Mobility and locative media: mobile communication in hybrid spaces

Mobility and Locative Media

Mobilities has become an important framework to understand and analyze con￾temporary social, spatial, economic, and political practices. Especially as mobile

media become seamlessly integrated into transportation networks, navigating

urban spaces, and connecting with social networks while on the move, research￾ers need new approaches and methods to bring together mobilities with mobile

communication and locative media. Mobile communication scholars have

focused on cell phones, often ignoring broader connections to urban spaces, geo￾graphy, and locational media. As a result, they emphasized virtual mobility and

personalized communication as a way of disconnecting from place, location, and

publics.

The growing pervasiveness of location- aware technology urges us to rethink

the intersection among location, mobile technologies, and mobility. Few studies

have addressed the many transformations taking place in mobile sociality and in

urban spatial processes through the appropriation of these technologies. This

edited collection will address this gap by exploring the intersection of mobility,

mobile communication, and locative media, as well as the implications of this

for adjacent fields such as mobile art, mobile gaming, architecture, design, and

urban planning.

Adriana de Souza e Silva is Associate Professor at the Department of Commu￾nication at North Carolina State University (NCSU), and Director of the Com￾munication, Rhetoric and Digital Media (CRDM) program at NCSU.

Mimi Sheller is Professor of Sociology and directs the Center for Mobilities

Research & Policy at Drexel University.

Changing mobilities

Series Editors: Monika Büscher, Peter Adey

This series explores the transformations of society, politics, and everyday experi￾ences wrought by changing mobilities, and the power of mobilities research to

inform constructive responses to these transformations. As a new mobile century

is taking shape, international scholars explore motivations, experiences, insecur￾ities, implications, and limitations of mobile living, and opportunities and chal￾lenges for design in the broadest sense, from policy to urban planning, new

media and technology design. With world citizens expected to travel 105 billion

kilometres per year in 2050, it is critical to make mobilities research and design

inform each other.

Elite Mobilities

Edited by Thomas Birtchnell and Javier Caletrío

Family Mobility

Reconciling career opportunities and educational strategy

Edited by Catherine Doherty, Wendy Patton and Paul Shield

Mobility and Locative Media

Mobile communication in hybrid spaces

Adriana de Souza e Silva and Mimi Sheller

Forthcoming:

Changing Mobilities

Monika Büscher

Cargomobilities

Moving materials in a global age

Edited by Thomas Birtchnell, Satya Savitzky and John Urry

Italian Mobilities

Edited by Ruth Ben- Ghiat and Stephanie Malia Hom

Mobility and Locative Media

Mobile communication in hybrid

spaces

Adriana de Souza e Silva and

Mimi Sheller

Routledge

Taylor & Francis Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2015

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2015 Adriana de Souza e Silva and Mimi Sheller

The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the

editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,

has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or

reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,

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including photocopying and recording, or in any information

storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from

the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks

or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and

explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing- in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British

Library

Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data

Mobility and locative media : mobile communication in hybrid

spaces / edited by Adriana de Souza e Silva, Mimi Sheller. –

1 Edition.

pages cm – (Changing mobilities)

1. Communication–Social aspects. 2. Mass media–Social

aspects. I. Silva, Adriana de Souza e, editor of compilation.

II. Sheller, Mimi, editor of compilation.

HM1206.M6266 2014

302.230973–dc23 2014004116

ISBN: 978-1-138-77813-9 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-77222-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

To Matteo (Adriana)

To Eve, Ally and Dan (Mimi)

Thispageintentionallyleftblank

Contents

List of figures x

List of tables xii

Notes on contributors xiii

Acknowledgments xix

Introduction: moving toward adjacent possibles 1

ADRIANA DE SOUZA E SILVA AND MIMI SHELLER

PART I

Rethinking cohesion, coordination, and navigation 17

1 Mobile phones and digital Gemeinschaft: social cohesion

in the era of cars, clocks and cell phones 19

RICH LING

2 Walking in the hybrid city: from micro- coordination to

chance orchestration 33

ROBIN VAN DEN AKKER

3 Direct video observation of the uses of smartphones on

the move: reconceptualizing mobile multi- activity 48

CHRISTIAN LICOPPE AND JULIEN FIGEAC

4 Rerouting borders: politics of mobility and the

Transborder Immigrant Tool 65

FERNANDA DUARTE

viii Contents

PART II

Performing location, place- making, and mobile

gaming 83

5 Online place attachment: exploring technological ties to

physical places 85

RAZ SCHWARTZ

6 Location as a sense of place: everyday life, mobile, and

spatial practices in urban spaces 101

DIDEM ÖZKUL

7 Performing city transit 117

T A I E N N G - C H A N

8 Location- based gaming apps and the commercialization of

locative media 132

DALE LEORKE

9 Houses in motion: an overview of gamification in the

context of mobile interfaces 149

NATHAN HULSEY

PART III

Mobile cities: mapping, architecture, and planning 165

10 Exploring locative media for cultural mapping 167

P E T E R H E M M E R S A M , J O N N Y A S P E N , A N D R E W M O R R I S O N ,

IDUNN SEM, AND MARTIN HAVNØR

11 Designing for mobile activities: WiFi hotspots, users, and

the relational programming of place 188

MICHAEL R. DOYLE

12 The power of place and perspective: sensory media and

situated simulations in urban design 207

GUNNAR LIESTØL AND ANDREW MORRISON

Contents ix

13 The will to connection: a research agenda for the

“programmable city” and an ICT “toolbox” for urban

planning 224

OLE B. JENSEN

Epilogue 239

14 Restless: locative media as generative displacement 241

TERI RUEB

Index 259

Figures

3.1 A simple portable set- up to record the audio- video flux on

Android- based smartphones 52

3.2 and 3.3 In all images the screen capture appears on the left, and

the camera glasses recording on the right (both have been

synchronized). In both images the user is sitting and using the

smartphone in his lap, which is partly (3.2) or not at all (3.3)

visible 53

3.4 Arriving at a red light behind the stopping traffic 55

3.5 Taking such an occurrence as an opportunity to gaze down,

put the phone on the steering wheel and launch the Facebook

application 55

3.6 A typical visual display for the circular progress bar 55

3.7 Sending a message and getting the circular progress bar 56

3.8 The right hand goes to the right to engage a gear 56

3.9 The gaze moves up to look at the road and “discover” that the

light is still red 57

3.10 She immediately gazes down at the smartphone 57

3.11 The driver is scanning down her list of Facebook posts. The

sudden motion of surrounding cars is detectable in data

through the side window though not visible in the picture 59

3.12 She eventually looks up, and a large opening is now visible

before her car, materializing the delayed character of her

response 59

3.13 The black car on the right “jumps” into the gap, before she

eventually starts to move her car forward again 60

4.1 The Transborder Immigrant Tool interface at work 70

5.1 Check- in screens 87

5.2 Mayorship change message 93

10.1 Mapping results were displayed real- time in a local shop

window 177

10.2 The map changed interactively as mapping was conducted 178

10.3 Example of sample point notation by students 179

Figures xi

10.4 Use of the app led students to see the city in a new way 182

11.1 Distribution of ZAP Québec WiFi hotspots on the Québec

City metropolitan area by type 196

11.2 Distribution of the most frequented ZAP hotspots 197

11.3 Top 25 percent most frequented hotspots and public transport 198

11.4 Pub Galway offers pub- goers a view of the activity on

Avenue Cartier 199

11.5 Graphic representation of the WiFi user (A) with views of

indoor (B) or outdoor (C) activities 200

12.1 The Roman Forum sitsim showing a now- and-then snapshot

of the Via Sacra looking toward the Temple of Caesar 210

12.2 Example of perspective combining high altitude bird’s-eye

overview and distance 214

12.3 Example of perspective combining street level, close up and

detail. Perspectives combining large frame, wide angle, and

distance are absent from the presentations 214

12.4 The double perspective as viewed from the starting point at a

distance of about 75 meters and facing the old building of the

museum 216

12.5 Moving toward the left (northern) side of the old building

more details of the planned museum appear 217

12.6 Old and new. The stone wall of the new building points in the

direction of the main entrance in the atrium behind the old

building 217

12.7 Using the fly- in function the user can tilt and pan the device

to look around in the simulated Munch room 218

14.1 Teri Rueb, Drift, 2004, Walker on the tidal flats 249

14.2 Teri Rueb, Core Sample, 2007, Visitors in the gallery and

walkers on the island 250

14.3 Teri Rueb, Elsewhere: Anderswo, 2009, Walker in the

botanical garden 252

14.4 Teri Rueb and Larry Phan with contributions from Carmelita

Topaha (Diné), No Places With Names, 2012, Walker holding

sculpture 253

Tables

11.1 Characteristics of the three WiFi user groups 193

11.2 ZAP Québec WiFi hotspots by type and status of inclusion in

study as of September 2010 196

11.3 Hotspots visited as part of the spatial analysis 198

Contributors

Jonny Aspen is Associate Professor at the Institute of Urbanism and Landscape,

Oslo School of Architecture and Design. His research focuses on urban plan￾ning history, city cultures, urban theory, contemporary urban development,

and digital media and cities. He has edited a book on urban studies in Norway

concerning contemporary issues of gentrification and immigration, and a Nor￾wegian anthology on international urban theory. His PhD was on issues of

city planning and urban representation. He is a senior researcher in a project

on social media, design and the city, YOUrban, at the Oslo School of Archi￾tecture and Design. He is currently, with John Pløger, writing a book on vital￾ism and urbanism.

Adriana de Souza e Silva is Associate Professor of Communication at North

Carolina State University (NCSU), affiliated faculty at the Digital Games

Research Center, and Director of the Communication, Rhetoric and Digital

Media (CRDM) program at NCSU. Her research focuses on how mobile

and locative interfaces shape people’s interactions with public spaces and

create new forms of sociability. She teaches classes on mobile technologies,

location- based games, and internet studies. She is the co- editor (with Daniel

M. Sutko) of Digital Cityscapes—Merging Digital and Urban Playspaces

(Peter Lang, 2009), the co- author (with Eric Gordon) of Net Locality: Why

Location Matters in a Networked World (Blackwell, 2011), and the co- author

(with Jordan Frith) of Mobile Interfaces in Public Spaces: Control, Privacy,

and Urban Sociability (Routledge, 2012). She holds a PhD in Communica￾tion and Culture from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Michael R. Doyle holds a Master in Architecture and a Master of Science from

Laval University (Québec, Canada) and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture

from the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. He has worked for architecture

firms in Chicago (US), Cleveland (US), and Paris (France). Before begin￾ning his doctoral research at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

(EPFL) in Switzerland in 2012, he worked for the Interdisciplinary Research

Group on the Suburbs (GIRBa) at the Laval University School of Architecture

where he helped to develop a metropolitan- level internet survey investigating

xiv Contributors

housing, mobility, and ICT use. His Master’s research project addressed WiFi

use and the spatial configurations of WiFi hotspots in Québec City. As a PhD

researcher for the Deep City project at the EPFL, he is now working on urban

underground spaces.

Fernanda Duarte is a PhD candidate at the Communication, Rhetoric, and Dig￾ital Media (CRDM) program at North Carolina State University (NCSU) with

funding from the Ministry of Education in Brazil and the Fulbright Program

at the US Department of State. Her research interests are mobilities, media

technologies, politics, and digital poetics. Her current research focuses on

applications of pervasive computing and the rising issues of intimacy and pri￾vacy in biopolitics and activism/art.

Julien Figeac is a CNRS researcher at the Information Processing and Com￾munication Laboratory, Telecom ParisTech, France. His research and pub￾lications focus on the uses of smartphones in situations of mobility. He

contributes to the development of a sociological method based on video

recordings, video- ethnography, to analyze how information and communica￾tion technologies (ICTs) are changing the organization of social interactions

and urban mobility. He has developed this method in different case studies:

the uses of mobile TV in public transportation in Paris, the modalities of par￾ticipation in mobile social networking, and the forms of sociability generated

by geosocial networking and location- based games.

Martin Havnør holds a degree in computer science from the University of Oslo

and is currently working as CTO at Faster Imaging AS. With a background

from the Scandinavian demo- scene, he has a passion for software develop￾ment with tight requirements such as memory footprint and available process￾ing power. Through his position at Faster Imaging he has also gained a keen

interest in maps and everything GIS- related, and held talks on related subjects

at events such as AppWorks and State Of The Map. An interest in digital art

has also led to the participation in installations and projects related to interac￾tivity, mobility, and performativity.

Peter Hemmersam is Associate Professor at the Institute of Urbanism and

Landscape at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. His PhD focused

on urban design, public urban space, and retail, using a variety of architectural

mapping methods. Recently, his research has focused on sustainable urban

design, ecological urbanism, and eco- cities in a Scandinavian perspective. In

addition he researches changing circumpolar landscapes, employing architec￾tural methods of perceptual mapping of material landscapes. He has previ￾ously been a practicing architect with a focus on urban design, and worked as

an educator and researcher at the Aarhus School of Architecture in Denmark.

He has worked on several projects for CHORA and Raoul Bunschoten using

experimental mapping methods. From 2003 to 2007 he was the Head of the

Institute of Urbanism AHO.