Locative Media & The City

Just to add a little more to the discussion on pervasive gaming I have to ask, how important is it to question its relevance? Is the long lasting impact really what would give it value and authenticity? I find its core function in notions of real vs. fiction and power realtions. We live in what Chomsky would call a stage, constantly moving around as actors in our own worlds, but mixing both into a gaming session combines these paradigms which exist in our everyday lives. Questioning the relevance appears purely subjective and would assume that there is a 'correct answer.' 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?

I'm still a little on the fences on whether or not I'm sold on pervasive gaming as art within the locative media field. Using the examples of projects we read about (Pac Manhattan, Can you See me Now?, and Uncle Roy All Around) there seems to be some essential ingredients missing to the mix.

As we spoke about in class, I feel that there can be more done with this type of thinking to add something to our cultural understanding of our environments. Forwardly looking, games could possibly take the role of becoming educational games, or somehow get people to understand something complex using elements of fun and competitiveness. The original Nintendo Entertainment System had a lot of games that were purely fun and had nothing really substantial to add to our lives on a cultural level aside from entertainment. However, games were launched that had academic goals in mind. Back then and to this day a lot of my understanding of simple math comes from educational games that involve statistics, logic, problem solving, and probability. My current video gaming experiences have been teaching me about the value of teamwork, cooperation, communication, and practice. This understanding comes from the next gen consoles having online connectivity and massive online multiplayer experiences in which all players are equipped with a microphone and controller. This enables people to work together in real time. I have found that the teams that talk with one another more are more apt to win matches than those that do not.

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?

Listening to Shawn Micaleff talk about Murmur as, among other things, an attempt to help Toronto “build its own mythology” (I believe I’m quoting him almost verbatim), made me think about urban mythologies, and how they influence our ways of moving through and perceiving cities. That our first encounters with new places are strongly influenced by our expectations is no news: the way in which our experience of a place is affected by what we know about it, and sometimes by the mere sound of its name, has been explored many times in literature and elsewhere (two entire sections of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past are dedicated precisely to the painstaking exploration of this psychological phenomenon: “Towns’ names: the name” at the end of Swann's Way, and “Towns’ names: the town” in Within a Budding Grove). Having said that, my question is: What kind of enduring influence (if any) does the “mythology” of a city have on our way of perceiving and navigating through that city ONCE WE KNOW IT? Can our way of looking at (and moving through) cities that we know be influenced by their mythologies? And if so, how? Are New Yorkers or Parisian influenced by the mythologies that surround their cities? I’m sure the answers to these questions are different in relation to different cities and, more significantly, different people. People are inclined to fantasize about places to different extents and in different ways, and there’s no doubt that these differences have an impact on how they react to those places. This is so clearly true that I even wonder where any useful generalization can be made in relation to this issue, or if the only appropriate answer to any of the questions above is: “It depends”. I need to think more about this.

I consider the murmur project as a participatory art and process art involving the public through the use of cell phones. There was an interactive exchange of experiences as an open art form. The public participation becomes part of the work of art. The Murmur project succeeds in doing this by bringing into the discourse the public space. It succeeds as a Participatory art and a Locative media art by bringing in as a component the public in relation to a psycogeographical discussion of certain areas of Toronto. It involves the public as a participant in the art project (some selective some random) and that participation makes the art process expend over time.

Although the audio in this project might be tampered, I have to say that the one admirable element is the emotional attachment allocated to a specific time and place. Many times we simply walk and experience without reflecting on the history of a location. Here the history is oral, and like most oral history, we are hearing from people who wouldn't normally have a voice in media. If anything, this is the most important opening that locative media offers. Since I have never walked around Toronto, I wish there were more images of a specific block or location. Besides that, I truly respect this project.

Media culture used to be more about “us” than “me.” In the old times (actually not that long ago), we often have to watch a film in a cinema, have to share a big computer with others, and make phone calls through public phones. But nowadays, it’s more about “me.” Personalized media items like PC, “home cinema,” “my space” and I-pod are getting more and more popular. Individualization becomes a trend in media culture. When I read criticism on commercial media, I often got this sense of individuals being passive audiences or consumers in the overpowering commercial media. Then I get a bit cynical, depressed and tend to think: “So what? What can do about it then?” In this entry, I am not reflecting on specific articles we read but try to gather my thoughts on the layers of individualization. What does “me”(individuality) really mean in Media of every life?

Although the murmur project was interesting there is something missing for me. After discussing "top down" and many-to-many structures of providing content, I feel as though the murmur project was too scripted for my liking. I do support the project but I believe there is more work or thinking to do.

My first gripe is that most of the audio is heavily edited. To me, there is a certain character link between the person and to the way a story is told. Um's and Ah's don't bother me, and they could possibly add something to the experience if they remain intact to the snippets. My reasoning for this is that I don't care much for tampered evidence. Oprah Winfrey and Ms. Spears always look so good on the cover of magazines because they have passed through the ol' Photoshop routine. Imagine if the pictures of the buildings in the Murmur project were all photoshopped to look perfect. EX - broken windows fixed, weeds removed, minor/major blemishes touched up...I would argue that it detracts some of the value of the project at hand. The audio clips are rearranged to make the story sound "better" - Im not really sure how good I feel about this.

kudos to the murmer project.
It was a compliment to the location-based/place dynamics we've been discussing in class lately.
I was a little surprised at how 'natural' the idea of using cell phones to hear murmers from strangers at certain locations. Perhaps its because it reminds me of other media projects that encourance participation of ordinary people. Habermas, for instance, has been involved in the debate over the democratization of access to information/participation.

I can also see the resemblance oral history project sponsored by the US through the WPA of the 1930's. I agree with Diedie in that I would like to hear more from the participant but I recognize that each technology (and busy people) have limitations. Maybe keeping you wanting more is a good thing!

It was interesting to hear more about Toronto Murmur project the past Thursday. I like the idea of using audio device to document people’s personal experiences about specific locations in Toronto, in which individual voices contribute to defining the identity of the city Toronto. The project is also unique in its way of distributing the audio stories through cell phones, so that people can listen to them while they are walking on the streets.
I notice how important “walking experience” is in the audio stories of this project. I have not listened to all the stories, but all the stories I have heard happened when people walked on the streets or when they were going somewhere on foot. One basic element that has made this project happen in Toronto is that people can easily walk to different locations. Toronto being a “walkable” city provides chances for people to stop by somewhere to experience local events as well as enable people from the project to have access to do interviews with individuals on the streets. One of the project creators Shawn Micallef also mentioned how car-based city experience in San Jose effect his process of doing this project in this city. In San Jose, he often needed to spend some time driving to specific locations to do his projects. Being in car to experience the city also hurries people’s gaze at the locations and limits individual engagement with the physical space of a city like San Jose.