outcome for how something changes the way we move or think. It reminds me of how conferences typically seem to go today- someone presents their project, and the first question from the audience is “what technology did you use/how did you do it?” so they can gauge how difficult it may or may not be, rather then thinking about the critical issues the piece may raise and what the artist was thinking about. The art gallery space doesn’t ask for these measurements and neither does game theory…so why should locative media in the city?

Another artist that Redl’s work reminds me of is Camille Utterback- www.camilleutterback.com . Her installations invoke the participant to think about their embodiment in the space, interact with each other, and create social relations with other participants bodies. In her installation, Untitled 5, which is part of her External Measures series that she has been working on since 2001, Utterback exposes the line between the corporeal and conceptual, much like Redl. The Untitled 5 project is described as a living painting and kinetic sculpture. The audience has agency in the real time painting process via a video tracking device. When the participant moves in the space, drawing software outputs a changing wall image. The gray lines moving on the screen depict the real body’s presence in the space, and a red line traces the person’s movements. Then, small circular dots that look like painterly blobs are formed across the line. When other people enter the space, they can change the placement of these marks based on their movements. However, like a magnet, marks will try to move back towards their original form and the blobs will smear across the screen as this occurs. Intersections of painterly strokes from the marks’ movements record real time moments of bodily interaction with the screen. If the participant is static, then smaller marks will be created and begin to erase the older strokes on the screen. Through kinesthetic explorations, the participants can begin to uncover the process of how their bodily presence affects the images on screen. Further, Utterback says that the experience of this project is the “experience of embodiment itself.” Utterback also explains that she hopes her piece allows for a positive interaction and experience with computers. In order to achieve this, she emphasizes the space and embodiment. Also, her 1999 interactive installation, Text Rain explores the space between bodies and the screen. Falling virtual letters appear to react and move based on the human’s interaction. The experience is described as “like rain or snow, the text appears to fall on participants heads.” Phrases and words can be caught when the participant builds enough letters that rest on their outstretched arms or legs. The letters that fall are parts of a poem about bodies and language. Like ubiquitous computing, the interface is easy for participants to quickly understand how they interact and change it; therefore the technology does not get in the way of the experience. All that needs to be understood is how to move ones arms and bodies, and to observe how the environment reacts. Participants, often strangers, sometimes try to steal each other’s letters or connect visually through their reflections on the screen, creating a social relationship with each other.

One of the things that I found most helpful and interesting in Redl’s presentation was that he explained his background, reaching all the way back to grammer school and his father’s occupation. When I visited his website before the talk, I felt somewhat disconnected to his work and didn’t understand what was the purpose of these large-scale lighting installations. However, realizing that he went through the frustration of feeling his nose hit the screen and inability to embody the virtual space brings another kind of life to his art. Also, I found the fact that he views his installations as coming alive when bodies interact and move through the space as intriguing as well. He said the visitors make the space a corporeal entity because of their organic body’s involvement with the technology. It makes sense to me that he wants to avoid taking any form, such as a circle, with his installations, because then more symbolism can be invoked. He said that already visitors sometimes claim to feel a spiritual experience by moving through the space, so what would happen to his intended purpose if they also found religious symbolism through a shape? In “The Texas Contemporary Art Journal,” Matthew Bourbon writes about Redl’s “Fade IV” of 2006 and says, “Controlling the modulation of light with a computer program, Redl manufactures a system of perpetual repetition. This constant fluctuation envelopes us in a task of detailed observation, dooming us to an unfulfilled, Sisyphus-like experience. There’s no denouement to this artwork— just ebb and flow, ebb and flow.” This Deleuzian ebb and flow concept seemed very plausible to me when Redl talked about his work, and I feel that it would become even more real to actually be in the space.

Francesco, I think it’s an interesting idea that you bring up in response to the Murmur project. My mythology about Buffalo before I moved here was nearly completely negative, based on the way the city is represented in the media in Ohio. Comments from friends and acquaintances about my move here only served to reinforce the media’s representation Buffalo, so this myth was ingrained in me before I even set foot here. I actually quite like Buffalo and my perception of it has been modified accordingly, but I think that I haven’t entirely shaken my original perceptions either. So the question is then, “what kind of enduring influence (if any) does the “mythology” of a city have on our way of perceiving and navigating through the city ONCE WE KNOW IT?” A lot, I think. Because in the evenings when I step outside to walk somewhere nearby, the warnings from friends about “dangerous Buffalo” clouds what I realistically know about my neighborhood. It changes my psychogeophraphical map of the city, by making rundown areas seem like places that gunmen might be lurking behind the trees. (Aside from being known as snowy, Buffalo has a reputation in Ohio for being a dangerous place where people are regularly shot) I’m curious then, is it possible to make a psychogeophraphical map of Buffalo that overlays my mythical map and my learned map? Or would that even be interesting to anyone, since we all have our own personal experiences that are different?

I used to be able to recite a seven number combination in reference to every important person in my life, locations and businesses frequented, and funny numbers that just stuck with me. Travel back to the archaic ages for a moment- their phone numbers. Now I’m lucky if I remember my own phone number, let alone knowing what is my brother’s cell number. The problem isn’t that I’m not capable of remembering these numbers or that growing older has left me less time to take notice. The problem is that my handy dandy cell phone address book does all the work for me, so my brain doesn’t have to work. Doesn’t anyone else see this as a problem?

In the Timo Kopomaa article “Speaking Mobile: Intensified Everyday Life, Condensed City,” Kopomaa makes a comment that I thought was interesting. “Now that the majority of Fins have a mobile phone they have also made a commitment to it in a way which at least for the present is not possible nor perhaps desirable to retract.” We spoke in class about whether or not we feel guilty if we ignore a phone call or two, or how obligated we feel towards our mobile phone. The degree differed for each of us, but I think everyone would agree that now that we “have a mobile phone,” we “have also made a commitment to it” which is also barely possible to retract.

The representation of bodies in art is ever-changing and can be studied in conjunction with cultural history. Media Study faculty member, Bernadette Wegenstein wrote “Getting Under the Skin, or How Faces Have Become Obsolete.” The article explores the fragmentation of the body in new media and film, and how the body has become “organs instead of bodies,” (OiB) a continuation from Delueze and Guattari’s theory of the “body without organs.” (BwO) Wegenstein sites several examples of how she views the fragmentation of the postmodern body becoming a body without organs, including architecture projects. For example, digital artists Aziz + Cucher created a virtual reality environment, titled Interiors (1999-present), composed of a “skin architecture.” Quoting Wegenstein, she says, “Aziz + Cucher express a desire for getting under the skin insofar as they show us digital “interiors” (paradoxically, there is no exterior to the digital environment, for it is always an “inside,” within a set frame, i.e., the screen) that are actually represented by “external material,” the human skin.” Aziz + Cucher actually turn the skin inside out in order to get underneath it. (also Diller + Scofidio’s withdrawing Room installation in San Francisco explores these issues) Wegenstein states that the face- historically considered in art to be the “window into the soul” had to be decoded and other body parts (organs, limbs, etc.) overcoded, in order to get inside the body and allow every body part the possibility to be the “window into the soul.” The Von Hagen exhibit Bodyworlds, which was in Toronto last year, so some of you may have seen it, is a good example of how internal body parts have come to be inscribed with meaning, and the face is no longer the priori of the body. The reason I’m bringing all of this up, you are probably wondering by now, is because I’m interested in how this modern representation of the body appears in locative media. Or does it? If architects, artists, marketers, and scientists are exploring turning the inside of the body out and recoding body parts, surely locative media is not excluded from this process. Cognitive mapping seems to have the potential of exploring the representation of bodies. Guy Debord’s The Naked City, 1957, is a visual fragmentation of the city. The term “cyborg” comes to mind when I see people walking the city with mobile phones, iPods, Bluetooth headsets, etc. attached to their bodies. The map that we looked at yesterday in class, the where cell phone signals at a Madonna concert where charted can also be read as a representation of bodies in a central place. We form a synthetic flesh, of sorts, with the networking of our mobile connected bodies in the city, which can be mapped. Even the words that Wegenstein uses, “coded,” “decoded,” and “overcoded,” in reference to body parts, brings to mind computer coding and cyborg bodies. I’m posting below the website for Aziz + Cucher’s Interiors project and am curious to see what you all think about this concept.

Did anyone notice during the scene where John (Tom Cruise) visits the containment center to find out about Ann Lively, that it is a Panopticon model? The building appears to be round, which is evident from the hallways that surround it where John enters. The warden’s center is in the middle, located at a high level. When he pulls up all the bodies in containment, they all are visible and circle around the warden’s station, exactly like Bentham’s Panopticon prison described by Foucault. The inmates in containment are both visible and unverifiable. Of course, it could be argued that the entirety of Minority Report is a Panopticon model society. Every person is always being watched, coincidentally, by the organ they use to watch others. Even those in power are being watched, as we see when the system turns against their own, John. Foucault says, “Bentham was surprised that panoptic institutions could be so light: there were no more bars, no more chains, no more heavy locks; all that was needed was that the separations should be clear and the openings well arranged.” In the scene where the pre-crime agents invade the dilapidated building and release the spider-like creatures, it becomes evident that everyone is behind these “light bars,” of sorts. There is no escaping being watched; the technology sees your warm body before the human eyes. Privacy is nonexistent; when the pre-crime agents or spiders enter into private space, the residents barely even seem to notice their invasion of privacy anymore. Foucault also states, “Power has its principle not so much in a person as in a certain concerted distribution of bodies, surfaces, lights, gazes; in an arrangement whose internal mechanisms produce the relation in which individuals are caught up.” The bodies of the pre-cogs and agents distribute the power, and the pre-cog reports (and agent’s abilities to stop the crime before it occurs) determine the fate and powerlessness of the individuals within the society.

Since I was sick on Thursday and haven’t rented the Minority Report yet, I thought I would comment further on my project for this week’s blog instead.

There are a few different preconceived thoughts I had about the project before I began my 8 hr observation. I felt that if I was on a city bench, a building lobby, or looking out a coffee shop window, I would see many repetitions of behavior. Most people seem to move through city space in the same way, much like the patterns of behavior that Chris observed in the elevator. This is part of why I chose to observe the grassy area on Bidwell during a time that I knew an event would take place. I wanted to observe not only patterns of behavior, but also how a place gets transformed based on its inhabitants. I also was very concerned with being inconspicuous, because when someone knows they are being observed, their behavior is no longer natural.